Page 38 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Abandonment of Aden 31

the lines of the evacuation of Gallipoli in 1916 or the retreat from Burma in
1942.
Having determined upon a withdrawal from South Arabia by the end of the
year, the Cabinet was momentarily embarrassed when, in the third week of
May 1967, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who was in London on a state visit,
expressed concern about the consequences that would follow a British with­
drawal. If Britain pulled out of South Arabia altogether, Faisal warned the
prime minister, Harold Wilson, at a meeting on 19 May, the Gulf would be
subverted within months. Not only should British forces remain, he urged, but
Britain should also enter into a binding military commitment to defend South
Arabia against Egyptian-inspired nationalist attacks. It was an awkward, as
well as unexpected, complication to have to cope with, especially as Britain had
just completed the construction and equipment of a highly expensive air­
defence system for the western region of Saudi Arabia, and could expect
further valuable arms contracts to follow. To add to the Cabinet’s predica­
ment, it was confronted with the developing crisis between Egypt and Israel
over the international status of the Straits of Tiran, an issue in which Saudi
Arabia was more than peripherally involved. Some kind of response, however,
was called for from the British government, whether with respect to its
responsibilities in South Arabia, its interests in the Middle East, or its relations
with Saudi Arabia. All that was forthcoming was temporizing, empty rhetoric
and feeble compromises.
While indecision prevailed in London the NLF in South Arabia was grow­
ing bolder and more dangerous. Its break w’ith FLOSY the previous
November had cut it off from Egyptian support, and to finance itself it had
resorted to armed robbery and extortion, particularly within the confines of
Aden town. Merchants of substance and petty shopkeepers alike were robbed
at gunpoint and forced under threat of death or maiming to hand over money
and goods to the NLF gangs that infested the streets and alleys of Crater. The
same means were used to force the inhabitants of Crater to shelter the terrorists
in their homes and to conceal their whereabouts from the security forces.
Violence was used indiscriminately - against the British, against the supporters
of FLOSY, against innocent citizens, even against children. In the first six
months there were nearly 1,500 incidents of terrorism, compared with less
than 500 in the whole of 1966. The NLF was fairly certain that it had the
British government on the run, and it interpreted the change of governor as
confirmation of British irresolution. When, on Trevelyan’s recommendation,
the proscription imposed upon the organization two years earlier was lifted, the
feeling of certainty became absolute conviction. Henceforth, so the leaders of
the NLF reasoned, it would be a contest of wills between them and the British
government, a contest which they had no intention of losing.
Then, in the first fortnight of June, it and FLOSY both suffered a crippling
blow to their morale - the defeat of the Arab armies by Israel in the Six Day