Page 26 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Abandonment of Aden 13

therefore, would be to devise a formula that would satisfy this requirement and
at the same time provide Aden with both a further measure of self-government
and a concrete link with the federation.
The imminent possibility of such a link, however, provoked a split in the
leadership of the Aden Association and among its representatives in the
legislature. While some members approved of the colony’s merger in the
federation, others were against it, preferring independence for Aden and a
relationship with the Federation of South Arabia (as it was henceforth to be
called) similar to that of Singapore with the Malayan Federation. It was not an
arrangement that appealed to the federal rulers, who foresaw an independent
Aden falling rapidly under the domination of the Yemeni ‘street’, which was
bound subsequently to seek some kind of union with the Yemen, thereby
outflanking the federation. At a constitutional conference held in London in
the summer of 1961 their objections carried the day, and it was resolved that
full self-government for Aden would be conditional upon its entering the
federation.
A predictable outcry arose from the leaders of the Aden TUC who protested
that the merger would subordinate the progressive, dynamic, modern and
enlightened inhabitants of Aden to the arbitrary and archaic rule of the
backward shaikhs and sultans of the protectorate. Before any merger took
place, they declared, the wishes of the Adenis must be consulted, and this
could only be done by holding free elections in which all Aden’s residents, the
70,000-80,000 Yemenis included, would be entitled to vote. It was an argu­
ment destined to awaken an instinctive, sympathetic response in progressive
political circles in Britain. The cry for Aden’s separate development towards
independence was echoed by British liberals and socialists with a fervour and
vigour which must have astonished as much as it delighted the Adeni national­
ists. For their goal was not and never had been an independent Aden. Abdullah
al-Asnaj, the secretary-general of the Aden TUC, had himself publicly avowed
in February and again in April i960 that what they wanted was ‘one nation, one
Yemen and one struggle only. No North, no South, but one Yemen. No
Legislative Council. No Federation .. . There is only one Yemen, the occupied
part of which must be liberated.’ The Aden TUC had pledged itself to ‘march
forward towards our Arab Socialist Society and its unity and to free it of all
means of exploitation and Colonialism’. Independence for Aden, then, like the
professed reverence for the principle of free elections, was a sham. The only
reason why the Aden radicals wanted free elections was to use them as a
plebiscite in favour of Arab nationalism, to attract the attention and support of
the world outside, and to hasten the end of colonial rule. Once independence
had been attained, free elections would disappear, as they have disappeared in
every Arab land, into a limbo from which they would never reappear.
Moreover, as Sir Charles Johnston, the new governor of Aden, was later to
point out: