Southern discontent could fracture Yemen's unity

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) - When Islamists criticized a concert by a Syrian woman singer in Yemen's port city of Aden this month, disaffected southerners took it as yet another slight from their more powerful northern cousins.

Troops and police guarded the half-empty stadium when Asala took the stage, braving a reported threat from al Qaeda to stop the show, but she sang into the early hours with no disruption.

Still, the verbal sniping by Islamist parliamentarians from the north left a sour taste for many in the sleepy southern city, where performances by Arab pop stars are a novelty.

"They've had concerts in Sanaa and Taiz and Hodeida before. Nobody opened his mouth," said Raqiya Humeidan, a woman lawyer, referring to northern cities. "Why is it different in Aden?"

Far less trivial grievances are fuelling discontent here, where many are once again querying the value of the 1990 union between the Marxist-led south and the tribal-dominated north.

Southerners complain they have lost out since unity in access to local power, jobs and land, and some even say they feel they have been subjected to a northern "occupation."

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose army crushed a southern bid to secede in 1994, sees Yemeni unity as the jewel crowning his 30 years in power -- but it does not glint for southerners.

In recent months, protests spearheaded by former soldiers demanding pension rights have met a tough response from the security forces, with several people killed or wounded.