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From: samuel Igbu (ypfdjbc@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 14 2011 - 15:16:00 EDT
Historian Mark Curtis has exposed Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in Yemen in the
1960s, which he describes as one of the ‘least known aspects of recent
British history’. The war lasted almost a decade under both Tory and Labour
governments, and cost around 200,000 lives. Even today, Curtis notes, the fi
les
are heavily censored: ‘probably more so than in any other foreign policy
episode.’ The official reason for the secrecy is ‘national security’. The
‘actual’ reason is to protect
the reputations of ‘the people with blood on their hands’: the leading
politicians of the day. Curtis describes how, in September 1962, the Imam of
North Yemen was
overthrown in a popular coup. Until then, 80 per cent of the population had
lived as peasants under a feudal system of government, with control
maintained by graft, a coercive tax
system, and a policy of divide and rule. The coup was led by Arab
nationalists within the Yemeni military who supported Egypt’s
reformist president Gamal Abdel Nasser. In turn, Nasser sent troops to
bolster the new Republican government. Royalist forces supporting the
deposed Imam fl ed to the hills and
began an insurgency backed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Curtis notes that
Britain ‘soon resorted to covert action to undermine the new Republican
regime, in alliance with the Saudis
and Jordanis’. British officials privately recognised that they were thus
supporting a ‘monopoly of [royal] power’ that was ‘much resented’ by the
Yemenis. But the
Foreign Office’s ‘pragmatic’ concern was that the nationalist uprising might
spread to neighbouring Aden, then a UK colony, where Britain was ‘supporting
similarly feudal elements against strong popular,
nationalist feeling.’ Why? For longstanding reasons of ‘national interest’.
Curtis explains: ‘The military base at Aden was the cornerstone of British
military policy in the Gulf region, in which
Britain was then the major power, directly controlling the sheikhdoms of the
Persian Gulf and with huge oil interests in Kuwait and elsewhere.’
Aden was surrounded by a ‘protectorate’, the Federation of south Arabia:
feudal fiefdoms controlled by autocratic leaders like
the overthrown Yemeni Imam, and all ‘kept sweet by British bribes.’ Britain
feared that a progressive, republican, Arab nationalist Yemen would act as
an inspiring
example and so threaten other feudal sheikdoms in the region and throughout
the wider Middle East. British ministers feared ‘a collapse
in the morale of the pro-British rulers of the protectorate,’ putting ‘the
whole British position in the area ... in jeopardy.’ The rulers of
oil-rich Saudi Arabia were similarly concerned about the possible domino
effect of neighbouring monarchies being overthrown by Arab nationalist
forces.
Early in 1963, working with the Saudis, Jordan and Israel, Britain began
covertly arming and supplying the Yemeni royalist forces against the new
Yemen Republican government. A British mercenary
operation was set up, funded by the Yemeni royalist foreign minister, the
British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. SAS
volunteers were given temporary leave from official duties and French
mercenaries were also recruited. In early 1964, SAS forces undertook their
first clandestine
air-drop of arms and ammunition, with the discreet backing of MI6 and the
CIA. UK Defence Secretary Peter Thorneycroft spoke of the need to organise
‘tribal revolts’
in the frontier areas and to initiate ‘deniable action ... to sabotage [pro-
Yemeni Republican] intelligence centres and kill personnel engaged in
anti-British activities.’
