Posts
Elena White
Jun 12, 2012
A Yemeni-based rights group, Aseer
announced on Wednesday it would seek to “recover Yemen’ stolen lands,
reigniting with Saudi Arabia an old border feud.
Back in 2011 when Yemen uprising
had the entire Arabian Peninsula glued to its seats, political analysts warned
that Yemenis would bring the matter back to the forefront of the news.
Debka analysts told the Yemen
Observer that Yemen - Saudi border issues had never been properly solved,
leaving room for litigation. “Although former President Ali Abdullah Saleh
signed an agreement with King Abdullah, it does not mean that Yemenis
agreed….now that the old regime is gone, I would assume such a controversial
treaty will find strong popular opposition.”
In its claim against Saudi Arabia,
Aseer identified the districts of Najran, Jizan and Aseer – currently in
southwest Saudi Arabia close to the Yemeni border – as occupied lands,
prompting strong reactions in Riyadh with politicians already warning Saudi
help should be delivered pending recognition of all pre-Saleh treaties.
The main legal base of the group’s
claim is that former President Ali Abdullah saleh allegedly conceded the lands
against a hefty sum of money - $18 billion – which were then distributed
amongst officials at the signature of the Taif Treaty in 2000. “Regaining
Yemeni lands is a first step towards regaining sovereignty and independence
from Saudi hegemony,” the group said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
Aseer’s spokesperson, Abdulrahman
al-Ashoul, considered the regaining of the lands a national issue that concerns
all Yemeni people, adding that this “political fight should not be exploited in
any political struggle between political parties.”
Beyond the territorial recovery,
Aseer seeks to end Saudi Arabia’s hold over Yemen, rejecting the Kingdom’s
influence over its state and tribal institutions. Political analysts Ahmed
al-Sofy explained that such a reaction against the Kingdom was actually rather
natural since the revolutionary movement born in 2011 in Yemen sought to reject
all forms of authority to replace it anew. “Now that the regime is gone Yemenis
will focus their anger on the authoritarian figure, Saudi Arabia and its
Princes.”
He added “This is exactly why the
Kingdom opposed Yemen’s uprising in the first place, it knew that freedom calls
for more freedom.” According to local media the group is scheduled to meet with
a number of legal consultants to discuss the possibility of filing a case
against the Saudi occupation and recognizing Yemen’s right to the disputed
regions. These discussions will be held
“with specialists in international law, geography, legal consultants and
historians in Sanaa and Beirut to prepare a complete project and work
plan.” The Treaty of Taif –sources
al-Bab.com - The Treaty divides the Yemeni-Saudi border into three parts.
The first part is the area
originally covered by the 1934 Treaty of Ta’if. This runs from the Red Sea
coast to Jabal al-Thar, the “moving mountain” whose identity had been hotly
disputed.
It is now fixed in position with a
grid reference. The main problem here has been relating the line described in
the Ta’if treaty to actual points on the ground. Both sides have now agreed to
employ a specialist company to survey the line and erect marker columns. There
is also a continuing problem in relating ancient tribal boundaries and grazing
rights to the Ta’if line. The Wa’ila tribe, for instance, reject the official
border on the grounds that they have a 241-year-old document demarcating their
own tribal boundary with the Yam tribe.
The new agreement provides for
amendments to the Ta’if line where the border cuts through villages, and allows
cross-border grazing (with special permits) for shepherds. One concern is that
this area is also a traditional smuggling route, and Appendix 4 of the
agreement seeks to prevent well-armed “shepherds” driving across the frontier
in convoys of trucks stuffed full of consumer goods. The second part of the
land border - the longest section - runs from Jabal al-Thar to the frontier
with Oman but its precise legal status under the treaty is puzzling. The treaty
says it has not yet been defined but “the two contracting parties have agreed
to demarcate this part in an amicable way”.
The treaty does, however, define
the starting and finishing points, and refers to Appendix 2, which is described
as “tables defining distances of the border line”. The tables are not, in fact,
“distances” but a set of 17 co-ordinates: Joining up these co-ordinates would
produce a border very similar to the “Como Line” which was provisionally agreed
in 1997 when President Ali Abdullah Salih met Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz in
Italy (see article in Middle East International). What seems to have happened is that the two
sides have agreed on a number of fixed points but not the line between them.
This may be an attempt to avoid
the problems that can arise when borders are drawn in straight lines on a map
without reference to the local geography.
Once the independent survey team
have done their work it will be easier to see whether any adjustments should be
made in the spaces between the fixed points.
It is worth noting that the
provisional border in this area is well to the north of borders claimed by the
Saudis between the 1930s and 1950s. Part of it appears to follow the Riyadh
Line (offered by the British to Ibn Saud in 1935) but it dips south in the
middle to avoid the Saudi city of al-Wadi’a.
The third part of the border is the maritime frontier.
The repeated and very precise
references to its starting point on the coast - the quay of Ra’s al-Ma’uj
Shami, Radif Qarad outlet (latitude 16, 24, 14, 8 north, and longitude 42, 46,
19, 7 east) - are obviously intended to leave no room for doubt … a sign that
this has previously been contested. Yemen had earlier pointed out that the
Ta’if line turned north-west before reaching the sea and regarded it as an
indication that the maritime border should continue in the same direction. The
Saudis appear to have won that argument, because the newly-agreed maritime line
starts by heading due west.
