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Michael C. Hudson (ed.)
1999
9. The Republic of Yemen: The Politics of Unification and Civil War
Robert D. Burrowes
In 1987, the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) celebrated their twenty–fifth and twentieth anniversaries, respectively. On May 22, 1990, they united to form the Republic of Yemen (ROY) and the two ceased to exist formally as independent states. Most observers were taken by surprise at this sudden shift from simply improving inter–Yemeni relations to full Yemeni unification. As surprising as the decision to unify was the decision to do it through the democratization of political life and multiparty politics. Relatively free and fair legislative elections were held in April 1993. Unhappily, these elections were followed quickly by a deepening political crisis and by a civil war that by mid–1994 threatened the future of Yemeni unification. The ROY survived and—after nearly three years of demanding financial reforms, economic hardship, and political strife—held a second round of relatively free and fair elections in April 1997. This chapter attempts to chronicle this historic period of Yemen’s political life, and to analyze and explain the various stages between 1989 and 1995.
Background to Unification
Yemeni unification—and it was more a matter of unification than of reunification—was confounded by a contradictory political legacy: the ancient idea of Yemen as a place and the Yemeni people, on the one hand, and two distinct national political struggles and resultant territorial states in the twentieth century, on the other (Stookey 1978; Bidwell 1983). Yemen has constituted a single political entity for only short periods over the past two millennia, the last occasion coming after the first period of Ottoman Turkish rule in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, the ideas of "the Yemen" and of being "Yemeni" were old ones, similar to the situations in Italy and Germany prior to their unifications in the nineteenth century. The port of Aden was certainly seen as part of "the Yemen," and long known in Arabic literature as "the eye of the Yemen." In the twentieth century, moreover, the goal of Yemeni unification was espoused by North Yemen’s two strong imams and, since the 1940s, by most modern nationalists in both Yemens. In addition, in the first two&-;thirds of this century increased trade and labor migration between the burgeoning port of Britain’s Aden Colony and the southern part of North Yemen—Taiz and Ibb provinces, in particular—provided substructure to the old idea of one Yemen. 1 They provided the buckle that increasingly joined together North Yemen and South Yemen, or at least major parts thereof.
Diametrically opposed to this trend was the bisecting of Yemen by a boundary drawn in the early twentieth century by the British in Aden and the Ottomans in their second occupation in the north. This served to foster the division of Yemen and the Yemeni people into two very different polities and two different political cultures, each with its own values, beliefs, interests, and preoccupations. Although the struggles against the imams in the north and the British in the south seemed to many in the 1940s and later to be the two sides of the same Yemeni political coin, the YAR and the PDRY, created in 1962 and 1967 respectively, emerged out of mostly separate and qualitatively different struggles; after their creation, each turned inward and followed a different political path after its creation. The result, quite rapidly achieved, was considerable political and socioeconomic differentiation. There evolved in the north an ill–defined, bumbling, moderate "republican" state (See Burrowes 1987 and 1991; Wenner 1991). In the south there tumbled onto the scene the only avowedly Marxist–Leninist regime in the Arab world (See Burrowes 1989; Ismael and Ismael 1986; Cigar 1985).
This tangle of cross–pressures fostered a confusing, shifting pattern of inter–Yemeni relations from the 1960s onward. Confounded from the start by the bad fit between state and nation, relations between the two Yemens swung wildly between conflict, even war, at the one extreme, and agreements for Yemeni unification, at the other. Indeed, the fifteen years that followed the creation of the PDRY in 1967 contained major border wars in 1972 and 1979, and the PDRY–backed National Democratic Front (NDF) rebellion against the YAR. Both border wars ended oddly in formal political agreements to unify and detailed steps toward that goal. In each instance, the bid for unification proved to be a disguise quickly shed when it ceased to be useful to either or both sides (See Halliday 1984, 1989; Gause 1987, 1988; Burrowes 1987, 1989, 1991).
Although similarly camouflaged by an agreement on new steps toward unification, the suppression of the NDF rebellion and the ending of related conflict between the two Yemens in 1982 did usher in a new era of improving inter–Yemeni relations. This era was marked by practical, discrete steps toward greater cooperation and by close ties between the YAR’s President Ali Abdullah Salih and the PDRY’s President Ali Nasir Muhammad.
Given these personal ties, it was inevitable that inter–Yemeni relations would be strained by the bloodbath inside the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) in Aden in January 1986, a convulsion that caused President Muhammad and thousands of his followers to flee north to the safety of the YAR (See Burrowes 1989). For the next two years, the new leaders of the YSP in the PDRY tried to wrap themselves in the legitimizing rhetoric of Yemeni unification and the YAR just as adamantly refused to reciprocate in both statement and action. The main barrier to good relations was the unwillingness or inability of the weak and divided leadership in Aden to ease the burden of the new refugees on the YAR through reconciliation with the ex–president and his followers.
A serious crisis erupted in late 1987 when the continued failure of the PDRY to ease the refugee problem through reconciliation combined with renewed tensions along the undemarcated border separating the YAR’s oil fields in the Marib/al–Jawf basin, discovered only in 1984, from oil fields found even more recently by the Russians in the PDRY’s Shabwa region. Amid reports that rival oil exploration teams were surveying the disputed borderland for the PDRY and the YAR, the dispute took a turn for the worse when both Yemens massed armed forces in the area in March 1988. In mid–April, a summit meeting was held between President Salih and the new secretary–general of the YSP, Ali Salim al–Baydh. On May 4, after a second summit, the two leaders signed major inter–Yemeni agreements.
One of the May 4 Agreements resolved the pressing conflict over the borderland. It called for demilitarization of a "neutral zone" between Marib and Shabwa and for creation of a joint oil exploration and development company specifically for the zone. Another agreement provided for the free movement of Yemenis between the two Yemens, joint border posts, and the requirement of only domestic identity cards to cross the border in either direction. Finally, there was an agreement that called for reviving the joint institutions previously identified with the unification process, setting a new timetable for the draft unity constitution, and forming a joint committee for a unified political organization (FBIS 1988).
As in the past, the two Yemens in May 1988 used the sweeping rhetoric of, and small steps toward, unification to camouflage an exercise in crisis management and problem solving in inter–Yemen relations. The real achievement was the defusing of a border dispute that had threatened to escalate into serious fighting. Implementation of the military and economic agreements on the neutral zone began almost immediately. The new regimen for border crossing began in July and proved immensely popular with the citizens of both Yemens.
Subsequent events emphasized further the revival of the pattern of increased inter–Yemeni cooperation that had begun in 1982. The two Yemens agreed in late 1988 on a major project to link their electrical power grids. The new joint oil company for the neutral zone began operations in early 1989, and negotiations with oil companies to explore in the zone began almost immediately. In spring 1989, the secretariat of the highest joint body for unity affairs met for the first time since the 1986 bloodbath in Aden; the PDRY also announced plans to release many of those convicted for involvement in that episode, a move hailed by the YAR. There was even talk about the possibility of soon using the Aden refinery to process crude oil from the YAR.
The Unification Process, 1989–1995
The recently reestablished pattern of improving inter–Yemeni relations was transformed dramatically—and, to most observers, myself included, unexpectedly—into the politics of unification in late 1989. After a lull of several months, unification activity began at the end of October with the first–ever meeting of a body first called for in the original unification agreement in 1972, the Joint Committee for a Unified Political Organization. During a much–publicized summit in Aden only four weeks later, President Salih and Secretary–General al–Baydh committed "the two parts of Yemen" to a series of steps designed to result in unification in roughly one year. The November 30 Agreement prescribed that the draft unity constitution, shelved since its completion in late 1981, would be submitted for ratification by the legislatures of the two Yemens and then to a popular referendum within two successive six–month periods–i.e., by the end of November 1990. If the new constitution were approved in this two–step sequence, then the "Republic of Yemen" was to be proclaimed, the new constitution declared in force, and a transitional government established in the new capital, San‘a. This government was to remain in place only until early elections for an all–Yemen legislature, which would then select a president and vote approval of a regular government. 2
Political parties sprang up like weeds during the months before and after formal unification, by different counts the total coming to between 30 and 40. Partisan newspapers and magazines also flourished, and the government came in for unprecedented scrutiny and criticism in these organs as well as in the Council of Deputies. The Yemenis took to the rights to speak, write, and organize with a vengeance, and the two–party coalition regime probably got more democratic politics than bargained for.
The intense, highly focused Yemeni unification process was blindsided on August 2, 1990, by Iraq’s unexpected invasion of Kuwait, only a little more than two months after the ROY was proclaimed. Foreign Minister Abd al–Karim al–Iryani was quoted as having said that Yemeni unification had been "ambushed" by the invasion. The ensuing Gulf crisis and war both diverted the attentions of Yemenis from the unification process and placed great, unanticipated burdens upon that process. The impact of the crisis on the new regime was magnified greatly by its membership at this time on the UN Security Council, assuring it unavoidable visibility. Arguing and voting throughout for an "Arab solution"—a negotiated end to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, and refusing to endorse the decision by the U.S.– and Saudi–led coalition to expel Iraq by armed force (See al–Ashtal 1991), Yemen soon found itself bereft of most development aid as well as budgetary and balance–of–payments support from, most notably, Saudi Arabia and the other oil–rich Arab Gulf states. More important was the loss of the far more considerable remittances of the several hundred thousand Yemeni workers and many businessmen—more than 5 percent of Yemen’s total population—who were forced by the Saudis to return to Yemen and likely unemployment.
Relations between the ROY and both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait became extremely hostile over these months. The exchange of public accusations and criticism between the Saudis and the Yemenis rose to a level not seen since the years of the Yemen Civil War in the 1960s, and the underlying hostility persisted through the mid–1990s. The ROY’s relations with the U.S. also suffered. Moments after Yemen failed to support the U.S.’s use–of–force resolution in the Security Council in November 1990, its delegate was informed by a high U.S. official that the vote "was the most expensive ‘no’ vote you ever cast"–and U.S. aid was then cut practically to nothing.
The all–Yemeni referendum on the new constitution, the step dropped from those leading up to formal unification in May 1990, was held with fanfare in mid–May 1991, a few days before the ROY’s first anniversary. From the standpoint of the coalition regime, the good news was that the constitution had been approved by an overwhelming majority of those voting; the bad news was that less than half of the eligible voters voted, in part because of the boycott called by Islamists and other conservatives who were demanding certain changes in the constitution. This opposition to the constitution, if not to unification itself, had surfaced in the months before formal unification in May 1990; it peaked just before and after the referendum, and continued thereafter at a lower level. Opposition to the regime’s stand on the Gulf crisis, and support for the anti–Iraq coalition, tended to go hand–in–hand with what was alleged to be the insufficiently Islamic character of the constitution. The main opposition vehicle was the Islamic Grouping for Reform (Islah), a party formed in late 1990 that brought together major tribal and religious elements in the north. Islah was headed by Yemen’s leading tribal leader, Shaykh Abdullah ibn Husayn al–Ahmar, and by longtime political Islamist Abd al–Majid al–Zindani; both were longtime friends and clients of the Saudi royal family.
After the referendum, the attention of the unification regime turned to the crucial legislative elections set for the end of the transition period in November 1992, some eighteen months hence. President Salih and his colleagues acknowledged repeatedly the dire effects of both the Gulf crisis and "errors" in the unification process at the same time that they claimed that the ROY could and would cope with them successfully.
Despite their surprising collaboration, the two equal partners in the unification regime—the GPC and the YSP—competed against each other at the same time that they joined forces against the several other major political forces and parties, new and old, during the transition period. Worsening economic conditions as well as problems in the effort to merge the two states and to reorganize politics heightened competition and strained cooperation between them in the second half of this period, after the summer of 1991. In particular, the return of the expelled workers and the sharp drops in remittance income and external aid in 1990 gradually but predictably brought economic crisis and hard times to both parts of Yemen in the following year. This worsening of the socioeconomic setting confounded the unification process and distracted the government; it also poisoned the political atmosphere and made cooperation between the two partners more difficult.
Specifically, beginning in late 1991, day–to–day politics was increasingly punctuated by acrimony, popular protests, strikes, riots, bombings, and assassinations that placed the unification regime under great strain. Most of the assassins’ targets were YSP leaders, and growing concern about the "security problem" was accompanied by questions of why GPC leaders seemed unwilling or unable to respond vigorously to these crimes. The kidnapping of foreigners—often oil company workers—and the theft of their vehicles became epidemic, providing added evidence of a growing "lawlessness." Rumors of rifts between the GPC and the YSP leadership became frequent. Finally, in August 1992, citing the absence of public safety and the failure of the regime to address major problems, al–Baydh withdrew to Aden, beginning what was to be a long, awkward boycott of the government in San‘a.
So great was the political turmoil during the second half of 1992 that the partners in the unification regime seemed to lose sight of the fast approaching date for the legislative elections that were supposed to mark the end of the transition to a unified Yemen. The elections were postponed twice, further adding to the acrimony, particularly between the regime and the increasingly restive opposition. The political crisis came to a head in late 1992 with fatal price riots in cities in the North and a series of terrorist acts, hotel bombings among them, in the South, apparently by militant Islamists with ties beyond the Arabian Peninsula.
These events served well as wake–up calls. They sobered both the partners in the unification regime and its moderate opponents, and led to a general closing of ranks and a respite in the political crisis. As a result, the regime successfully organized and held the elections on April 27, 1993, an event that served to legitimate anew Yemeni unification and the regime, both at home and abroad. No major Yemeni players boycotted the balloting. The big losers at the polls accepted the results after only brief grumbling and cries of fraud; they seemed prepared, if not eager, to assume the role of opposition.
