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Soviet Détente Excludes Yemen
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14234 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1988 |
2,818 Words |
| Author
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Avigdor Haselkorn
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In 1986, when civil war broke out in South Yemen--the Soviet Union's most important Gulf ally--Moscow was not visibly concerned; both sides were avowedly Marxist.
On one side was Ali Nasser Muhammad, leader of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), who was determined to improve relations with his pro-Western neighbors. On the other was former President Abdel Fattah Ismail, who blocked Ali's every move in that direction.
What erupted on January 13 and continued until Ali fled the country on January 24 was a bloody battle that left an estimated 10,000 Yemenis, including Ismail, dead. Journalists could not enter Aden until after the fighting ceased and had to rely on diplomatic third sources. Foreigners huddled on the beaches, waiting to be rescued; eventually they were picked up by British and Soviet ships.
What other role the Soviets played is not exactly known. What is known is that Ismail had recently returned from exile in the Soviet Union and, after arriving in Aden, curried favor with the country's top brass, including Vice President Ali Ahmed Nasser Antar.
Although the courts have determined that Ali's guards fired the first shots, few analysts doubt that a coup had been planned by Ismail and backed by Moscow. Since then, Western coverage of Soviet involvement in the PDRY has declined markedly.
It appears that, with the ouster of Ali on the one hand and Gorbachev's new détente on the other, the West assumes Yemen's strategic importance for the Soviet Union has waned. If so, the Soviets were not informed.
Consider the following: In February 1987, Ali Salim al-Bid, the new secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party, arrived in Moscow at the head of a high-level party and government delegation. Participating in the talks was Marshal S.F. Akhromeyev, the Soviet first deputy defense minister and the chief of the armed forces general staff. With him was Col. Haytham Qasim Tahir, chief of the general staff of the PDRY armed forces. The latter won fame in 1986, when, at the head of the armored corps, he left Salah al-Din barracks and tipped the battle in favor of Ismail's forces. Qasim is widely regarded as Moscow's man in the PDRY military because his Fatahist clan supports the Soviet line unconditionally.
During the first week of April 1987, Army Gen. Y.F. Ivanovskiy, commander in chief of the Soviet ground forces, visited South Yemen to signal the Soviets' constant support for the PDRY armed forces. Moreover, it was announced in Aden that Col. Gen. D.A. Volkogonov, deputy director of the main political directorate of the Soviet army and navy, had held talks in South Yemen on April 3. The Soviet visitor stressed the party's role in raising the "combat capability" of the South Yemeni military and expressed "his great satisfaction" at the high level of party political action in the armed forces.
In mid-May 1987, Soviet Defense Minister Marshal S.L. Sokolov met with his PDRY counter-part, Col. Salih Ubayd Ahmad, who was in the Soviet Union on a "working visit." Two months later, it was the turn of a PDRY armed forces political and cultural delegation to familiarize itself with the features of
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