The Struggle for South Yemen

Joseph Kostiner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138653016
• eBook ISBN: 9781000156478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

South Yemen was long a key spot in the strategic geography of the West. Before the Second World War, it was important for the British as an outpost on the way to India. From the mid-1940s it was a crucial gateway to the oil rich Arabian Peninsular and a vital area in the context of superpower rivalry. This book, first published in 1984, traces the development of nationalist sentiment in South Yemen and the emergence of the two main groups in the struggle for independence: the NLF and FLOSY. Analysing both the impact of these groups on Yemeni society and demonstrating how they struggled with each other for supremacy, the book provides an perceptive account of how the revolutionary process in an Arab country unfolded.

PART ONE

EARLY NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS: CRISIS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITY AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Chapter 1

THE MAKING OF CONFLICTS

The nature of the reforms in the Protectorate contributed significantly to the conflicts which were pursued in the political sphere. The British intended to strengthen the governments which already existed in the Princedoms. Apparently, they did this because local governments were in themselves the most obvious target for reform as well as the most likely channel through which to introduce further reforms. The Resident Adviser’s primary concern was to find a loyal group to absorb and further the reforms.

They found the local existing notables; Sultāns, Sayyids, tribal chieftains, merchants and others to be suitable. Such people became the operators and the beneficiaries of the reforms. It seems that the “Dola” were not only the first reliable group that British officials encountered in Aden and the Protectorate but were also individuals who conformed to their image of “oriental leaders”. Trevaskis commented that:

… in setting out to construct a federal government, we had to build on the only element of stability offered by an endemically unstable society: the clans’ capricious and invariably qualified acceptance of the Dola’s leadership.¹

The notables, in their turn, became the main benefactors of the reforms, because they knew how to adopt and then to exploit the possibilities inherent in the reforms, in a way that would best serve their economic and political interests. R.J. Gavin noted that “there was inevitably a bias toward those families which had by custom provided candidates for the Sultanate”.² The changes in the Protectorate’s governmental system did bring about constitutional development but they also served to strengthen the Sultān’s own and his government’s position. The Sultāns were granted the right to appoint and to dismiss ministers from local executive councils; through these councils, the Sultāns controlled education, health, public works and the security of their Princedoms, as well as the budgets for these activities. In various Princedoms improvements were introduced in the functioning of the Sultāns’ bureaucracies: e.g., in the collection of taxes, the control of expenditure, in government officials’aptitude and in the organisation and training of the Sultāns’ private guards. British assistance, invested either in the political authority of the Resident Advisers or in the military levies, brought benefits to those who held power.³ Bujra commented that: “Ultimate power had been … vested in the state, which in turn delegated its authority to its agents, the administrators and the judges at various levels”.⁴

But there were people for whom the strengthening of these notables was disadvantageous. These were tribesmen, lower ranking administrators, newly educated teachers, peasants and others. There were various reasons for their antagonism to the government notables. Tribesmen suffered from the introduction of roads, lorries and the levies which guarded them, because such things prevented them from exercising their traditional occupations: acting as guides and leaders for caravans, looting and levying protection money on them. Such tribesmen viewed the Sultāns and other notables as pretenders, who, in terms of power had previously been their inferiors, but had become “heads of state” thanks to an “imposed British order”.⁵ In 1928 the $\text{Subay}\underset{\dot{}}{\text{h}}\overline{i}$ tribe revolted in Dāli^c after a road crossing the Princedom had been paved. Between 1934 and 1938, after the construction of roads, tribal flare ups broke out in $\text{Fadl}\overline{i}$, Lower ${\text{Y}\overline{a}\text{fi}}^{\text{C}}\overline{i}$ and ${}^{\text{C}}\text{Awdhal}\overline{i}$, which were stilled only after extensive R.A.F. bombing.⁶ In the early 1950s, when increased trade between Aden and the Princedoms justified the building of a road from upper ${}^{\text{C}}\text{Awlaq}\overline{i}$ to the beach, the $\text{Rab}\overline{i}\text{z}\overline{i}$ tribes’ immediate response was to rebel. “Shame on your government for robbing us of our rights”, one of the rebels told Trevaskis.⁷

Lower-ranking administrators and teachers did not feel deprived of traditional rights but resented being obstructed from assenting what they considered to be their present and potential rights. This derived from the fact that the reforms also opened up new avenues of advancement for officials, teachers, officers and others. Within the ambit of the “forward policy”, such people acquired new professional and intellectual skills and were in greater demand as tools to hasten the Princedoms’ development. This being so, these groups complained of low salaries, slow professional advancement, and bad management by the notables of the new economic enterprises. The new administrators demanded a share in the ownership and management of these enterprises.⁸ It should be stressed that such complaints were also often voiced by certain members of the notability because of what they regarded as discrimination in management and profit sharing by the British in favour of other members of this group. To prevent nepotism and to impose proper management norms, Trevaskis occasionally had to stop members of leading families from sharing the profits of a certain enterprise, which often triggered an angry backlash.⁹

The situation of peasants deteriorated because of the unequal distribution of land ownership and from mounting difficulties of renting land. Traditionally, almost the whole of South Yemen’s land was owned by Sultāns, Sayyids (who controlled vast religiously donated wakf lands) and tribal chiefs who owned land which had originally been their tribes’ grazing zones. After the new enterprises in Abyan, Laḥaj and other places had proved successful, several city-based businessmen also acquired fiefs¹⁰ Even under the “forward policy” the principles of heritage and leasing were governed by Islamic law and local traditions. Cultivation was practically in the hands of peasants who leased the land from its owner; theoretically, profit was supposed to be shared between the lessor and lessee according to the proportional investment by each party. In practice, the peasants, who should have had the lion’s share of the profits, earned considerably less than the owners.¹¹

The success of the new agricultural projects prompted a growing demand for land, which in its turn, led to a considerable increase in rents. Even though the notable landowners then invested no more than 20 percent of the amounts needed for cultivation, they contrived to make a profit of over 50 percent, by manipulating the market of tenants and by selling the crops for high prices. This situation led to constant tension between peasants and notables and to several tribal-peasants’ uprisings.¹²

In places like Laḥaj, $\text{Dath}\overline{i}\text{nah}$, Abyan and in Ghayl $\text{Ba-Waz}\overline{i}\text{r}$ in Ḥadramawt, co-operative systems developed around the new enterprises which helped peasants in as much as a part of the profit was diverted to social works such as hospital building, development and savings -funds, piped water and electricity in the villages. However, since these co-operative enterprises had been particularly profitable, they mostly attracted notables who had the means to purchase land and only a few peasants became landowners incorporated in the cooperatives, able fully to enjoy the economic boom in these areas. Moreover, in the late 1950s South Yemeni cotton export prices declined due to the competition of American long fibre-cotton companies, and local landowners lost considerable sums. As a result, they off-set their losses by selling elsewhere at inflated prices the cotton which was intended for local markets. This too had an adverse effect on the local population. Only after 1961, when local cotton growers established a common cotton reservoir for internal needs, to be sold at fixed prices, did this crisis ease somewhat.¹³

How did these various tensions crystallise and erupt into open conflicts? In Ḥadramawt, where social stratification was particularly rigid, the conflict evolved around the positions of the Sayyids. Sayyid families such as the al-Kāf, al-^cAtt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on the Transliteration
• List of Abbreviations
• Map
• Introduction
• Part One: Early Nationalist Movements: Crisis and Political Activity after The Second World War
• Part Two: The Early Stages of the NLF, 1963-1965
• Part Three: South Yemeni Society and the Struggle: The Socio-Political Divisions
• Part Four: The Rise and Fall of the Flosy
• Part Five: The Period of Decision
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index