South Yemen: A Marxist Republic in Arabia

By Robert W. Stookey, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982. 124 pp. $16.50

Reviewed by J. E. Peterson

To write a book exclusively on South Yemenor, to give the country its official name, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY)—would be a daunting assignment for any author. Robert Stookey, a former Foreign Service Officer and more recently research associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, has already produced a scholarly study of the north in Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Now, he has written a short but welcome companion piece in his survey of the other Yemen, a country which is even more of a terra incognita.

Brief descriptions of the land, people, social structure, and arts and crafts provide the substance of the first chapter, and the long scope of Yemeni history up to 1839 is outlined in the second. Stookey next chronicles the century-and-a-quarter of the British presence there, while succeeding chapters deal with the independent state's politics, economy and international affairs respectively. Finally, a brief bibliographical essay points out some of the all-too-few reliable sources of information which are available to the interested reader.

Artificial Cleavage

The cleaving of geographical Yemen into two separate political entities is a recent and largely artificial development, but one which is likely to endure because of the radically different experiences undergone by the north and south over the last century. The emergence of a distinct South Yemen dates from the British occupation of Aden in 1839, which was followed by the gradual extension of British control over its hinterland. By the mid-twentieth century, a tremendous dichotomy had appeared between the cosmopolitan and economically developed enclave of Aden Colony, one of the world's busiest ports, and the fossilized Aden Protectorate, an anachronistic group of petty principalities clinging to highly traditional social structures and suffering from widespread poverty.

This was fertile ground for wide-ranging opposition to continued British rule and upon independence in late 1967 leadership of the new state fell to the National Liberation Front (NLF). A Marxist offshoot of the Arab Nationalist Movement, the NLF stressed the importance of "scientific socialism" in building the new republic.

Nevertheless, despite the seemingly unique opportunity to completely restructure the country's political, economic and even social institutions, South Yemen has run up against nearly insurmountable obstacles. Internally, a series of often violent power struggles has sapped the regime's energy and diverted attention away from the pressing requirement for development—not an easy task in a country which is so poor in natural resources.

Diplomatic Isolation

Internationally, the leadership's rigid ideological outlook has served to isolate the country from nearly all states except those of the Communist bloc. Diplomatic relations with the United States were severed in 1969 and never resumed, despite an abortive dialogue in mid-1978. The one sure ally in the region has been fellow Marxist Ethiopia and relations with even "progressive" Arab states have been frequently strained. Closer to home, South Yemen and Oman have been more often than not on the verge of war, Saudi Arabia has been implacable in its enmity, and North and South Yemen fought two border wars in the 1970s despite their declared commitment to unity. The ousting of 'Abd al-Fattah Isma'il in early 1980 and the succession of 'Ali Nasir Muhammad to all three paramount posts—president, prime minister and party secretary—may well augur an improvement in South Yemen's relations with conservative neighbors even as it puts the lie to exaggerated claims of PDRY status as a Soviet puppet.

While Mr. Stookey has been thorough in drawing upon available published sources, the paucity of material inevitably reduces any survey of South Yemen to a patchwork collection of vignettes. The historical summary says much more about the general contours of Yemeni history than it does about local developments in the south. While British occupation produced a diverse collection of books and articles on the area, not unsurprisingly these were chiefly concerned with a few topics of official and/or personal interest to outsiders. Later, as Western access to independent South Yemen became extremely restricted, documentation of the far-reaching changes that have been transforming the country has become nearly impossible. Despite these difficulties, however, the appearance of any fulllength study of South Yemen is bound to be useful in shedding light on this often-overlooked country and in dispelling some of the more egregious misperceptions of its policies. In that context, Robert Stookey's new book is a timely contribution and deserves to be widely read.

J. E. Peterson is Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary.