Page 147 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

144 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

into a reappraisal of its own strategy and objectives. While its sights, like those
of its South Yemeni patrons, remained fixed upon the eventual overthrow of
the existing regimes in the Gulf states and the amalgamation of those states into
a single Marxist-Leninist Arab People’s Republic of the Gulf, the Front was
forced to acknowledge that if the revolution did not succeed in Dhufar it would
not succeed in Oman; and that if it failed in Oman, it would not only fail in the
Gulf states but might well collapse in Dhufar itself. Due expression was given
to this reassessment at the third congress of PFLOAG at Rakhyut in June
1971. At the close of the congress a communique was issued which, although
packed with the usual verbiage about imperialism, capitalism, feudalism,
proletariats, peasantry and the like, indicated quite clearly that the Front was
drawing in its horns. The Marxist—Leninist content in its programme was
played down, the task of raising up local revolts everywhere in Oman and the
Gulf states was conceded to be the responsibility of other ‘progressive’ forces
(in other words, it was beyond the capacity of PFLOAG), and a plaintive
appeal was made to the British people to stop their government from aiding the
sultan of Oman in his efforts to defeat the Front.
Over the next six months PFLOAG was forced to reduce its pretensions
even further. Its counterpart in Oman, NDFLOAG, proved to be a damp
squib. Although its members had received guerrilla training in Iraq and South
Yemen, in PLO camps in Jordan, and even in China, they were seemingly
incapable of striking a blow against the Omani government. In December 1971
NDFLOAG acknowledged its impotence by merging with PFLOAG to form
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf, a merger
which, thankfully, involved no change in the ponderous acronym by which the
older organization was known.
The first move in the Omani counter-offensive in Dhufar was made in the
spring of 1972 when a strongpoint was established at Sarfait, hard by the
border with South Yemen, with the object of interdicting the movement
of supplies across the border to the guerrillas. The operation was not a
conspicuous success: before long the garrison at Sarfait was under siege by
PFLOAG, and its sole accomplishment in the months that followed was
to hold on to its position. To prove that its ability to move anywhere
within Dhufar was undiminished, PFLOAG shortly after the start of
the monsoon season assaulted the town of Mirbat in eastern Dhufar with a
hundred men. The gesture proved a disastrous miscalculation. Omani troops
closed in on the guerrillas, cut them off and killed more than seventy. Though a
hard core of guerrillas remained in eastern Dhufar for the next three years,
occasionally making isolated raids or laying mines, the defeat at Mirbat
effectively destroyed the Front’s capacity to undertake operations in the area
again.
To recover the face it had lost at Mirbat (and to impress the representatives
of a far more formidable guerrilla movement, the National Liberation Front 0