The Aden Border

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28179, 18 January 1957, Page 10

The Aden Border

The Government of the Yemen is exploiting w’hat it believes to be a shining hour. Holding the common Arab view that Britain has suffered indignities and defeats north of the Red Sea, the Yemenis hope they may be repeated, to Yemeni advantage, in the south. Hoping to reassemble the.weight of opinion that was turned against Britain over the intervention in Egypt’ and well instructed and supported by Cairo, the Yemenis are banging the anti-imperialist drum for all it is worth. In fact, it is not worth much, in this case. The Yemeni claim to the Aden Colony and Protectorate is very flimsy; it is based on one of the transitory occupations of territory which are recorded frequently in history. Not only is the claim rejected by Britain, which transformed Aden from arid, useless rock to a fuelling station serving the world’s trading and strategic routes, but by the rulers of the Arab sultanates and sheikhdoms in the Protectorate. These rulers reject the claims of the Imam of Yemen to political overlordship; even more firmly they’ resist attempts to assert a religious domination by a sect of Mohammedans they dislike. The Zaidis, indeed, are a minority even in the Yemen, where the head of a sect which enjoys special privileges is both Imam and King—the spiritual and temporal ruler of the

people. Thus, if “ imperialism ” is involved here, the label should rightly be tied to the Yemenis. For several years the Yemeni Government has armed and encouraged dissident tribesmen and tried to subvert the tribes from their rulers. By frequent raids on outlying settlements and trade routes, Yemeni-inspired forays have been launched for the purpose of unsettling the tribes in the Protectorate. Normally, the sheikhs’ local home guards are capable of dealing with most of the incidents by themselves; only occasionally has Britain been called upon to provide the protection it is bound by treaty and moral obligation to give. Recently, raids by Yemeni regular troops have involved British troops in small actions, which Yemeni propagandists have tried to represent as “ brutal attacks by imperialist “ forces ”. Britain has no reason whatever to fear an impartial, objective examination of the case the Yemenis say they will take to the United Nations. But w’ith the General Assembly now largely a sounding-board for Asian-African prejudices and propaganda, can impartial, objective examination be expected? The Yemenis would dare to take their case to the United Nations only if they felt assured that, w’ith the malevolent support of Cairo and Moscow, they could hide the identity of the real aggressors.