Southern Yemen Former President: “We demand a referendum”
By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem This month, South Yemen witnessed deadly clashes between Yemeni troops and secessionist militants. On Friday January 17, the southern militants ambushed a military vehicle, killing two soldiers and wounding four others in the town of Daleh, 280 kilometers south of the capital. The Southern Movement that calls for secession of South Yemen has accused the army of bombing residential areas and a hospital. These developments indicate a new phase of the Southern Movement for independence, turning from a civil protest and strike to a military resistance against “Northern occupation.” Ali Salim al-Beidh, who was the president of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) and the secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party that ruled from 1986 to 1990, signed a unity agreement with the Yemen Arab Republic’s (North Yemen) President Ali Abdullah Saleh, establishing the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990. The Atlantic Post Middle East Analyst me