News - Yemen: Southern political activist Mahfoud Nasser described the celebrations by certain groups in the occupied southern provinces marking the 62nd anniversary of the 14 October Revolution as a “painful irony,” given the reality of foreign military dominance over the region. He said the current situation represents “a new occupation more brutal than British colonialism.”

In an interview with Al-Masirah TV, Nasser said it is “both astonishing and shameful” that people commemorate liberation from British colonial rule while the South remains under the control of foreign forces operating through local proxies and misleading slogans. 

He stressed that this reality stands in total contradiction to the spirit of the 1963 revolution that began in the mountains of Radfan and culminated with the departure of the last British soldier on 30 November 1967.

Nasser noted that the violations committed in the southern provinces over the past decade—including acts of rape, arbitrary detention, torture, and looting of public wealth—exceed in brutality what the British occupiers perpetrated during their century-long presence in southern Yemen.

He said the “new occupation” hides behind the rhetoric of legitimacy and reconstruction while exercising full domination over the land and its people.

The southern politician added that the very forces once described in the literature of the National Front and the Yemeni Socialist Party as “Arab reactionaries,” led by Saudi Arabia, have now become the main political sponsors of the situation in the occupied southern provinces—despite having been historical enemies of the October Revolution and anti-colonial movements.

He further lamented that the descendants of once-renowned revolutionaries have today become part of the system of dependency and subservience, blaming the loss of revolutionary awareness and the marginalization of national struggle icons for diverting the southern cause from its original path of liberation and independence.

Recalling the historical significance of the 14 October Revolution, Nasser said it once embodied Arab pride and victory—achieved just months after the June 1967 defeat that shook the Arab world. In contrast, he said, the South now endures a state of fragmentation and subordination.

He concluded by affirming that the Revolution of 14 October remains a living idea and a renewing spirit in the hearts of free Yemenis, regardless of attempts by occupation and tutelage powers to erase it. “The revolution,” he emphasized, “is not a past event but a continuing project to resist all forms of domination, both old and new.”

The 14 October Revolution, launched in 1963 from the Radfan Mountains in southern Yemen, marked the beginning of the armed struggle against British colonial rule, culminating in the independence of South Yemen on 30 November 1967. The revolution is celebrated annually as a symbol of national liberation and anti-colonial resistance.

In recent years, however, the southern provinces have witnessed growing discontent over the presence of foreign military forces, including Saudi and Emirati troops, as part of the US–Saudi-led coalition that has occupied strategic areas since 2015.

Local political figures and activists describe this reality as a new form of occupation that contradicts the principles and goals of the October Revolution, which sought full sovereignty and independence for Yemen’s southern territories.