Social and Gender Inequality in Oman by Khalid M. Al-Azri

Author:Khalid M. Al-Azri [Al-Azri, Khalid M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General
ISBN: 9780415672412
Google: eb6Pgy1Q0vQC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-15T05:44:24+00:00

War of Dhofar (1962–1970)

In 1962, Dhofari fighters ‘blew up an oil exploration vehicle and snipers fired at Omani military installations within Dhofar itself’.6 By June 1965, the revolt against Sultan Sa‘id’s militia had intensified and a number of tribally-orientated Dhofaris joined the resistance in the mountains of Dhofar. The insurgency progressed from rebellious actions to a revolutionary armed struggle, adopting a number of differ- ent ideologies, strategies, titles and alliances.7 For instance, its title changed from Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF: 1965–1968), to the Peoples Front for the Libera- tion of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG: 1968–1974), and to the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO: 1974 until its demise in about 1976). These changes were due to a number of geostrategic and political factors in the Arabian Gulf and Oman that are beyond the scope of this study. Halliday reported that Omanis who were working in a number of Arab countries, ‘came into contact with nationalist political movements, Imam Ghalib’s group (in Saudi Arabia) and the Nasserite movement... and simultaneously (the) tribal leaders in Dhofar’.8

By the late 1960s, and after intensive guerrilla warfare between the Sultan’s armed forces and the Dhofar movement, support for the movement began mount- ing internally. As a means of illustration, by 1969, all of Dhofar except for Salalah and the plains around it had fallen, and guerrillas were shelling both the RAF base and Sa‘id b. Taymur’s palace.9 External political and armed support for the movement from governments in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, South Yemen (the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen), the Soviet Union and China was acknowledged.10 For instance, between December 1964 and the first months of 1965, 140 young Dhofari fighters underwent a month and a half of training in Iraq, on topics such as ‘guerrilla warfare, automatic weapons, rocket launch- ers, land mines, wireless communication... destroying military installations’.11 A number of educated Omanis from various regions joined the PFLOAG. The movement jeopardized the exploration of oil, which had commenced in 1968. By early 1970 the movement presented a serious threat to both the al-Sa‘id ruling family in Oman and capitalist interests in the entire Arabian Peninsula. In 1970, for instance, it attacked the heart of the city of Nizwa. In the words of Halliday:

the outbreak of guerrilla war in the Omani interior on 12 June 1970 spurred the Shell oil company to urge action on the part of the British... Its extension to the interior of Oman directly threatened the Sultanate of Oman and hence the whole of the Gulf.12

This expansion of the war from the south to the interior of Oman during the late 1960s and the early 1970s increased pressure for political change. In his reflec- tions on the situation in Oman, one month before the July coup, Brigadier Gra- ham,13 assuming command of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) wrote:

we became aware of the great number of people both in the coastal towns and in the interior who had come to support by word or deed the

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