Brehony - Yemen divided - the story of a failed state in south arabia

Noel Brehotiy had a career as a diplomat after completing a PhD from Durham and post-doctoral research in the Middle East. He was in Aden in the early years of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen and followed events there until unity in 1990. He is a Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute at SOAS and has been chairman of the Middle East Association and the Council for British Research in the Levant and President of the British Society of Middle East Studies. He is currently chairman of the British Yemeni Society.

Noel Brehony is a veteran commentator on that oxymoron of a place, known as modern Yemen. With much of this book based on his direct experience of the country, Brehony has produced a work that manages to be comprehensive and critical, but never disdainful. An important addition to our knowledge of an increasingly important, yet vulnerable country.

Philip Robins, Reader in Middle East Politics and Faculty Fellow, St Antonys College, University of Oxford

A timely account of an important period in Yemens modern history. Ginny Hill, freelance journalist and Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House

The fascinating story of how a small nationalist movement overturned Britains plans for South Arabia and established the only Marxist republic in the Arab world has never been told as well, as comprehensively and as authoritatively as in this lively account by someone who combines scholarly skill with first-hand observation and interviews with many of the key actors of the day. This is a major contribution to the literature on South Arabias political history, and an excellent read as well!

Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics, University of Exeter

No one is better placed than Dr Brehony to write a history based on interviews with many of the surviving protagonists and close study of the sources. He has a deft feel for the politics of the era and places the tale of the PDRY neatly into its regional context If you want to understand the southern dimension to the various conflicts that currently threaten to turn a unified Yemen into a failed state, you could not find a better guide to the background and underlying issues than Noel Brehony.

Michael Crawford CMG, Consulting Senior Fellow on the Middle East and South Asia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London

Yemen Divided is an accessible and well-informed account of the rise and fall of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen. The book is particularly valuable for its thoughtful and at times colourful account of the ideas, personalities, and leadership disputes that moulded the trajectory of the country. Not only is it an important read for understanding the history of the PDRY, but also a timely work that offers critical insights into the historical legacies and personalities that are currently shaping political instability and growing secessionist demands in the former South Yemen.

April Longley Alley, PhD, independent consultant and Yemen specialist

Such precision, illustrated by numerous anecdotes with interesting maps and appendices, is likely to turn this book into a classic. The book is informative in regard to the sensitive issue of contemporary southern secessionist movements. It helps historians as well as social scientists, journalists and diplomats to navigate the complex genealogies, organizations, regional kinships, and hundreds of individuals that have played, and continue to play, an active role in southern Yemen Noel Brehonys volume constitutes a timely contribution to todays urgent debates and raises a number of relevant questions: What can Southerners learn from past experiences and mistakes? To what extent will such a legacy, culminating in the failure of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen, hamper any future attempt to recreate an independent South?

Laurent Bonnefoy, Institut franais du Proche-Orient, Beirut

To Jennifer

New paperback edition published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

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Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

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First published in hardback in 2011 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

Copyright Noel Brehony, 2011, 2013

The right of Noel Brehony to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 491 7

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset in Garamond by Charles Peyton

Front Panel Image: Mud Tower, Hadhramaut, Yemen, 2007 Bridget Cowper-Coles

Back Panel Image: Al Hajjara in the Haraz Mountains, Northern Yemen Franco Pecchio

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

The author would like to thank Dar al-Ayyam in Aden and Ali Nasir Muhammad for permission to use the photographs, which appear in Ali Nasir Muhammads book Aden: History and Civilizations (Abu Dhabi, 2002, in Arabic).

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have long wanted to write the story of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). I was fortunate to be a diplomat in Aden in the early 1970s, when it was possible to view what was happening in this new state, and it was still possible to meet its leaders and its people. It was fascinating to see a Marxist regime being created from what seemed to be unpromising and unlikely material. After leaving Aden I tried for the rest of the PDRYs existence to follow events there up to union in 1990. When I first started research for this book, the PDRY seemed like a piece of twentieth-century history: it was an interesting experiment, a mere interlude in the long history of Yemen. However, in the course of writing the book there have been new calls for the establishment of a decentralized region, or even an independent state, on the lands of the former PDRY. In interviews with South Yemenis I have asked about the past, and they have often talked about the present and future. In writing the book I have tried to keep in mind that the experience of the PDRY might have lessons for all those interested in the future of Yemen.

I have had help from a large number of Yemenis, some of whom have asked me not to name them. I would like to thank all those who have helped so generously. Among those I can name are Ali Nasir Muhammad, Haydar al-Attas, Salim Salih Muhammad, Muhammad Ali Ahmad, Abd al-Aziz al-Dali, Muhammad Said Abdullah (Muhsin), Abdullah al-Asnaj, Mundai al-Afifi, Farooq al-Hakimi, Sinan Abu Luhum, Ali Muhsin Hamid, Muhammad bin Dohry, Yassin Said Numan, Hassan Baum, Rashid al-Kaff, Mohsen Alaini, Abd al-Jalil Gailani, Shafal Umar, Abd al-Aziz al-Quaiti, Lutfi Shatara, Khalid Yamani, Matahir Musid Muslih, Ahmad Abdullah Muhammad Hassani, Sulaiman Nasir Masud, Professor Abd al-Aziz al-Tarb and Sharif Haydar al-Habili. I would also like to thank the late Fred Halliday, the outstanding scholar of the PDRY, for his encouragement and for providing some of his papers. John Shipman has been an invaluable source of support, helping me to get in touch with south Yemenis, providing advice, and reading many of the chapters in draft. Helen Lackner has also been very helpful, and has often put me right when I have been too harsh in my judgements on the PDRY. I am grateful to others who have provided advice and read chapters in draft, including Stephen Day, Michael Crawford, Muhammad Bin Dohry and Rashid al-Kaff. I would like to thank Peter Hinchcliffe for helping with the pre-1967 history. The London Middle East Institute at SOAS allowed me to become a Research Associate and I am grateful to Bob Springborg, the former director of LMEI, for all his support. Roland Popp has allowed me to see his as yet unpublished paper based on examination of the former East German intelligence (STASI) archives. Charles Peyton has given me a great deal of assistance in preparing the book for publication. Finally, I am grateful to my wife Jennifer, not just for being so understanding about the amount of time I have put into the book, but for reading and correcting its contents.