Dear Readers,

This is from the heart. A fellow named Mohammed Mukhashaf has published an article about developments from my family’s ancient homeland. He calls Great Socotra Island “remote.”

That is absurd. It is actually the center of the universe, and it is we who are distant from sanity. Considering the circumstances here, where a significant number of people appear to be re-fighting a war that was won for the central government in these United States a century and. half ago. I recommend a read of his piece, if you get a chance, using his name and ‘Socotra’ as search terms. It is interesting. And for some of us, quite personal.

Reuters news service reports it as a matter of internal Island security. “Southern separatists have seized control of Yemen’s island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea, deposing its governor and driving out forces of the Saudi-backed government which condemned the action as coup…”

I would prefer to be used by Sunnis infatuated with oil and dollars, and this is going to drive some changes. I am looking for opportunities. The West does not need confusion in the passage between the seas.

That is not the way I would put it. Our homeland is the entry point to the most important shipping channel on earth. Our people have hosted units of the former Soviet Navy, and that may account for some of the odder and recent genetic make-up of our citizens. Then we returned to slumber amid the huge shipping channel, ruled by the loonies from the coastal regions of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula to the north.

Traditionally, we have been non-aligned and apart from the affairs across the channel in both directions, and the fighting between the north and south of Yemen was becoming intolerable. Answers to these great matters always come with mixed results- good and bad. This is playing out now as an outfit called the Southern Transitional Council (STC) emerged from our wild and empty lands. The leaders- not my distant family- declared self rule in the south in April, complicating the already confused U.N. efforts to forge a permanent ceasefire in a war that has separatists and the government in an unusual alliance against the Saudi-backed Houthis, who are pissed off about something that is aligned with interests in Riyadh.

Over the weekend, when we normally would be chewing Qat and admiring the shimmering blue of the sea and our amazing foliage, the new coalition seized government facilities and military bases on my ancestral Great Socotra Island.

Based on reporting fed to the news services, the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi declared the activity as a coup d’etat motivated by “gang-style behaviour”.

We had a sometimes uneasy relation with Socotra’s governor Mahroos. He is blaming the Saudis and UAE for their studied avoidance of the new conflict, with which it is clearly and intensely interested. I managed to talk to some family members by shortwave radio and Instagram, who complained that the UAE had previously been an active supporter.

Riyadh is playing an established and ancient strategy, and is trying to negotiate a deal that would undermine the current Iranian efforts in the south. They are sitting pat at the moment without official comment. But there is a strategy in play to end the Yemeni stand off and crush opponents in Aden. They would also prefer not to open another front in the chaotic struggle for Aden.

It makes me sigh. I am getting too old to trudge on the mainland. All I want is for the land sacred to generations of Socotrans. There are dozens who are with me, or at least those who could rise to answer the phone.

The Iranians are mixed up in this, Shia versus Sunni, and intervened five years ago to plant their influence we want peace. They had better get a chill on about affairs on Socotra Island. We might come back.

Riyadh wants to prevent another front developing in Yemen’s bitter and complicated war, which has been locked in military stalemate for years.

There is a bizarre series of alignments. The port of Aden was the lynchpin of the old British transit line to India. There is a good hotel there in which you can still get a good glass of scotch if you know the right people. The Saudis then set up shop in Sanaa after some ignominious treatment of a former brother in law. The Iranians overthrew that establishment five years ago and installed the Houthis in Sanaa five years ago. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system. Let me help with that. They are all corrupt, all of them. Except, of course, for us.

See on-scene reporting by veteran correspondents Aziz El Yaakoubi and Raissa Kasolowsky. The latter’s Slavic roots reflect Russian interest in our homeland. They want open transit for their oil exports. The virus religious and commercial interests had better not get us too stirred up. Like I said, we have the yachts to return if necessary.

Reporting derived from multiple sources. Stay tuned. There are forces in motion to free our island home that may not do what they claim. I want Socotra free, and my extended family wants to keep it that way.

Socotra for Socotrans! Forward!

Copyright Vic Socotra 2020
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