In an interview with The Reference, Yemeni activist Ghaeb Hawass says Houthis hate Egypt because it liberated the country from illusion of Imamate
Saturday 09/February/2019 - 01:02 PM
Islam Muhammad
The Yemeni fighter, Ghaeb Hawass, revealed his story with the Shiite militias
of Houthis, and highlighted the crimes of the terrorist militias, backed by
Iran, against the Yemeni people, and how they controlled the northern regions
with the support of the mullahs and their hatred of Egypt and the Arab
countries. His interview with the Reference revealed the nature of the Houthi
racist preaching, their ascetic outlook, their sense of racial superiority, and
their attempts to restore imams to Yemen once again.
What is your story with the Houthi militias?
I belong to the tribes of Rahmania from Khawlan bin Amer tribes in the Directorate of Ghamr on the borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and our region is far from the control of the state in the provinces and far from the center of the Directorate, and our clashes with the Houthis go back to 2011 before the state withdrew from the countryside in Saada.
My story is like the story of all Yemenis when our villages were invaded by the Houthi militias in 2007, and we had to resist them in defense of our region and our homes, and then began the systematic assassinations of some citizens and tribal dignitaries. And then when they assassinated the first person in our administration, people asked them: “Why did you kill this person although the did not have any opposing stance against you?” They replied that he will be against them in the future, and this is called pre-emptive assassination, which was not done by any terrorist group before them.
How did the confrontations between you and the Huthis begin?
Tribal areas have a power and when the role of the state is weakened in the protection of society, people start to rely on themselves to provide security. The tribes have weapons but their weapons are controlled by tribal values which is not to be aggressive, not political and not directed from abroad.
We started the resistance in a tribal and family framework because we know that we have become targets. The military confrontations in neighboring villages against innocent people like us and we tried to communicate with the state to stand with them. I had contacts by virtue of my acquaintances and I started communicating with the people in the provincial capital to warn against that group. We have continued with tribal leaders, officials and media people in an attempt to knock the alarm bells.
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What is your personal experience with the Huthi militias?
During the sixth war in December 2009, the heavily armed Houthi militias stormed our village and I was in Sana'a. I did not know that I decided to return, although we had no hope that we would defeat them because of the great armistice. But we did not have to defend our homes and our people, I went back to the village and clashed with them. A number of the dead, including some of my relatives and friends, were killed and some were severely wounded. I was taken to the border where the Saudi border guards took me to hospital for treatment in the southern city of Jizan. We received sympathy from the Saudis, especially in the southern area where we are gathered by tribal links.
What happened to your village?
The militias succeeded in controlling the whole area, as a result of the difference in gear and equipment. We were armed with light weapons in exchange for organized militias armed with artillery and rocket-propelled grenades. The Houthi militias tried to blow up the house and houses that participated in their resistance as they did in the other villages. However, the entire region was subjected to them like other areas of Sa'ada governorate.
Why did not they blow up the houses of your own neighborhood?
Because they were involved in many conflicts, and their habit is that they do not provoke all the tribes against them at the same time. They were satisfied with the exclusion of opponents, the nominal and financial control and the reaping of the royalties from the villages without having military forces stationed in all areas so as not to distract their forces.
And what did you do then?
Since then, I have not been able to return to my area and my family for almost ten years. I went to Sana'a since 2009 and stayed until the Houthis invaded in 2014. They had lists of assassinations and arrests, and I was among those lists. I was able to flee outside Yemen and went to Egypt since then to escape from the militias. The fall of the capital was surprising. We thought that the state would not give in to these militias and prepared ourselves to volunteer to resist them, but the state surrendered and left them in the capital.
Tell us the situation of those areas now in the province of Saada in light of the battles there?
The tribes in Sa'ada are frustrated after they have been defeated and the will has been broken. In the beginning, the people were fighting the militias in the hope that they would get support from the state, but what happened was that the state abandoned them a long time ago and left them alone facing their fate against the militias.
How many escapees like you are there from the oppression of Houthi?
Foreign migration may reach one million but those who managed to get out are millions confined in areas controlled by the Houthi militants, including those who went to Saudi Arabia, some to Somalia and some to Ethiopia.
What about the external support coming from Iran to the militias?
There is support coming in many forms from Iran, and there are young people from Saada province, the stronghold of the Houthis, who go to Iran and southern Lebanon to take courses at the hands of Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard. The Iranians have leased the Dahlak Islands in neighboring Eritrea and used them to support Houthis. Sa'ada governorate went to training camps for militias in Syria.
What is the essence of the conflict in Yemen?
The essence of the conflict in Yemen is that there is a family that entered Yemen under the name of Al al-Bayt, based on the principle that either the Yemenis rule or provoke strife among them since the advent of Imam al-Hadi in the third century AH. This family killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis. Ahmed bin Soliman, Imam al-Hadi and Abdullah bin Hamza are the ones who cemented Imam Ali's rule in Yemen, which the Huthis backed by Iran are trying to bring back to life
