REWIEW OF: RAIMAN AL-HAMDANI AND HELEN LACKNER. WAR AND PIECES: POLITICAL DIVIDES IN SOUTHERN YEMEN (JANUARY 2020)
Authors:   Institute of oriental studies, Russian academy of science (MOSCOW), Serebrov S. N. 
Published: November 2020

A 30-page article written by Raiman al-Hamdani and Helen Lackner titled “War and Pieces: Political Divides in Southern Yemen” appeared among publications of the influential think-tank — European Council on Foreign Relations in January, 2020. It is certainly a noticeable pivlication in the research studies of the five-year old war in Yemen. R. al-Hamdani is a researcher and consultant focusing on issues of security and development in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Helen Lackner is an expert of the European Council for Foreign Relations and research associate at SOAS University of London. She is the editor of the Journal of the British-Yemeni Society and a regular contributor to Open Democracy, Arab Digest, and Oxford Analytica. Her most recent book is ‘Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State’ (published by Saqi Books in 2017; by Verso in 2019; and in Arabic in 2020). The reviewed article reveal the hidden sides of the conflict by offering different angle of approach — the southern part of Yemen completely lacking the “houthi factor”, which used to monopolize the bulk of attention in writings on this topic since the war began in March, 2015. The military clashes within Arab coalition between its Saudi and Emirati wings in the South in August, 2019 brought to surface the deep antagonism among coalition’s Yemeni ‘friends’, represented by the Internationally Recognized Government of President A. M. Hadi (IRG) from the one side, and Southern Transitional Council (STC) supported by UAE, from the other. The resulted withdrawal of IRG structures from the temporary capital Aden turned the regime to the merely “exile government” located in Riyadh. The blow put the whole concept of KSA-led military intervention in Yemen in a rather fragile position. It’s dedication to the myth of civil war between IRG and houthi rebels representing the shi`a minority of the country was seriously compromised. The profound knowledge of the real country’s complicity and authors’ great professional experience helped them to reach the very roots of southern separatism and factualism, the core of “southern question” which they actually see as the real focal point of the crises and conflict in Yemen. The same phenomena laid the foundation for the further geopolitical moves of KSA and UAE towards South disintegration. Recent Saudi attempt to cure the devastating result of the August rivalry between IRG and STC by signing the Riyadh agreement on November 5th, 2019 is considered by the authors as nearly void. Therefore the article calls EU states and international community to change policies and enforce proactive role in both narrowing warfare and launching the carefully designed state and nation building programs aiming to keep Yemen united. The review attempts to evaluate the main arguments of this important article in a critical way while sharing the overall direction and goals to reach soonest solution to that largest manmade hotbed of humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.