October 14 Revolution — History’s Continuation in a Renewed Struggle Against Colonization and Domination

Sixty-two years ago, the spark of freedom ignited on the lofty peaks of Radafan when the martyr Rajeh bin Ghaleb Labouza and his free companions declared the birth of the glorious October 14 Revolution against the British Empire—then called “the empire on which the sun never sets.”
That revolution was not a passing event in Yemeni history; it was the true birth of a free national spirit that rejects tutelage and domination, and believes that dignity and sovereignty are not granted but seized. Today, more than six decades later, colonialism has returned to the south of the country in a new guise and with different tools—recalling the era of British occupation but staged now with Saudi–Emirati faces and under American–British–Zionist patronage, an attempt to turn the clock of history back.

From Radafan to Aden — Yemen Broke the Empire’s Fangs

The October 14 Revolution of 1963 began on the heights of Radafan, led by freedom fighters who resolved that no colonizer would remain on Yemeni soil. Over four years the revolutionaries fought fierce heroic battles that exhausted British forces and forced the last British soldier to leave Aden on 30 November 1967, announcing full victory and independence.
It was the first successful liberation revolution in the Arabian Peninsula against one of the most powerful colonial empires in history, uniting northerners and southerners in blood and fate, proving that Yemen — all of Yemen — cannot be defeated when it stands united against invaders.

Old Colonialism and Its New Instruments

Although British colonialism was defeated more than six decades ago, its schemes did not end. It left behind instruments and proxies in the region to ensure continued control by indirect means. Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—acting as agents of Western colonialism—have pursued interventionist policies: buying loyalties, backing projects of division and fragmentation, culminating in the March 2015 aggression that turned southern and eastern provinces into arenas of direct occupation managed by foreign forces. These forces control ports, islands, and oil riches, assassinate opponents, and plunder national wealth.

Today the Saudi–Emirati occupation raises false banners of “liberation” while practicing all forms of repression and enslavement, reproducing the regional divisions that British colonialism once sowed—intended to tear apart Yemen’s unified identity and revive the old “Greater South” project that was a gateway to partition and dependency.

Aden: From Beacon of Freedom to a City Occupied Again

Aden, once a lighthouse of revolution against the British, has become a sphere of new foreign influence—ruled with iron and fire by Emirati and Saudi occupiers and their mercenaries, who have reintroduced repression, secret prisons, and violations against the free and honorable sons of the South.
Meanwhile, citizens there face unprecedented economic collapse and hardship: the exchange rate has surpassed two thousand rials to the dollar, essential services have collapsed, and everyday life has become a multiplying crisis while the country’s wealth piles up in banks in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and London. This tragedy is the flip side of the policy of starvation and submission pursued by the aggressor forces to subdue the people and detach them from their national cause—just as the old colonizer once did.

The Partition Project — Old Goals, New Tools

Through the division of influence between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the southern and eastern provinces, the true aims of the aggression become clear: to split Yemen into rival mini-states, plunder its oil wealth, and seize control of strategic ports—chief among them Bab al-Mandeb—to serve American, British and Zionist interests. What appears as rivalry between the aggressor’s instruments is really a contest over spoils; the shared objective is to prevent the emergence of a sovereign, unified Yemen capable of resisting normalization with the Zionist entity and Western hegemony projects in the region.

September 21 Revolution — The Natural Continuation of Yemen’s Liberation Waves

Just as the October 14 Revolution was a bright chapter in the Yemeni struggle, the September 21, 2014 movement came to complete the liberation path and close the doors of foreign tutelage for good. That revolution overturned American and Saudi tutelage, returned decision-making to the Yemeni people, and launched a comprehensive national liberation project against all forms of dependence and colonial control.
While Aden, Socotra, and Hadhramaut suffer new occupations, Sanaa today embodies the spirit of October anew against tyrants and arrogant powers, led by the Commander Sayyid Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi — may God preserve him — who reiterates that liberating every inch of the homeland is a sacred duty