As expected, President Salih and his centrist GPC were the big winners, taking about 40 percent of the seats. The other half of the unification regime, the YSP, while much diminished, survived in good order with 20 percent . Finally, and as important, the tribal and moderate Islamic critics of the regime, represented by Islah, made a strong showing, but not overly so (also about 20 percent). 3
Although its formation took more than a month of intense politicking, the three–party coalition government made possible by the election results seemed potentially able both to stay together and to address at least some of Yemen’s pressing problems. The government announced on May 30, again with the YSP’s al–Attas as prime Minister, was a broad coalition ranging from center–left to center–right, the "big tent" apparently favored by President Salih. (Inter–
estingly, the 2:1:1 ratio of GPC to YSP to Islah in the Majlis translated roughly into a 3:2:1 ratio in the new cabinet, suggesting that Islah’s strength relative to that of the YPS was perhaps more apparent than real—or that representation in either or both the Majlis and the cabinet were not good measures of power.)
During its first months, the new government emphasized new initiatives and, in particular, launched a concerted effort to restore good relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other Arab Gulf states, an effort that produced only modest results. Popular demonstrations and strikes during the summer and fall, protesting inflation and the late payment of salaries and wages, indicated that the government was under the gun to meet quickly campaign pledges to ease the "pains" of unification and hard times. Vehicle thefts and kidnappings by the tribes resumed, causing chagrin to the regime that had made the end of "lawlessness" a campaign promise. Most worrisome, assassination attempts and other political violence resumed sporadically.
It was soon apparent that the elections had not provided passage to a more complete, more permanent stage of unification, or to more effective government. Strains in the tripartite coalition were evident in the resignation of the armed forces chief–of–staff (a northerner) over the alleged failure of the defense minister (a southerner) to get on with the long–delayed merger of the armed forces, another priority electoral promise. Some YSP leaders were urging the party to join the opposition rather than continue to serve as a junior partner in a coalition dominated by an alleged alliance between the GPC and Islah, the two "northern" parties. This urging came only a few months after an extensive pre–election debate over whether the YSP and the GPC should "merge" or simply continue to "coordinate" and, shortly after the elections, the formal announcement that they had decided to merge into a single party.
In mid–August 1993, about ten weeks after the government was formed, Vice President al–Baydh again retired to Aden and began a new boycott, one that led to a second full–blown political crisis. He left behind a list of eighteen conditions for his return, a rather full plate of political, military, economic, and administrative reforms. Efforts to mediate by Arab friends and expressions of concern by the United States, the Russian Federation, and others were to no avail. Al–Baydh’s refusal to come north and be inaugurated as vice president in October 1993, nearly six months after the elections, underlined the stalemate. As a result, the political climate in late 1993 was as bad or worse than a year earlier.
Unlike the crisis of late 1992, moreover, this crisis did not cause the combatants inside the ruling coalition to close ranks, put aside their differences, and take joint action to save both the regime and Yemeni unity when the alarms sounded in early 1994. Despite the efforts and desires of many of the leaders of the unification regime and the opposition—most notably the Political Forces Dialogue Committee formed in late 1993—the second political crisis defied solution.
The attempt by the senior ulama to bring al–Baydh and Salih—"the two Alis"—together near Taiz in early January 1994 failed when al–Baydh balked at the last minute. By early January, most of the other YSP leaders in the regime had quietly left San’a and joined al–Baydh in Aden, adding further to the de facto creation of a separate "state" government in the old capital of the PDRY. The southern leaders by this time were openly expressing their demand for decentralization in terms of federation; the northerners translated this as a call for a big step back from unification. The political crisis was paralleled by a simmering military crisis between the unmerged armed forces, with each side accusing the other of resupplying its units and of redeploying them along the former border.
The failed effort by the ulama was followed by mediation by Jordan’s King Hussein that led on February 20 to a meeting in Amman of al–Baydh and Salih and their signing of the Document of Pledge and Accord, an agreement hammered out over two months by the Political Forces Dialogue Committee. The next day, fighting occurred between army units of the north and south stationed in the Abyan province of the former South Yemen, putting off implementation of the agreement and leading to the formation of a military committee consisting of Jordanian, Omani, and North and South Yemeni officers as well as the military attachés of the U.S. and France, a mission that achieved very little over the next month. Moreover, on the very day that the agreement was signed, the leaders of the two parts of Yemen launched what amounted to separate, conflicting diplomatic initiatives in the Arab world.
In early April, hastily arranged talks between "the two Ali’s" in Oman, under the sponsorship of Sultan Qabus, failed to get the reconciliation process back on course, causing the Omanis and then the Jordanians to end their mediation efforts. Shortly after this disappointment, a serious armed incident occurred in Dhamar, in the north, involving a southern unit stationed in that town. By this time, as the fiction of a troubled unity gave way to the apparent physical separation, the wagers of the war of words dropped the euphemisms of the recent past: al–Baydh accused Salih and his "clan" of abandoning unification for "annexation," of conspiring to "marginalize" the YSP; Salih accused al–Baydh and his greedy "secessionist" friends of forsaking the unity of Yemen and the Yemeni people for "a mini oil–state."
Egypt and the UAE started another mediation effort in May, and talk turned to the possibility of a summit in Cairo. Then, on April 27, the first anniversary of the elections, a bloody four–day battle between northern and southern units erupted in an army camp near the town of Amran, north of San‘a. Tanks and artillery were involved at close range, and the casualties—civilian and military—were very high. Despite efforts to contain the conflict, fighting again broke out a week later in Dhamar on May 4. The fighting quickly escalated to civil war, spreading to other locations and becoming more or less continuous.
After more than two weeks of fighting, during which the forces of the north got the upper hand and drove deep into the south, al–Baydh was welcoming outside mediation and urging an immediate ceasefire and separation of forces. On his side, Salih opposed efforts to "internationalize" an internal conflict and demanded surrender of the "secessionists" and the trial or exile of about fifteen top "rebels," including al–Baydh. On May 21, with Aden and its environs increasingly cut off from the rest of the south, al–Baydh formally announced secession and the creation of a separate Democratic Republic of Yemen. Salih replied with a pledge to crush the new state and to restore unity. It was the day before the fourth anniversary of the unified Republic of Yemen.
The civil war sputtered on through June, and the fate of Yemeni unification remained undecided. Suddenly, at the end of the first week in July, Mukalla and then Aden fell to the unionists and the southern leaders and many of their armed forces fled the country, marking the complete collapse of the secession (See Warburton 1995; al–Suwaidi 1995).
During the rest of the year there were protracted efforts to get economics and politics—external as will as domestic—back to "normal" in unified Yemen. By early October, the constitution was amended at several points, President Salih was elected to a new term by the legislature, and a new government was appointed and approved. The new coalition government included members of the GPC and Islah—and not the YSP.
Although the coalition held, and talked–of guerrilla warfare from within and without Yemen did not materialize, neither politics nor economics were back to normal by early summer 1995. Serious border conflicts with Saudi Arabia in early 1995 and the further deterioration of the economic situation over the entire period combined to place great demands—and serious strains—on the Salih regime. Despite successful efforts to introduce structural reforms and austerity measures in 1995 and 1996, the regime’s ability to get Yemen to turn the corner, and to begin the return to the more promising conditions of 1990, remained in doubt.
