Page 129 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

126 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

No one in power in Aden or the federation quite knew what to do about the
Mahra; and as they were in any case more closely related in origins, language
and customs to the tribes of Dhufar than to those of the Hadramaut, it was
thought best simply to forget about them.
While the political malcontents in the Hadramaut were far from dismayed
by its omission from the federation, which they regarded as nothing more than
an ‘imperialist’ contrivance to keep the traditional rulers in power, their goal
was far from being an independent Hadramaut. Harold Ingrams and the
Dutch Orientalist, Daan van der Meulen (who had been one of the first
Europeans to explore the Wadi Hadramaut), both believed that the Had­
ramaut, with its distinctive society and economy, its sense of singularity and its
habitual aloofness, could well survive on its own — indeed, would be better
served by independence than by association with a larger political entity.
Though many Hadramis thought the same, those of the younger generation
who had been indoctrinated with the revolutionary nationalist ideology
preached in the northern Arab capitals thought otherwise. Some of them had
joined the Arab Nationalists’ Movement, others had travelled further along the
road to political extremism. Whatever stage their political education had
reached, these youthful visionaries were as one in seeking the unification of all
the states of South Arabia in a republic which would afterwards merge with the
Yemen, and perhaps, in the fullness of time, in a wider union of all the Arab
lands. A small and dedicated minority had as their objective the creation of a
Marxist state in South Arabia, linked by fraternal bonds with the other
communist countries, and dedicated to the cause of world revolution.
Hadramis provided the National Liberation Front in Aden and elsewhere
with much of its cannon fodder during the insurgency, and at least two
Hadramis, Ah Salim al-Baid and Faisal al-Attas, were elected members of the
general command of the Front. The constant coming and going of Hadramis,
whether engaged in trade or seeking work, between Aden and the Hadramaut
facilitated the establishment by the NLF of a network of cells through the
Hadramaut during 1966 and 1967, and paved the way for the overthrow of the
Qaiti and Kathiri sultans in September 1967. How exactly the NLF achieved
its success in the Hadramaut in the early autumn of 1967 is still unclear. On 17
September, while the Qaiti and Kathiri sultans were holding discussions with
the sultan of Qishn and Socotra on a ship of Saudi Arabian registry off Mukalla,
the town was taken over by the NLF. The Qaiti sultan never set foot ashore
again. At the beginning of October the NLF took control of the Kathiri
sultanate and the sultan fled to Saudi Arabia to join his Qaiti neighbour. A
fortnight later the NLF occupied Qishn, on the iMahra coast, by flying in men
and arms in an aircraft hired in Djibouti. Using the same tactics they occupied
Socotra Island towards the end of November, and sent the sultan to join his
fellow rulers in exile.
With the establishment of the People’s Republic of South Yemen in the