YEMEN
 British influence was exercised through local leaders in
 MAY 22, 1990 – unification of North Yemen or Yemen
Arab Republic (YAR) and South Yemen or People’s
Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY)
 Became Republic of Yemen
 Rivalry culminated in 1994 with an armed
secessionist uprising in the south led by
former leaders of the PDRY
The Land and People
 5 geographical areas
 Tihama – major city is the country’s major
port of Hudayda
 Northern highlands – home to the largest
confederatiom; majort city: Sa’da
 Aden and San’a
 Jawf
 Wadi Hadramawt
 Ethnic identity based on tribal roots: below are the two
ancestors
 Adnan – peninsula Arabs
 Qahtan – Yemenis
Modern Political History
 1839 – British Indian government captured Aden
 1849 – Ottoman reasserted power in San’a
North Yemen
 Ottoman ruled
 Hamid al-Din dynasty assumed the Imamate
 1911 – Imam Yahya ended the revolt against the
Ottoman in the Treaty of Da’an
 Imamate was perceived by most Shafi’is as sectarian
rather than a national institution
 Muhammad al-Badr – succeeded his father, Imam
Ahmad
 Had a progressive reputation largely because
he had encouraged his father to ally with
Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s Egypt in the efforts to
assert its claims in South Yemen
 1962 coup – 9/26/62; led by Colonel Abdallah al-Sallal;
became the president of the new Yemen Arab Republic
 The republican regime relied on Egyptian military
support to maintain itself in power
 3 factions supported the coup
 The army
 Disaffected Shafi’is
 A collection or tribal leaders who had
split from Imam Ahmad
South Yemen
 Aden was ruled directly
the tribal areas
 Aden Trade Union Congress (ATUC) – sent students to
Britain; drawn from an urban proletariat
 National Liberation Front (NLF) – formed in Feb 1963
 Prime movers are from Sh’bi clan of Lahaj
 Led by Qahtan al-Sha’biSha’bi and his cousin
Faysal al-Sha’biSha’bi
 Core was made up of adherents of the Yemeni
branch of the Arab Nationalists’ movement
(ANM), a Marxist-leaning pan-Arab group
 Advocated armed struggle against the British
 Supported by Egypt
 By 1965, they succeeded in wresting control of
most of the unions from ATUC
 Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen –
created by ATUC leaders; NLF rival group
 Feb 1966 – announced the withdrawal of British troops
 1968 – termination of treaties of protection with the
local states
 NLF became the unquestioned leader of the
independent movement
 Nov 30 1967 – British forces evacuated Aden, ending
the 128 years of rule
 NLF formed the first government of the newly
declared People’s Republic of South Yemen
 Qahtan al-Sha’biSha’bi became both
chairmain of the presidential council and
prime minister
The Two Yemeni States
 North Yemen has the biggest population – 4x greater
than the south
 During the late 1960s and the 1970s, the two states
both experienced violent political factionalism
 Republican conservatives defeated the leftists, ending
the chances of N Yemen following the ideological path
of S Yemen
 Colonel Ali Abdallah Salih – leader of N Yemen since
1978
 National Democratic Front – Salih’s
opposition; supported by S Yemen
 People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen – S Yemen’s
new name; 1970
 1st President of PDRY: Salim Rubayya’Ali
 Unification – March 1979; signed by Ali Abdallah Salih
and Abd al-Fattah Ismail in Kuwait
Political Environment of the United Yemeni State
 Dichotiomies: Zaydi vs Shafi’i, republican vs royalist,
tribe vs state, north vs south
 Common Yemeni identity is strong, made stronger by
the country’s bordering on Saudi Arabia to the north
  Hadramawt – one area historically distinct  Signed treaty with Saudi in June 2000
from the rest reaffirming the 1934 boundary
 Small but growing middle class – bureaucrats and  In the mid-1990s, Yemen’s claim to Hanish Islands in
traders the Red Sea was contested by the newly independent
 Major agricultural crop: qat state of Eritrea on the opposite shore
 In 1984, Hunt Oil Company announced the discovery of  Bombing USS Cole in Yemen (Oct 2000) killed 17
oil in Marib American sailors (by Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula)

Political Structure

 May 1990 – governed by presidential council of 5

members (later changed to a single president in 2012
 Ali Abdallah Salih – became the head of the
Presidential Council then the President in
2012
 Ali Salim al-Baydh – VP
 Shariah Law is the source of law
 (Refer to Yemen report outline for updated
political structure)

Political Dynamics

 Oil – bilateral issue that brought the two together

 The 1994 Civil War – brought about by the subsequent
challenges to centralized authority

Foreign Policy

 North Yemen had joined with Iraq (and Egypt and

Jordan) in the Arab Cooperation Council at its founding
in 1989
 The united Yemeni state assumed its
membership
 N Yemen supported Iraq during Iraq-Iran War un 1980-
1988, and relations were very close
 Saudi Arabia and San’a relations were strained
by what San’a considered Saudi insensitivity
toward Yemeni sovereign interests
 Yemenis working in Saudi were a Saudi major
source of Yemeni foreign exchange were
certain to be jeopardize of San’a did not
unequivocally condemn Iraqi invasion
 Yemen held the Arab seat un UNSC during the
crisis, magnifying the international visibility of
its positions
 Yemen took what is considered to be
pragmatic and evenhanded stand in
the crisis, opposing the Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait also opposing the dispatch
of foreign forces to Saudi Arabia to
resist the invasion
 Resented by Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, and USA
 Yemen lost a territory (Najran) to Saudi Arabia in 1934
during the Saudi-Yemeni War