The Unification Process Analyzed
Despite the prominent place of unification in public discourse, the more important theme in private in Yemen in the late 1980s was prospects for further cooperation and coordination between the two Yemens. Good inter–Yemeni relations were even being touted by many as the preferred alternative to formal political unification, the latter being regarded as too unlikely, difficult, and even dangerous; to try seriously to unify, they reasoned, would be to overreach—and to put improving inter–Yemeni relations in jeopardy. To these persons, the rhetoric and theatrics of the unification process provided useful cover for the "real" news—the series of concrete steps toward close, mutually beneficial ties between the two Yemens. Most of even those Yemeni leaders who favored and expected Yemeni unification were surprised by the events of late 1989, having come to assume a long time frame and an incremental process. As one high YAR official, almost certainly Foreign Minister Abd al–Karim al–Iryani, put it in October 1987: "Except by some historical accident, unification will come about over a long period of time. . . . [It] will not be realized through grandiose discussions, but is more attainable through slowly creating concrete links, beginning modestly with areas such as trade and tourism" (Le Monde 1987) Assuming the soundness of this judgment when made in October 1987, apparently something out of the ordinary—some "historical accident"—did occur in the two Yemens at some point over the next two years.
How and Why It Came When It Did
Initiated in this setting, the process that sped to formal unification in May 1990 was neither inevitable nor the next step in a logical, incremental series. Instead, the revived unification process that began in the fall of 1989 involved a big, abrupt change—a step–level change according to systems theorists. The change between the fall of 1989 and just months earlier, at least as much qualitative as quantitative, involved a shift in goals or end values from improved inter–Yemeni relations to the destruction of the two Yemens through their merger. Unlike past unification flurries, this one was not meant to mask a pragmatic effort at conflict resolution or another mundane, practical advance in inter–Yemeni relations. Nor was it designed by either or both Yemens primarily as a device to build domestic political support or as a weapon for use against—or a means to gain advantage over—the other Yemen. In the fall of 1989, the bid for unification was, for the most part, for real.
The YAR was the initiator of this sudden change, and this in itself was part of the difference. In the past it had usually been the PDRY that seized the initiative and acted on the charged issue of unification, forcing the YAR to react. In 1989, however, the roles of pursuer and pursued, wooer and wooed, were reversed, and stayed that way during the fast–paced negotiations leading to formal unification.
Why did the YAR suddenly opt for unification at this time and not before or later? In part it was an act of human will, most certainly a matter of willfulness on the part of President Salih. Possessed of impressive political instincts, he had a string of recent successes behind him, from the celebration of the YAR’s twenty–fifth anniversary and the export of its first oil in 1987, through the long awaited elections of a new Consultative Council and his selection for a third 5–year term in mid–1988, to the hosting in San‘a of the summit meeting of the newly formed Arab Cooperation Council. It appears that at about the time of this latest triumph, in September 1989, Salih was faced with the question: What’s next? Apparently, the answer was a serious bid for Yemeni unification.
Changed conditions caused Salih and his advisers to perceive such a bid as both worth going for and possible of attainment. Combined, these conditions created a window of opportunity for unification. For one thing, the balance of power in inter–Yemeni affairs had gradually, but nonetheless decisively, shifted in favor of the YAR over the course of the 1980s. Significant political construction, which notably increased the strength and legitimacy of the Salih regime in the mid–1980s and thereafter, allowed certain latent YAR advantages to assert themselves: a much larger population; a greater economic development potential, especially in agriculture; and a much larger, albeit declining, inflow of workers’ remittances and development aid. The clincher was the discovery and rapid, almost textbook–perfect exploitation of the YAR’s modest but ample oil reserves in 1984 and thereafter. Although the YAR experienced serious economic problems in the late 1980s, problems that probably worsened rather than improved in 1989, its prospects for the future looked bright and there was reason for optimism and confidence.
By contrast, the already poor state of the PDRY’s economy had worsened decidedly since the mid–1980s and the likely benefits from its newly discovered oil were less certain and farther in the future. Of greater importance, the PDRY had suffered a number of staggering political setbacks just as the YAR was getting on its feet, causing a widening power gap between the two Yemens. Arguably, the regimes headed by presidents Muhammad and Salih were of roughly equal weight in the mid–1980s, and a serious attempt at unity at this time would have had to contend with the presence of two strong–willed candidates for the top post in a unified Yemen. Parity ended abruptly when the YSP decapitated itself in the 1986 bloodbath. In the course of only a few days, Muhammad fled the country, and nearly all of the other top leaders were killed, jailed, or in exile. As a consequence, President Salih stood alone atop the Yemeni leadership pyramid, his stature unequaled by that of YSP Secretary–General al–Baydh or any group of YSP leaders in the south. Despite efforts to repair the damage, culminating in major political and economic reforms and a clear victory for al–Baydh and the moderates in mid–1989, the YSP remained greatly weakened and discredited in South Yemen, and, as important, was perceived as such by political observers in North Yemen.
Probably more important to the undermining of the PDRY regime than the intraparty leadership fight was the sudden withdrawal of Soviet support and the rapid crumbling of the socialist camp in the late 1980s (See Halliday 1989; Cigar 1989; Pollack 1986). Moscow informed the Aden regime in early 1989 that it could no longer grant the PDRY preferential economic and political treatment. The Soviet Union’s sharp cutback in its global commitments and the preoccupation of East European countries with their internal problems caused the PDRY regime to feel isolated and without either moral or material support. This loss of aid made it seem all but impossible for the PDRY to survive the wait for oil export revenues, especially since it was the Soviet Union that was developing the country’s oil resources—and because the PDRY had lost confidence in Soviet capabilities in this area. The only remaining option was dependence on Saudi Arabia.
This window of opportunity for unification opened in the late 1980s just as political leaders in San‘a became increasingly concerned about the need to arrange domestic and external affairs so as to lessen the likelihood of events that might threaten plans to quickly translate the new oil wealth into long–term development and prosperity. To this end, unification was perceived as serving to "domesticate" the question of access to, and the sharing of, the oil resources of the two Yemens in general and the newly created neutral zone between them in particular, thereby preventing the inter–Yemeni conflict that could deny both Yemens the fruits of oil wealth. Recent history suggested that the neutral zone could again become a disputed borderland as long as the two Yemens existed side by side; containing this potentially explosive issue within a unified Yemen, while not eliminating the issue per se, would eliminate the chance that it would again become a matter of state against state, army against army. 4
The same logic for this domestication through unification applied to other issues that could, with unpredictable results, pit the two parts of Yemen against one another or otherwise involve one of the Yemens in the affairs of the other. For example, mindful of the turmoil of the 1986 bloodbath, some leaders in the north in 1989 feared that the regime in Aden was on the verge of total collapse; for them, the risks involved in unification would be less than those involved in the likely need, were collapse to occur, for the YAR to intervene militarily to prevent the turmoil and outside meddling that could easily spill over the border into the YAR.
