The UAE has established a "small empire" on the southern Yemeni coast while ignoring the Yemeni government after securing the loyalty of the tribes, while Muhammad Saleh bin Adi, the governor of Shabwa rich in oil and gas, is waging a personal war against it, saying that it is acting as a colonial power in his country.
With this summary, the French newspaper Le Monde gathered some of the parties to the long report written by Louis Imper, starting from the story of this governor, who says that he makes his interlocutor wonder if he wants to die, as he says that he stopped counting the number of times the Emiratis tried to assassinate him.
"In the summer of 2019 they sent me snipers, then drones, and last week (early November) they planted a bomb next to my house," said Bin Adiou, who only leaves his palace under heavy guard. , Carried out a campaign of assassinations targeting personalities from his Islah party.
Mixed interests
In the miserable tribal district of Shabwa tribal, rich in oil and gas, bin Adiou - as the journalist says - was involved in a huge battle in which the interests of the Saudi-Emirati coalition, stalled since 2015, have clashed in their military intervention against the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, and the interests of multinational energy companies, represented by Total The French, which has been operating since 2009 a LNG terminal on the coast in Balhaf, and finally the interests of the Yemeni state, which depends on Total gas to emit from its ashes after 5 years of devastating civil war.
In this context, Bin Adio says, "The UAE sent me an envoy in October and offered me all the money and assistance I want for my region, on the condition that I stop talking about Total," but this word is the only one on his mind - as the writer comments - where This ruler dreams of expelling the Emirati army from the base he established in the factory in 2017.
The writer stated that this gas site provided up to 45% of Yemeni tax revenues before the war, but since 2015 it has stopped operating, and Bin Adiou insists on reopening it for private gas exports, and believes that leaving the UAE to its base is the only key to resuming exports.
The Total plant in Balhaf - a pyramid of aluminum and steel that cost $ 4.8 billion to install - is located under an elevation of black volcanic rocks that is hidden from the sight of fishermen in the nearby small port of Bir Ali, which is the entry point for gas produced in the Marib field (north) by the Yemeni National Company SAFER. It was built and run by Total, as the French own 39.6% of the shares in it for twenty years.
The Emirati army is stationed at the main entrance to Balhaf, which it captured in mid-2017, and has fortified it and placed Yemeni tribal militiamen and mercenaries on the guard towers, and the Yemeni army also erected barriers on the coastal road.
And between the two non-reconciled Emirati and Yemeni forces, peace remains hanging by a thread, and the writer pointed out that the conflicts taking place today around the fence have no motive other than this factory, explaining that the Yemeni government is convinced that it is sufficient for it to control al-Qaeda, to put its hand on Total's treasure. Because when the factory starts exporting again, "you (the French in Total) will pay whoever holds the land, whether they are the Houthi rebels, the Islamic State, or the government," according to Bin Adiou.
Muhammad Saleh bin Adiou, Governor of Shabwa seeks to leave the Emirati empire on the southern Yemeni coast of his country (Al-Jazeera)
Back to colonial times
One million residents of Shabwa governorate live under the protection of the "Shabwani Elite Forces", a militia of about 7,000 men from local tribes equipped and funded since 2016 by the Emirates.
The UAE established a small empire on the coast and expelled al-Qaeda fighters, ignoring the Yemeni government and considering it to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Local and country. "
The writer notes that when the UAE landed in Aden in 2015 to expel the Houthi rebels, it relied on old rivals for the Shabwa tribes, who are among the fierce fighters who control the Grand Port and lead the southern independence movement.
The writer said that the royal family in Abu Dhabi claims that it has distant Yemeni assets, and is blindly clinging to this country that does not share borders with it, as it sought sources of influence, established militias and marginalized powerful men, and bet on those who were not mentioned anything before the war, Like the Salafist Hani Bin Buraik, who made him the main conduit for arms delivery, and the hated strong businessman in the south, Ahmed Al-Eisei.
Far from winning hearts and minds, resentment against the UAE has accumulated, but in the summer of 2019, after getting tired of this costly intervention, it tried to stage a final coup, as they allowed its pro-independence allies to expel the last government forces from Aden and take full control of the port, where nothing remains for it. Occupying oil and gas fields in the east to fulfill her dream of declaring independence.
In this context, the pro-Emirati militiamen from the elite forces of Shabwa gathered around the provincial capital Atac, and entered the city, which until then was a neutral area, surrounded 300 army soldiers and wanted to impose a humiliating surrender on them, but the soldiers did not surrender.
Total took over the construction and management of the factory, and the French owned 39.6% of the shares in it for 20 years (Al-Jazeera)
Armed peace
Since then, an armed peace has prevailed in the governorate, as the Riyadh agreement in November 2019 resulted in a ceasefire between the separatists and the government, and the separatist leader Aidaroos al-Zubaidi stopped declaring that “it is his duty to liberate the oil fields” in Shabwa, without this wealth evaporating His dream of independence.
After that, the main leaders of the "elites" and the Southern Transitional Council fled from the Shabwa region, although the UAE’s influence continues, as it installed itself as a guardian of the oil traffic in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, with a role in peace negotiations in Yemen, two bases in Shabwa and another at Mukalla airport.
Prisons inside the Total site
Despite all this, the old governors of the province have not lost all their influence. The Emirates Center for Counter Terrorism in Balhaf continues to raise fear, as an official in the Saudi-Emirati coalition admitted in November 2019 in an interview with Le Monde newspaper, that this base includes a "temporary detention cell." The suspects pass through it before being sent to the UAE base in Mukalla.
Belhaf was - as the writer says - one of the features of the Emirati prison network that has remained secret and out of reach of the Yemeni government, and the presence of these prisons within the boundaries of the industrial site caused great embarrassment to Total, which does not deny or confirm it.