Inside Arabia: UAE adopts a benevolent smokescreen to conceal its true expansionist objectives in Socotra
After the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) seized control of the island of Socotra last June, various claims have emerged over Abu Dhabi’s vision for the island, Inside Ariba Magazine reported on Friday.
According to the Magazine, the UAE seeks to consolidate its control for its geopolitical aims, its policies are causing clear divisions on the island
With Abu Dhabi’s lack of transparency over its policies in Socotra, its true objectives may appear difficult to decipher. Emirati media organizations have mostly presented its actions as solely “humanitarian.” However, like elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, the UAE has adopted a benevolent smokescreen to conceal its true expansionist objectives.
The separatist STC calls for an independent southern Yemen away from the auspices of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government, per pre-1990 unification lines when Yemen was divided into the north and south. And the UAE has entirely propped up and empowered the STC across southern Yemen.
This aids its objectives of controlling south Yemen’s ports, establishing a wider sphere of influence across the Horn of Africa, and bolstering its global maritime trade through the Indian Ocean and Bab el Mandeb. Control of the island would enable Abu Dhabi to build a military base and protect its port infrastructure in southern Yemen and the Horn of Africa, even though this would also erode the island’s natural beauty
On September 7, lawmakers of Yemen’s al Islah Party (or the Yemeni Congregation for Reform) and other independent lawmakers warned Hadi’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed that the UAE was building two military camps in Socotra, and that it already established a military base there. The lawmakers also alleged that Emirati military officials had traveled to Socotra and built eight transmitter towers.
“The UAE troops are now controlling Socotra’s seaport, airport, and the sea amid reports UAE companies are fishing without permission from the government, or rather stealing Yemeni fish,” Rajeh told Inside Arabia.
The STC in early November reportedly established an office on the island where northern Yemenis coming from outside the island must register as “foreigners.”
A source cited by the Anadolu News Agency in the Middle East Monitor said that “the office records the data of Yemenis who come from outside Socotra, grant them work permits on the island, and treat them as foreigners despite their Yemeni nationality.”
E.M
Source:Inside Arabia