Finally, a measure of opportunism on both sides helps to explain the decision to go for unity. The relative strength of the YAR and its leadership in 1989 made its unification initiative a win–win situation: if the effort was successful, the leaders of the YAR could take most of the credit and set most of the terms; if it failed, they could take credit for trying and place blame on their old enemies in the PDRY. For their part, the YSP and its leaders were so weakened and discredited that they could not afford to say no to a call for unification; they had little choice but to buy time by committing themselves now to the goal, hoping that with time their political fortunes would improve, permitting them either to prosper in the union or to slip out before it became final. Accordingly, the YAR forced the issue of merger during the summit in November 1989; and its position in the negotiations leading up to formal unification was for complete merger and the sooner the better. For its part, the PDRY favored commitment to unification now and the later the implementation the better. Sure that the weakened PDRY leadership had tried to use the unification cause primarily to strengthen itself after the 1986 bloodbath, President Salih and his advisers were determined not to give al–Baydh and his colleagues a free political ride; their insistence on moving up the unification date to May in exchange for the long transition period reflected this, at least in part. In the end, however, the leaders of both Yemens got so swept up in the euphoria engendered by their joint effort to unify that their initial opportunism counted for little—at least at the time.
The Honeymoon Phase of Transition
Negotiations and other events over the several months between the November 30 Agreement and formal unity provided the Yemeni leadership with a heavy dose of practical in–service training in the unfamiliar arts of unifying and pluralizing. In the course of their self–interested jockeying for position, the leaders of the GPC and the YSP converged in their acceptance of the "unify now/go to the people later" formula. By advancing the date, they presented internal and external enemies of unification with a fait accompli, and by putting off national parliamentary elections for thirty months they gave themselves time to "work out the bugs" and demonstrate the benefits of Yemeni unification. Most of them realized that the two economies were in bad shape, would probably get worse before they got better, and that some of the worsening would be caused by the hard choices, confusion, and mistakes that would inevitably accompany the attempt to implement unification. They were also aware that unification placed demands on the state, and raised popular expectations regarding it, at precisely the same time that the many inevitable defects in the merger process were sure initially to weaken if not immobilize the state.
The leadership had reason for feeling cursed as well as blessed by the initial popularity of unification. The likelihood that it would be judged later a success was made problematical by the unrealistically high expectations it raised in many Yemenis. Some thought that unification itself would solve economic ills and bring good times. They maintained that a stable, peaceful, enlarged Yemen would act as a magnet for the funds of foreign investors as well as wealthy Yemenis with funds abroad; in particular, they made much of the untapped potential of Aden, the "economic capital" of unified Yemen, as a free port and industrial zone. Similarly, many idealistic North Yemenis embraced unification as the vehicle for ending the corruption, favoritism, disorder, and lack of organization that they deemed of crisis proportions in the YAR in the late 1980s; the infusion of southerners, reputedly untainted on these counts, would help the northerners effect the needed reforms that they could not effect alone. These expectations were wildly inflated, and the near certainty that they would go largely unmet made it likely that many would judge unification a failure and the regime identified with it as illegitimate and unworthy of support.
Despite these concerns, most of the political leaders, north and south, were confident in mid–1990 that the unification process would come to a successful conclusion and that they individually stood good chances of being among its political beneficiaries. Most of them had been truly surprised by the great popularity of the border opening in 1988—whereby the citizens of both parts were voting for one Yemen with their feet—and were keenly aware of the apparent upsurge in their own popularity in the months after the November 30 Agreement. Noted especially were both the new near–hero status accorded President Salih in the south as well as in the north and the rapid revival of the all–but–spent political fortunes of Vice President al–Baydh and his southern colleagues.
These optimistic conclusions, only wishful thinking on the part of some, were the result of cold calculation by other Yemeni leaders. Although mindful that hard times and economic grievances would place heavy burdens on the unification process, the latter were convinced that most of the populace would give them until the end of the transition period in late 1992 to show the positive effects of unification. They thought that this 30–month grace period would be sufficient to effect the merger of state institutions and the reorganization of political life. Further, they thought that remittances at current levels and the revenue from as much as a doubling of oil output in the ROY to about 400,000 barrels per day would begin to revive the economy by the eve of their first electoral test as the leaders of unified Yemen. Aware that this would be cutting it close, most of them thought nonetheless that they had a better–than–even chance that their moment of truth at the polls would take place in a setting marked by convincing signs of renewed prosperity and development.
The most worrisome and least answerable questions for the leaders of the two Yemens after November 1989 involved the possible impact of unification on politics and the organization of political life. The future of the GPC and the YSP in particular and of past political construction in the two Yemens in general was thrown into question by Yemeni unification. Would the fragile umbrella organization that the Salih regime used with some success to order and contain politics in the YAR remain a dominant force in the enlarged and more challenging environment created by the ROY? Of only limited political relevance even in the 1980s in the north, could the GPC be made to have as much or more (or any) relevance in the 1990s in a setting that included the southern part of Yemen and politically advanced Aden? Would the YSP, largely discredited in Aden and the rest of the old PDRY, revive and survive in united Yemen? Would it establish a major base of support in the north? What would be the relationship between these two ruling parties: would they remain separate, continue to coordinate on politics and policy, merge, or otherwise join forces formally or informally in a new, broad umbrella political organization? What would their relationship be, singly or together, to the many old and new political parties that had already surfaced by early 1990? Would the two compete with each other for power and, somehow at the same time, conspire together to exclude the others from sharing significantly in power?
That the leaders of both Yemens were aware that they were heading into the politically unknown led them to defer for many months of recourse to the people through elections or referenda and to shelve the idea of a "unified political organization" in favor of a multiparty system. The leaders had been uncomfortable with the prospect of letting the people decide their fate in the very near future. If elections were held as early as originally planned, dark humor in San‘a had it, Vice President al–Baydh would win in the north and get voted out in the south while President Salih and the GPC would take the south and lose the north. Similarly, realization that the political configuration of united Yemen was uncharted, and likely to change rapidly for some time to come, led the leadership to conclude that the vagaries of an untried multiparty system were in all likelihood safer than the consequences of a probably futile attempt to contain politics in a "unified political organization," however open and broad in theory.
Neither versed nor experienced in multiparty politics, politicians from the two Yemens were unsure and uncomfortable with this abstraction. While most of them were convinced nearly from the outset that political change toward a more open, "pluralist" system was unavoidable and even desirable, they had a more difficult time sketching the broad outlines much less the details of this emerging political order and the path to it. They wondered among themselves where the balance between unity and diversity (or multiplicity) should be struck, and, as important, how it could be maintained and institutionalized.
