Page 49 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

42 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

victors, the NLF, promptly called upon Brown to name a place and date for
discussions on the transfer of power. Brown proposed that talks should begin
at Geneva on 16 November, and that the last British troops should leave Aden
on the 22nd. This did not suit the NLF, who asked for a week’s delay. Brown
obliged. Further concessions were made during the talks which opened at
Geneva on 22 November between a NLF delegation led by Qahtan al-Shaabi
and including his cousin, Faisal Abdul Latif al-Shaabi, and Abdul Fattah
Ismail al-Jaufi, and a British delegation led by Lord Shackleton. The islands of
Kamran, Perim and Socotra were handed over to the NLF, even though
Brown had wanted Perim to be internationalized to prevent it from being used
to blockade the entrance to the Red Sea. A sum of £3 million in the treasury at
Aden was made over to the NLF, with the promise of a further £12 million
after independence. Despite protests from the NLF delegates, however, the
Kuria Muria Islands, which had been administered from Aden ever since they
had been granted to Queen Victoria by the sultan of Oman in the mid­
nineteenth century, were returned to Omani authority.
Trevelyan left Aden on 28 November and the last British troops departed on
the 29th. The next day Qahtan al-Shaabi and his delegation arrived from
Geneva and the NLF entered upon its inheritance. ‘It all happened’, Tre­
velyan recalled afterwards, ‘in perfect peace. ... The local boys had made
good. ...’ ‘A wonderfully lucky and fortunate result’, exulted Richard Cross­
man.
That the regime [we] backed should have been overthrown by terrorists and has forced
our speedy withdrawal is nothing but good fortune. It now looks as though we shall get
out of Aden without losing a British soldier, chaos will rule soon after we’ve gone, and
there’ll be one major commitment cut - thank God.

Sic transit imperium ...
It is doubtful whether in the entire history of the British empire there has
been such a shameful end to British rule over a colonial territory as the
abandonment of Aden in November 1967. Yet it was not for the want of ability,
experience or dedication on the part of the political agents, advisers and
governors who served Britain in Aden and the protectorates in recent times
that British rule in South Arabia foundered. Rather was it the lack of spirit and
resolution on the part of politicians and officials in London. A sequence of
remarkably able governors and high commissioners was appointed to Aden in
the thirty years between 1937 and 1967 - Bernard Reilly, Tom Hickinbotham,
William Luce, Charles Johnston, Kennedy Trevaskis and Richard Turnbull -
and if their masters had been as true to them as they were to their commissions,
nearly 130 years of British rule in Aden would not have terminated in the
surrender of the colony into the hands of terrorists. Looking ahead at the end of
his term as high commissioner in 1963, Charles Johnston commented tersely,
‘Frankly, the main question-marks as I saw them were not in Aden but in
London.’ That Britain was not driven from Aden but elected to leave is con­