A History of Counterinsurgency by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

Author:Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

LABOUR MUSCLE AND THE GROWTH OF URBAN TERRORISM IN ADEN

Aden was first occupied by the British in 1839. Then its population stood at only 500, but with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, it would explode to 44,000 by the end of the century. By 1931, it had grown to 51,500, reaching 225,000 in 1963.21 Together with the Western and Eastern Protectorates, the total population of South Arabia stood at just over 1 million. With the quadrupling in Aden’s population came an increase in its importance to British imperial strategy. Yet, it was an uneven growth, as the port became shielded from the tribalism that ruled supreme in the interior. This irregular development, recorded political scientist Fred Halliday, “later became the determinant factor in the area’s politics.”22 Indeed, as Ottoman influence spread across North Yemen and threatened to penetrate the hinterland, the British entered into treaties with the tribal rulers. As Halliday later noted, “These treaties fossilized tribal divisions and froze relations within the tribes by strengthening the sheikhs with recognition and subsidies.”23

As a sign of British intentions to retain its foothold in the Arabian Peninsula, the political and military hierarchy in London authorized the transfer of headquarters of Middle East Command (MEC) from Cyprus to Aden in 1960, even going as far as to invest £20 million in the development of the base to house over 25,000 British soldiers and their dependents in brand new accommodation overlooking the sun-kissed beaches of Steamer Point.24 Nonetheless, the dreamy tranquility of Aden as a backwater port was soon to be shattered forever once the merger between Aden and the hinterland completed in January 1963. Huge demonstrations in Aden brought thousands of disenfranchised migrant workers (mainly immigrants from North Yemen and Somalia) out onto the streets to protest at the fact that they were to be ruled by unelected sultans, sheikhs, and emirs who prevented them from reaching the entitlements of full citizenship. Radical anticolonialism backed by the trade unions under the stewardship of the young, middle-class firebrand Abdullah al-Asnag would lead to several large strikes throughout the remainder of the year, which would soon be joined with armed insurrection in the autumn.

North Yemenis lived predominantly in Crater and Sheikh Othman. They were mainly employed as dock workers or in the construction industry. Somalis lived in shanty towns on the slopes of Crater—one of the most infamous being the “Kutcha Huts”—and formed a poor proletariat of unskilled workers earning a living principally through casual labor. A small number of Jews (about 7,300) tended to work in commerce, though most had left in the wake of serious civil disturbances in 1947–48 at a time when conflagration had spread across the Middle East due to turbulence generated by the unanswered Palestine question. Coal bunkering became big business. A total of 2.5 percent of Aden’s GDP was generated through this activity, while the oil refinery accounted for 9 percent. Only local government employment rivaled it at 10 percent of GDP. Because of the passing

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.