Federation Of South Arabia Research Articles

Aden, South Arabia and the United Arab Emirates: a retrospective study in state failure and state creation

ABSTRACTFive decades after withdrawing its troops from Aden for the last time, the decision by the Government of Harold Wilson to abandon the Federation of South Arabia (FSA) and with it, the various tribal potentates that had aligned themselves with this project in state creation continues to generate vociferous debate. For some, any attempt to configure a modern state from a largely tribal field was doomed to fail as internecine conflict; regional rivalries punctured the illusion of a unified Federal identity, let alone a coherent state. For others, it was a lack of British political resolve as well as investment of the necessary treasure that forced the issue and saw London abandon erstwhile allies to an often bloody fate with the emergence of a Marxist-led regime in what became South Yemen after 1967. Yet just three years later, Britain oversaw the creation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from a collection of tribal entities, a state creation project that continues to endure. In a series of articles written by leading historians of the region as well as former diplomats, this issue of Middle Eastern Studies sets out to compare and contrast the circumstances and context surrounding the failure of the FSA with the establishment of the UAE, the legacy of which continues to shape the politics and security of the Gulf region in the twenty first century.

Failure and success in state formation: British policy towards the Federation of South Arabia and the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACTDespite the apparent similarities in Britain's relationship with the Sheikhdoms of the Lower Gulf and the traditional states of southern Arabia, British policy-makers pursued contrasting policies towards the two sets of territories in the era of decolonization. As regards South Arabia, Britain followed a policy of amalgamating the states into a ‘Whitehall’ federation. The fact that the Federation of South Arabia remained dependent on British backing, and in consequence became ineffably associated with British imperialism in an era of anti-colonial Arab nationalism, fatally damaged its chances of longevity. Applying the lessons of failure in South Arabia, the British were far more inconspicuous in the discussions which led to the creation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Indeed, the fact that the UAE essentially emerged from the initiative of Sheikhs Zaid of Abu Dhabi and Rashid of Dubai, rather than the British, was one of the key factors in its survival. By contrast, the Federation of South Arabia collapsed ignominiously once the ballast provided by the British had been removed.

The North Yemen civil war and the failure of the Federation of South Arabia

The emergence of Yemeni nationalism during the civil war in North Yemen (1962--70) inspired the southern revolutionary movement that contributed to the defeat of the British Empire in South Yemen. Drawn to the expanding war, a steady stream of transnational organizations, media correspondents and clandestine organizations turned South Arabia into an arena of global conflict, with Aden serving as the main gateway to the battleground. The actions of British colonial officials were subsequently scrutinized and criticized by this international spotlight, pressuring colonial officials to curtail military actions against Yemeni nationalists and announce an earlier date for British withdrawal from Aden and an abandonment of the Federation of South Arabia (FSA).

The Nasser factor: Anglo-Egyptian relations and Yemen/Aden crisis 1962–65.

ABSTRACTBritish overnments' relationships with President Nasser's Egypt were extremely difficult in the 1950s and 1960s due to conflicting regional interests. This article explores the crisis in Anglo-Egyptian relations over the Yemen Civil War and the insurgency in the Federation of South Arabia focusing on the period between 1962 and 1965. It demonstrates how British attempts to frustrate Egypt's intervention in the Yemen eventually led to the unleashing of an Egyptian backed insurgency in the Federation and accelerated the decision of Britain to withdraw from its Aden base and the Federation of South Arabia.

A triumph of realism? Britain, Aden and the end of empire, 1964–67

ABSTRACTThe Labour Government's decision to withdraw from Britain's overseas bases east of Suez in the 1960s had profound repercussions for British grand strategy. One of the last colonies to be evacuated was the port town of Aden, located on the south-western tip of the Arabian Peninsula. First seized by the East India Company on behalf of the British Empire in 1839, it became a Crown Colony almost a century later in 1937. By 1963, the British government had presided over Aden's entry into the fledgling Federation of South Arabia, a transitional body that was envisaged as a vehicle for independence. Drawing on the Labour's Party's archives, amongst a range of other sources, this article examines the shift in policy within the Labour government on the issue of Aden. It makes the case that, in contrast to the Conservative government's wholehearted support for Britain's tribal allies in South Arabia, Labour hedged its bets by balancing its policy off between the tribal rulers and the new radical nationalist opposition. By refusing to back the fledgling Federation government, Labour, instead, adopted a non-committal stance that would lead to greater strategic inertia in its policy towards the Middle East during the Cold War.