The leaders of the GPC and the YSP went from wishful thinking in late 1989—e.g., thinking they could, in effect, "federalize" politics so that each of the two parties could continue to enjoy a virtual political monopoly in its respective part of Yemen, at least during the transition—to a rather frantic effort to keep up with a fast changing (fast "pluralizing") political reality in which new and old parties were popping up all over the political map. The alternatives proposed by those in the ruling coalition all tried, implicitly or explicitly, to reserve some special position or advantage for both the GPC and the YSP; they ranged from a broad national front or umbrella organization into which the various parties would largely merge—a super–GPC for all Yemen or something like the Unified Political Organization/National Front in the PDRY in the mid–1970s—to a system of many separate, independent parties over which some sort of official gatekeeper would still have considerable say as to which parties qualified for inclusion. The ruling parties were soon under great pressure from the other parties to give up the former for the latter alternative; some of these parties were even objecting to a gatekeeper or anything else that might favor the status quo ante—i.e., the GPC and the YSP. Indeed, the ruling parties were accused publicly in early 1990 by opposition parties of coordinating their affairs so as to monopolize political life, and at mid–year they were still trying to fashion a political party law with registration criteria that would both seem neutral and actually serve to exclude or cripple certain parties—e.g., any party claiming to be the Islamic party or having certain kinds of foreign connections.
During the months before and just after formal unity in May 1990, the critics of unification were on the defensive, forced to mute or qualify their criticisms, because of the great popularity of the ideas of unity and democracy. Initially, opposition to unification in general or in its particulars was speculative and theoretical. The Islamic fundamentalists and other conservatives, mostly in the north, focused on the draft constitution and judged it wanting for its failure to make the shari’a the sole source of legislation, rather than merely "the main source" (Article 3), and for its sanctioning of parties in an Islamic society (Article 39). Understandably, much of the initial opposition in both parts of Yemen turned on calculations of winners and losers, present and future. Some in the north objected to the parity formula for the allocation of top positions during the transition period, only to be told by its defenders that, in exchange for a few ministries and some offices given to the south, the north was really winning the whole south. At the same time, many of those who realized that the stronger and more populous north was absorbing the south also realized that the minorities that had defined and dominated the north for centuries—the Zaydis and the tribes—were going to be overwhelmed numerically by Shafi‘is and nontribesmen in this process. The political left, mostly in the south, protested that unification was going to be achieved at the expense of past gains and future goals, secular and socialist; liberated women in the south feared that they would have to pay a particularly high price for unity.
The coalition of the GPC and YSP needed all the internal cohesion it could muster because, as predicted, the attempt to merge the two previously separate socioeconomic systems produced new strains and problems; also as predicted, the attempt to merge the institutions, personnel, and practices of the two states undermined the already limited capacity of the state to deal with social and economic matters. Since the economy of the north was bigger and more robust and flexible, much of the burden of adjustment fell on the southerners; families in Aden had to cope with price decontrols and civil servants coming north had to cope with the cost of living in San‘a. In the north as well, the new problems and tasks brought on by the merger were added to the hard times and austerity many were already experiencing.
The swift and easy appointment of ministers, their deputies, and other top officials in the first weeks after unification masked problems and concerns that were out in the open in a few months. The assurances that during the transition period jobs would be distributed equally between northerners and southerners caused some to fear that a pernicious Lebanese–style quota system would persist beyond the transition. Similar assurances that during this period no one would be dismissed as redundant caused some to conclude that the choice deferred until after the transition was between a bloated public bureaucracy and a period of bitter job competition and wholesale dismissals. By late fall 1990, the talk was of unfilled posts at the level of department head and below, confusion over chains of command, disputes about duties and procedures, and preoccupation with job security and jockeying for position. The capacity of the state to make and implement public policy in the the socioeconomic sphere, after having improved in both Yemens in recent years, suffered a setback. Routine government operations were reduced to a snail’s pace if not a standstill. Were it not for the fact that Yemen is still at a level of development where the lives of most citizens are not closely dependent on the quality and quantity of government, the situation would have been a disaster.
Not surprisingly, Yemen’s stand on the 1990–91 Gulf crisis proved costly in socioeconomic terms, compounding the problems caused by the unification process itself. The impact, cushioned for a time by the hard currency and possessions brought back by Yemenis forced to repatriate, included serious social as well as economic strains, dislocations, and deprivations. Because few of the workers went to their villages or found work in the cities, the most notable new problems were the staggering increase in unemployment and the growth of vast shantytowns on the outskirts of San’a and al–Hudayda. The virtual end of remittances, the cutoff of most development and financial aid, and a drop in oil prices (and oil export revenues) soon produced a severe shortage of hard currency, and this then caused the Yemeni rial to plummet in value and inflation to soar. Much of the declining hard currency had to go for increased food imports to feed the returnees, leaving little for production and development activities that depended on hard currency for imports. Many projects, public and private, had to be put on hold for want of financing, thereby costing additional jobs. Essential services also had to be cut, and a minimal system of relief and humanitarian aid was stretched to its limits by the growing demand.
These acute problems and the unification regime’s feeble efforts to cope with them fostered popular discontent and public protests. Bread–and–butter issues took their place beside the speculative and ideological debate over unification, and were pressed vigorously. Taxi owners protested steep rises in gasoline prices, and work stoppages occurred in the oil fields and at the oil refinery. In early 1992, unified Yemen’s main trade union grouping successfully held a 24–hour general strike to protest the government’s failure to deal with widespread corruption, soaring prices, and other problems.
The ROY’s refusal to join the U.S.– and Saudi–led coalition against Iraq seemed to play into the hands of enemies of unification in Yemen. After August 2, 1990, many of the naysayers who had protested that unified Yemen and its new constitution were not sufficiently "Islamic" added to their litany the failure of the unification regime to take sides with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other Gulf states against Iraq; they blamed this failure for the hard economic times. In particular, Islah leveled harsh criticism at the regime for its Gulf stand and the domestic effects of that stand. It joined with the League of the Sons of Yemen, led by Abd al–Rahman Ali al–Jifri, and several other smaller opposition parties to fight against the constitutional referendum as well as the regime’s Gulf stance in mid–1991. Earlier, these and other pro–Saudi elements had formed a Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Kuwait.
Initially, however, the Gulf crisis may have generated as much support for unification and the unification regime as it eroded that support. The quick and undisguised punishing of Yemen by the Saudis and Americans enabled President Salih and his colleagues to sound a convincing call to all Yemenis to rally and close ranks against a real challenge to unified Yemen and the Yemeni people. The latent anti–Saudi sentiment of many Yemenis became manifest, and the regime turned it to its political advantage. Although disavowed by the regime, the scores of demonstrations and other forms of protest against the anti–Iraq coalition throughout the country during the crisis channeled much anger and frustration harmlessly away from the regime. Moreover, the economic hardships and austerity that had preceded and continued after unification, as well as those that inevitably accompanied the process of merger, could now be partly blamed on or masked by the Gulf crisis and its effects on Yemen.