Curtis adds that a top-secret document in the government files went even
further. Entitled ‘Yemen: The range of possible courses of action open to
us,’ it considered ‘assassination or other action
against key personnel’ involved in subversion in the federation. As these
options were being debated in private, Prime Minister Douglas- Home lied to
parliament on 14 May
1964: ‘Our policy towards the Yemen is one of non-intervention in the
affairs of that country. It is not therefore our policy to supply arms to
the Royalists in the Yemen.’ Curtis notes that the election of
Harold Wilson’s Labour government in October 1964 ‘seems not to have upset
the covert operation.’ Secret RAF bombing took place in retaliation for
Egyptian attacks mon camel trains supplying weapons
to French and British mercenaries. As part of an arms deal with Saudi
Arabia, Britain agreed a £26 million contract with a private company,
Air-work Services, for the training
of Saudi pilots and ground crew. Airwork also recruited former RAF pilots as
mercenaries on missions against Egyptian and Yemeni targets
along the Yemeni border. And by 1965, MI6 had a secret agreement with Israel
to use its territory for launching attacks against the
Yemeni Republicans. Following Egypt’s defeat by Israel in the 1967 war,
Nasser withdrew his troops from Yemen. In November, Britain withdrew from
Aden. Then,
in March 1969, the Saudis cut off supplies to the Yemeni Royalists. A treaty
was signed, and hostilities ceased. As mentioned, a total of
around 200,000 people had died. On March 29, a research was conducted using
the LexisNexis newspaper database for mentions of ‘Yemen’ in UK national
newspapers.
There were around 898 articles. Apart from two reviews of a new book from an
imperialist perspective not one of these articles contained any mention of
the key names from
this grim episode of British history. Nor was there any mention of Mark
Curtis. The war has been effectively erased from the record. It is the same
phenomenon of
media blindness and adherence to state ideology that would have us believe
that Iran’s history began with the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This also
neatly and conveniently
omits the UK-US role in the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected
leader Mossadeq after he nationalised Iran’s Western-
controlled oil industry. History is reduced to an elite-friendly script that
minimizes public understanding of the background to current events.
According to Curtis all the British
manipulations were for promoting British national interest. But there was no
mention in the Today piece of the ‘realpolitik’ that natural resources in
the region were a
prime motivation, and that profits were being made in arms deals. The
serious diplomatic historian Mark Curtis has presented the evidence of all
of this from previously secret
government files. As Curtis notes, the war cost up to 200,000 lives with
British complicity in those deaths. Curtis notes in ‘Unpeople’ that Yemen
and the other case studies
he examined in declassified government files illustrate the three basic
principles that guide British foreign policy. The first is the systematic
deception
of the public by British ministers, which is ‘deeply embedded in British
policy-making.’ Blair’s lies about Iraq fit comfortably as part of
this trend. The second principle is that policy-makers are typically open
and frank about their real goals in secret documents. The glaring gap
between state realpolitik and
government claims of benevolence is rooted in a fundamental contempt for the
general population. As Curtis
says: The foreign-policy decision making system is so secretive, elitist and
unaccountable that policymakers know they can get away with almost anything,
and they will
deploy whatever arguments are needed to do this.’ The third basic principle
is that humanitarian concerns do not feature in the rationale for foreign
policy. Curtis observes bluntly: ‘In
the thousands of government files I have looked through for this and other
books, I have barely seen any reference to human rights at all. Where such
concerns are evoked,
they are only for public-relations purposes.’ When such concerns are not
evoked for PR purposes, it is because a focus on human rights would throw an
unwelcome light on
the West’s support for oppression. The framework for understanding Britain’s
war in Yemen in the 1960s, then, remains valid for the situation there today
as it does for much of the world: namely, that control and
geo-strategic dominance - routinely sold to the public as ‘humanitarian
intervention’ and maintenance of global ‘security’ - continue to bethe key
concerns guiding Western policy.
-- Sincerely *YPFDJ British Columbia Chapter* YPFDJ Goal and Purpose- Our goal is to build a strong, conscious and patriotic youth movement.
Our purpose is:
- To raise the awareness and level of organisation of Eritrean youth to serve our nation - To reassert the identity, patriotism and unity of Eritrean youth - To promote the participation of Eritrean Youth in the national reconstruction of Eritrea as well as guarding the sovereignty of Eritrea - To enhance the position and influence of Eritrean Youth in their respective countries of residence.
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