Hadramaut, Oman, Dhufar: the experience of revolution

When the ill-fated Federation of South Arabia came into being on January 1, 1963, it did not include among its member states the Hadramaut and the Mahra country to the east. It was not difficult to see the reasons for their exclusion. The Mahra territory, nominally under the rule of the sultan of Qishn and Socotra, was the wildest and most inaccessible corner of the eastern Aden Protectorate. Any effective display of authority there by the sultan or the protecting power was confined to the few villages along the coast. Inland a kind of formalized anarchy reigned among the tribal nomads and cultivators. The Hadramaut was a rather different case. Although the land was itself forbidding its very name means 'death is present' the energies and enterprise of its inhabitants had made it relatively prosperous, at least by the standards of southern Arabia. The coastal towns, the chief of which were Mukalla and Shihr, had been the centres of a wideranging maritime commerce, while in the interior, beyond thejol, the broken and desolate plateau which rose abruptly behind the coastal plain and stretched inland for a hundred miles, the fertile regions of the Wadi Hadramaut supported a thriving agriculture and a number of imposing towns, of which Shibam, Saiyun and Tarim were the best known. The comparative prosperity of the Hadramaut, however, did not derive primarily from its native economy but from the wealth accumulated overseas by the large colonies of emigre Hadramis, especially in India, the Philippines, Malaya and the East Indies. The constant intercourse they kept up with their homeland, no less than the steady flow of remittances they sent to it, was in large measure responsible for the country's progress before the Second World War; for this intercourse was the means by which innovations and improvements in agriculture, commerce and transport were introduced into the Hadramaut. What the Hadramis, resident and emigre alike, could not do, however, was to put an end to the constant feuding among the tribes, which all too often impeded or stultified the country's development. Sovereignty over the Hadramaut was exercised by the Qu'aiti sultan of Shihr and Mukalla, whose territory extended for some 200 miles along the coast and another 150 miles inland, to Shibam and its related towns and settlements in the Wadi Hadramaut; and by the Kathiri sultan of Saiyun and Tarim, whose lands formed an enclave athwart the Wadi Hadramaut with no access to the sea. Neither sultan's writ, however, ran much beyond the environs of the coastal and inland towns. Elsewhere the tribesmen, and especially those across whose diyar (ranges) the routes to the coast ran, acknowledged no authority but that of their own shaikhs and the more influential saiyids (or sada), the putative descendants of the Prophet, who were the wealthiest and most prominent class in Hadrami society. It was the great achievement of Harold Ingrams, who first visited the Hadramaut as a political officer in 1934 and three years later was appointed resident adviser at Mukalla, to bring the contentious tribes to conclude a truce among themselves in 1937, and by so doing to reinforce the authority of the Qu'aiti and Kathiri sultans. Ingrams's own account of his time in the Hadramaut is contained in his well-known Arabia and the Isles, one of the finest books on Arabia ever written. His widow, Doreen Ingrams, added her account of their

The Government of Aden and the Government of the Federation of South Arabia v. The East African Currency Board and the Westminster Bank Limited.

Jurisdiction — In general — Territorial — Exemptions from — Foreign States — East African Currency Board — The law of England.

Further palaeomagnetic results from the federation of South Arabia

Rock samples collected from three separate volcanoes are found to have variable stability of remanent magnetization. Selection of the most stable material confirms previous observations of a westerly declination of remanence in these volcanoes which range in age from 5–10 m.y. This is taken to confirm that the anticlockwise rotation suggested earlier for the Aden volcano is true for South Arabia as a whole, thereby affording further evidence of the dilatational origin of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Aden and the Federation of South Arabia. By J. Y. Brinton. Washington, D. C.: American Society of International Law, 1964. pp. v, 81. $2.00. - Federations in the Middle East: A Documentary Survey. By J. Y. Brinton Cairo: Egyptian Society of International Law (Brochure No. 18), 1964. pp. x, 414. $1.00.

Aden and the Federation of South Arabia. By J. Y. Brinton. Washington, D. C.: American Society of International Law, 1964. pp. v, 81. $2.00. - Federations in the Middle East: A Documentary Survey. By J. Y. Brinton Cairo: Egyptian Society of International Law (Brochure No. 18), 1964. pp. x, 414. $1.00.

Federation of South Arabia

Federation of South Arabia

Viet Nam—Laos—Yemen—Federation of South Arabia—Cyprus

The general delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross for Asia, Mr. André Durand, arrived in Saigon on February 13, 1965.