The negative economic effects of the Gulf crisis were mitigated somewhat by the degree to which the quickly unified petroleum sector was self–standing, insulated from the rest of the economy, and the object of the intense interest of many international oil companies, an interest which, if anything, grew over the course of the crisis. Lowered export earnings, largely caused by the diversion of part of the Marib/al–Jawf production to the Aden refinery in order to cover domestic energy needs previously met with concessionary crude from Iraq and Kuwait, were gradually offset by rising production and slightly higher crude prices. In addition, several hundred million dollars flowed into the Yemeni treasury in 1990–91 as the result of both the lucrative sale of exploration rights to several new blocks in the south and the large cost reimbursement paid by the company that won the right to replace the Russians in Shabwa. Finally, new exploration continued at a fast pace, and produced important new commercial oil finds, strengthening Yemen’s longer–term economic prospects at the same time that it further whetted the appetites of the oil companies. Most important was the strike in 1990 in the Masilah Block in the Hadhramawt, a field that was scheduled to begin production in late 1993 and promised to be as big as Marib/al–Jawf in the north. Finally, the expansion of oil production was projected from the roughly 200,000 b/d in 1991 to about 1,000,000 b/d by the year 2000, with the figure of 400,000 b/d estimated for the end of 1993.
Most important, the united front of the two–party ruling coalition was maintained in the face of problems and discontents as a matter of political will. In response to an inchoate and fast–changing political environment, the coalition that negotiated and achieved formal unity between late 1989 and mid–1990 rapidly evolved ad hoc into a unification regime. The competition and antagonism between the GPC and the YSP, the two halves of this regime, while not expunged, were largely overridden by their mutual interest in surviving the growing challenge of a host of other old and new political players. Leaders who had not liked or respected—and often had not really known—one another learned to work together for this purpose. Moreover, the "us against each other and us together against all the others" modus vivendi, though contradictory and potentially unstable, worked because the early stages of unification appeared to be a non–zero–sum situation for the two parties. By working together, both ruling parties stood to gain vis–à–vis the array of upstarts that wanted to share power. The heady sense of success and accomplishment, and then the sense of embattlement during the worst days of the Gulf crisis, made for solidarity within the unification regime. The centripetal forces prevailed over the centrifugal ones—at least initially.
After the Honeymoon
The unraveling of the original unification regime, marked by political crisis and followed by civil war, began in mid–1991, less than halfway through the transition period. The process by which the centripetal forces keeping the two parties together was gradually countered by the centrifugal ones pulling them apart follows a secular trend, but one around which there was considerable fluctuation. 5 The referendum on the constitution in mid–May 1991 was an event for which the parties put aside their differences and closed ranks in defense of unification and the unification process—and their unification regime. They more dramatically closed ranks again in late 1992, when they interrupted the growing political crisis in order to hold the postponed legislative elections in April 1993. The Document of Pledge and Accord notwithstanding, they did not close ranks in the post–election tripartite regime during the more profound political crisis in late 1993 and early 1994—and a consequence was civil war.
The unraveling was not just a matter of "the two Alis." Although both leaders played big roles in it, the process involved the growing hostility and the loss of trust between two groups of political leaders, each able to command a largely loyal military establishment. In the course of the final political crisis, moreover, the two groups changed character as key figures withdrew from the fray and other players joined it. This was especially true of the "secessionist group" which both lost key YSP figures and took on the appearance of a living museum of nearly a half century of South Yemeni politics. 6
Although a full grasp of the sequence of events that led to the dissolution of the unification regime needs further study, some of the key elements in the process can be identified. In early 1990, both halves of the unification regime discovered that unequivocal identification with unification was an almost instant source of new support and legitimacy because wahda (unity) was popularly regarded as both a most desirable end and as a means to other desirable ends; conversely, and just as quickly learned, opposition to unification initially meant the loss of support and legitimacy. By contrast, by late 1992, indifference and opposition to either or both unification and the unification regime were widespread and growing fast, largely because of worsening socioeconomic conditions and the apparent failure of the regime to address those conditions credibly. As a result, it became politically possible for YSP leaders to opt out of unification or the unification regime.
Similarly, like the drowning man to whom a life preserver is thrown, the YSP had little choice in 1989 but to die or to embrace unification, regardless of its costs and risks; the political and economic bankruptcy of the PDRY regime at the time dictated this. By contrast, there was a very attractive, seemingly feasible alternative available to the southern leaders by late 1992: an oil–rich mini–state in which one–fifth of the Yemeni population would control and benefit from a disproportionate share of Yemen’s oil resources. Beginning with the oil strike in Masilah in 1990, perceptions of where the oil was in Yemen—fed partly by dreams and estimates spun of estimates—shifted east from Marib/al–Jawf, the "neutral zone," and Shabwa to the Hadhramawt, an area well within the borders of the old South Yemen. This shift east probably correlates well with the revival of, and increasing commitment to, the idea of an independent South Yemen among southern politicians. The material basis for independence seemed to be there. In addition, there was material as well as political support from Saudi Arabia for an independent South Yemen, the offer of which probably came sometime in 1992.
Another aspect of the process by which centrifugal forces came to override the centripetal ones involved the transformation of the unification process from a non–zero–sum to a zero–sum situation—i.e., to one in which a gain for one party must result in an equal loss for the other party. By late 1992, the balance in the unification regime’s "us against each other and us together against all the others" modus vivendi had tipped decisively toward "us against each other." Al–Baydh and those close to him became convinced that for the GPC to get its way would mean their demise and the complete subordination of South Yemen, its people, and the YSP, whereas Salih and those close to him became equally convinced that for al–Baydh and his friends to get their way meant the end of unity and the national development of Yemen. Increasingly, those who became the "secessionists" came to the conclusion that the politics of the situation is zero–sum: the oil is in the south, and the choice is between leadership of an oil–rich mini–state or an uncertain place in unified Yemen. Framing them differently, the "unionists" increasingly came to the same conclusions.
The results of the relatively free and fair elections in 1993 probably reflected the support of the three biggest parties quite accurately—and that was the problem. The elections, instead of reaffirming unification and marking the beginning of the post–transition future of Yemeni politics, revealed political realities that some—maybe all—of the political leaders were unwilling to accept. The options before them were three: A minority government headed by the GPC; a two–party coalition government consisting of the GPC and either the YSP or Islah; or, the choice finally selected, a three–party coalition of the GPC, YSP, and Islah. Unfortunately, each of the options involved a leap of faith—faith in peaceful, democratic politics. In turn, that faith depended upon political trust. By mid–1993 if not sooner, that trust simply was not there. Public denials notwithstanding, evidence abounds that the leaders of the GPC and the YSP were aware of the hole they had dug for themselves. Hence the unguarded outbursts of candor and the inconclusive discussions and actions regarding opposition, merger, coordination, or something else. They simply did not know what to do (democratically), given the level of mutual distrust. In this instance, at least, it was the leaders, not the people, who were "not ready for democracy."
As a consequence, the election results became irrelevant and were ignored. Without facing the chicken and egg question, what mattered ultimately was that al–Baydh and the leaders with him believed that the great equalizer was a loyal military establishment which was perceived to be as good, if not better, than that loyal to Salih and his colleagues, and that Salih and his colleagues ascribed this belief to al–Baydh and were also thinking in military terms. In the absence of trust, Yemeni politics increasingly came to be perceived by Yemeni politicians as similar to the game in which Thomas Hobbes said "clubs are trump."
By early 1994, the situation was one in which the two parties were leveling serious, undisguised charges at each other. The southern leaders were publicly questioning in radical terms the form of unification, if not unification itself. That it felt politically free to do this, in a way that critics of unification did not in 1990–91, probably indicates the degree to which unification had lost its cachet and not met expectations. Two sets of rump bodies, the one in San’a and the other in Aden, were acting in place of the formal institutions of unified Yemen. In addition, each of the two parts of Yemen were separately conducting international relations against, not just independently of, the other; each was seeking external support against the other, thereby regionalizing if not internationalizing the unification crisis. Finally, on the ground, the army of each part of Yemen was trying to protect its portion of the oil patch from the other or to encroach on the other’s portion—i.e., doing exactly what they had done in 1985 and 1987–88 with such explosive potential.
Hard decisions and actions deferred in 1990 in the name of getting on with the formal process of unification came back later to haunt all of the leaders, and to spawn fear, distrust, and hostility. In retrospect, it might have been better to take some of these decisions and actions—e.g., merger of the armed services and the internal security forces—in 1990 and 1991 when the popularity of the leaders of the unification regime and of unification itself were at their peak. Perhaps the power-sharing formula based on parity for the transition period was a mistake, creating a fiction that would be harder to undo later than to have faced the apparent reality of political inequality in 1990. But this is speculation on paths not taken, paths that, even if available—and this is by no means certain—had their own pitfalls.
Problems and Prospects
"Something wonderful has happened in Yemen," the The New York Times rhapsodized in early May 1993—unification and democratization, and both now crowned and advanced further by fair, open national elections. The events of the first half of 1994 rendered this eulogy premature.
Unity and democracy may still prevail in Yemen in the near future. However, to say that the leaders of Yemen chose unity and democracy in late 1989 risks obscuring a possible dilemma. More correctly, they chose unity as their goal, and then chose to do it democratically; the former preceded the latter on the scale of values as well as in time. Accordingly, the question for the Yemenis at the end of the 1990s is not so much whether unified Yemen will prevail—it quite probably will. Rather, the question is how much of the new, fragile, and not yet internalized democracy might they have to sacrifice in order to restore and maintain that unity (See Carapico 1994; Lerner 1992).
With or without unity, the strengthening of Yemeni democracy probably depends politically upon the ability of a coalition government not unlike the posttransition coalition to preside over, and take some credit for, the development and growing prosperity of Yemen. The trick will be to match North Yemen’s success from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and to do this without the peculiar benefits of remittances is now probably a thing of the past. In this less generous environment, the political leaders will have to make the hard choices required by prevailing conditions at the same time that they will be competing for the support of people whose pain and fears are shaped by those conditions. Will the Yemeni leaders be able to meet these contradictory demands? Will leaders who were not ready for democracy in 1994 be ready for it in the coming years?
With or without Yemeni unification or democracy, questions of further socioeconomic development in Yemen and the application of oil and gas revenues to that goal over the next quarter century turn largely on whether the political leadership is able to minimize waste and corruption, resist the temptation to borrow excessively against future revenues, and hold to the stated gospel of agricultural development and light industry. Thus far at least, Yemen’s entrance into the oil age has been for the most part cautious and prudent, but this age is just starting and over time oil has intoxicated and seduced seemingly reasonable leaders in Mexico, Nigeria, Algeria, and other developing nations.
There is also the question of how much oil and gas there is—in Marib/al-Jawf, Shabwa, the former neutral zone, and the Hadhramawt—to be cautious and prudent about. Enough to fuel Yemen’s development for a generation? For decades into the next century? Recoverable oil and gas reserves may prove to be considerably more than those verified as of the mid-1990s; production of the equivalent of one million b/d of oil early in the next decade is not an unreasonable projection. Even so, this would not leave a big margin for error in pursuit of self-sustaining development. Accordingly, Yemen can ill afford to make too many big mistakes on the path to this goal.
Finally, mention of future development in Yemen leads to questions of the uses to which oil revenues will be put. Unlike the remittance economy of the 1970s and most of the 1980s, which had a leveling effect by distributing benefits widely to many people in many parts of Yemen, the capital-intensive oil industry and much of the rest of the oil-fueled economy that are emerging probably have built-in biases toward greater inequality as well as greed and corruption. Will the oil revenues passing through government hands be put to the good use of Yemeni society as a whole, or be used and even squandered by and for the few? Will state and polity prove strong enough and so structured as to favor the broad distribution of benefits? And with unity, will the egalitarianism of the ideology that for two decades informed the southern part of Yemen, and the degree of order, organization, and honesty that seems to have marked its public life, tip the balance in that direction? Answers to these questions should begin to emerge by the year 2000.
Endnotes
Note 1: This sort of change is predicted by the theory of nation–building based on communications theory (see Deutsch 1966). Back.
Note 2: There for research, I witnessed this process in the two parts of Yemen between late May and mid–July 1990. Awed and sobered by it all, my thoughts often turned for analogy to the time between the adoption and the implementation of the U.S. Constitution in the late eighteenth century. The number of things, large and small, momentous and mundane, that had to be rethought and redone was simply staggering, in the private and mixed sectors as well as the public sector. For an analysis of Yemeni politics, based on a visit to San’a and Aden in June 1990, see Hudson 1991. Back.
Note 3: Most of the remaining 20 percent of the seats were won by "independents," although the Ba’th Party did take several of them. For an early analysis of the election results, see Carapico 1994. Back.
Note 4: Concern about access suddenly crystallized at the end of the 1980s as it became apparent to some leaders in the north that the YAR’s oil reserves were growing more slowly than those of the PDRY and as predictions of the bounty of the neutral zone grew to exceed the combined reserves of both Yemens. These leaders saw as potentially destabilizing a population ratio of more than 3:1 for the YAR to the PDRY set against an oil reserve ratio of 1:3:5 for the YAR, the PDRY, and the neutral zone. They concluded that the Yemens should act now to unite before the YAR attempted to get "our fair share" and the PDRY acted to keep "what’s ours." Back.
Note 5: For another analysis of the descent into civil war, one takinga somewhat different approach to arrive at similar conclusions, see Hudson 1995. Back.
Note 6: For example, Abd al–Rahman Ali al–Jifri and his League of the Sons of Yemen were throwbacks to the Federation of South Arabia days and Abdulla al–Asnag had been the leader of the Front For the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY), the movement that lost out at independence in 1967 to the NLF, the predecessor of the YSP. Less dramatic, such northern political stalwarts as Shaykh Mujahid Abu Shuwarib and Shaykh Sinan Abu Luhum simply withdrew from the fray in disgust. Back.
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