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Moscow's Hard Lesson in South Yemen
| Article
# : |
10035 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1986 |
2,974 Words |
| Author
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John Rees
John Rees is vice-president of Mid-Atlantic Research
Associates, which is in Washington, D.C. |
Now that hard-line pro-Soviet factions have triumphed in the latest coup in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), it is worth examining how closely the Soviets and their proxies came to completely botching January's coup and the brief but bloody civil war that followed.
Both Soviet-line Marxists now in control of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) and deposed president Ali Nasir Muhammad al-Hassani, the former YSP secretary-general, have given their versions of the developments leading to the fighting which demolished the city of Aden and left an estimated 10,000 dead. Evidence given by each side indicates that the coup plot was supported, encouraged and, some intelligence analysts say, very probably engineered by the Soviet Union. However, few believe that the Soviets did not know enough about the structure of Yemeni society to understand that their actions would result in the violent efforts to depose Ali Nasir Muhammad, and that the coup would lead to a general tribally based bloodletting.
In theory, everything should have proceeded smoothly. The pro-Soviet rebels in the YSP Politburo and Central Committee, frustrated in their attempt last October to take power at the party congress, expected to force a confrontation with Ali Nasir Muhammad on January 13 during an extraordinary meeting of the YSP Central Committee and the cabinet. The pretext for the showdown was to have been a vote of "no confidence" regarding the composition of the new cabinet. Ali Nasir Muhammad had avoided making the appointments while retaining the party leadership, but his rivals forced him to appoint his pro-Soviet arch rival, Abd el-Fattah Ismail, to the
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