The silent demise of democracy: the role of the Clinton administration in the 1994 Yemeni civil war.

• Author: Parodi, Carlos A.

Yemen is part of the Middle East least in the public eye - although it overlooks the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait and contains about half the population of the Arabian peninsula.(1)

INTRODUCTION

At the same time president Clinton was delivering a speech on 3 May 1994 promoting democracy, democracy was suffering a setback in Yemen at the hands of U.S. allies. The President declared "security, prosperity, and democracy" as the "pillars of our strategy in the new world" for the protection of "our land, our people, and our way of life.(2) However, in Yemen, as in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, democracy comes second to protecting U.S. prosperity.(3)

The following headline clearly expressed the crux of the issue: "Yemen's War, Democracy's Loss." The background for these changes was the fact that "the prospect of a unified, oil-rich, and democratic Yemen worried Yemen's northern neighbor, Saudi Arabia."(4)

Fortunately, the civil war in Yemen lasted less than three months, saving U.S. State Department officials from having to deal with a number of key and uncomfortable questions: How far is the U.S. willing to nurture democratic values and practices in the Middle East? Is the U.S. willing to risk its alliance with Saudi Arabia for the promotion of democracy? Will the U.S. recognize the role of widespread poverty and inequality in the Middle East and take steps to close the prosperity gap that threatens Middle Eastern stability? Is it still in the best interest of the U.S. to have its partnership with Saudi Arabia as the cornerstone of its Arabian Peninsula policy?

Continuing with the established foreign policy of earlier administrations, the Clinton administration has answered "yes" to the last question. An examination of the "silent" civil war in Yemen will show the implications of this policy for democracy in the Arabian Peninsula and the long-term risks the U.S. is taking for supporting conservative governments.

As the self-designated champion of democracy, the U.S. would be a likely candidate to aid the fledgling democracy in Yemen. Clinton in his "Global Forum" speech stated,

The new progress of democracy all around the world resonates with our values and our interests. It makes us safer here in the United States .... Now the greatest opportunity for our security is to help enlarge the world's communities of market democracies, and to move toward a world in which all the great powers govern by a democratic plan .... Our goal is to foster the success of new democracies - and to apply pressure to restore democracy where it has been overthrown.(5)

Moreover, Clinton also stated that the U.S. does have an "obligation to join with others to do what we can to relieve suffering and restore peace."(6) Why then has the U.S. been so silent about the Yemeni civil war?

Had it chosen to do so the U.S. had an opportunity to end suffering, restore peace and promote democracy. The crucial factor is the U.S. response to the concerns of both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who "fear that the socialist and democratic ideas practiced by a highly literate population next door might contaminate the minds of their own subjects."(7) For their part, the Yemenis feel "it is the moral duty of Western countries to help us because we uphold the universal values which they champion: a multi-party system, full observance of human rights, more appropriate male-female relations and a fully free enterprise system."(8)

Perhaps the answer is that U.S. prosperity lies with the non-democratic states that can assure America of a steady relatively cheap supply of oil. Clinton's foreign policy calls for protecting and promoting prosperity, specifically U.S. prosperity. Clinton suggested that for countries to receive U.S. support they must "be committed to growing the economy, to participating in the market economy, and to giving their people a chance to compete and win in a global economy."(9) In the name of prosperity, the U.S. has turned its back on a fledgling democracy in Yemen and formed an exclusive partnership with one of the least democratic states in the world, Saudi Arabia.

YEMEN'S FIGHT FOR AUTONOMY

Yemen has been for centuries coveted by ambitious and rapacious merchants, sultans, kings and queens, super and regional powers. In the mid-Nineteen Century Yemen was divided between the Ottoman and the British empires. The British area of control was centered in the port city of Aden, and the Turkish in the interior city of Sanaa.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Yemen was at the heart of the struggle between regional powers, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, representing respectively the forces of Arab nationalism and conservative monarchies. In 1962 the Imamate in North Yemen was overthrown by a military coup that created the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). A period of civil war followed with fighting between the Egyptian-supported "republican" forces and "royalists" that had the backing of Saudi Arabia. The civil war ended in 1967 when, after being defeated by Israel, Egypt was forced to withdraw and grant Saudi Arabia hegemony over the Arabian Peninsula.

Political and social upheaval, however, was also taking place in South Yemen. British rule lasted there until 1967 when South Yemen became the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), a Marxist state. The 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s were characterized by constant border clashes between North and South. The Arabian Peninsula became a battlefront in the Cold War. During this period, the containment of communism was Saudi Arabia's major foreign policy objective.

With the end of the cold war, new and significant changes occurred.(10) In the late 1980s, the wave of glasnost hit the city of Aden forcing the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP) of South Yemen to begin instituting democratic reforms, such as a multi-party system, and liberalizing the economy. The status of women continued improving as it had since the creation of the PDRY.(11) However, without the patronage and largesse of the Soviets, the southern Yemenis floundered.

Under military rule the North remained more conservative than the South. Domestically, Islam was the state religion, political parties were banned, and internal security was

largely maintained by an active National Security Organization .... The central government in Sanaa continues to expand its authority to all parts of the country, but tribal leaders in isolated areas are reluctant to surrender their traditional prerogatives, such as tax collecting and mediating disputes. Tribal conflicts and blood feuds occasionally spill into the major cities, and tribesmen in rural areas often carry automatic weapons.(12)

In the 1970s, after the loss of Egypt's support, North Yemen's dependence on Saudi Arabia increased. In addition to becoming North Yemen's main source of foreign aid, Saudi Arabia continuously manipulated the tribes' opposition to Sanaa to its own advantage. The objective of Riyadh was to keep Yemen divided.

Unity is a common goal among the Yemenis. Efforts at unity during the 1960s and 1970s, however, were thwarted by Saudi interference. South Yemen, taking advantage of a momentary military...