At Full Flood

Down upon arid Aden last week poured a torrent of rain so great that four-foot floods washed through the streets, cutting electricity and water service, destroying food and--such is the temper of the place--ruining large caches of ammunition stored secretly in many homes. The downpour, the worst in recorded history, delayed for a while the arrival of some distinguished visitors: a three-man team of United Nations observers sent to investigate the difficulties that Aden is experiencing in its transition to independence from Britain in 1968. The visitors might as well have stayed at home. Violence, too, was at full flood in Aden.

Shotgun Marriage. A tiny territory of 75 sq. mi. and 285,000 people, Aden sits at the southern edge of Southern Arabia, a wind-blasted wasteland of undefined borders and unrefined sheiks.

Britain's plans for independence apply to the whole South Arabian Federation, which includes not only Aden but 16 sheikdoms. The trouble is that Aden's link with the Federation was a shotgun marriage that neither the Adenis nor the sheikdoms want any part of once they win independence. Aden fears that the sheikdoms will drain off the relative prosperity it enjoys as a major world port. The sheiks claim that they do not have enough say in the Federation government, and that Aden has too much. The government, a collection of moderates installed by the British, is unpopular with the Adenis themselves, whose sentiments are divided between two Nasserite organizations, the National Liberation Front (N.L.F.) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (F.L.O.S.Y.). And each of the two organizations is at war with the other.

Rather than cooperate with the U.N.'s fact finders, both extremist groups decided to greet them by calling a general strike and setting off a fresh wave of anti-British rioting. From Cairo, F.L.O.S.Y. Boss Abdul Qawee Mac-kawee smirkingly denied that he had ordered his commandos to kill five Brit ish soldiers a day during the U.N. mission's stay: "I wouldn't want to restrict our people. Perhaps they can kill more than that." Aden's bustling shops were boarded up, its streets patrolled by British armored cars, and its harbor emptied of ships.

Running Gunfight. Hardly had the diplomats been installed in Aden's Sea View Hotel--behind rolls of barbed wire and a 100-man police guard--than the fighting broke out. It started in the always-explosive Crater District, where hard-bitten veterans of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers shot it out with terrorists in a running gunfight from rooftop to rooftop. Though there were 277 terrorist incidents during the U.N. visit, the casualty figures were surprisingly low--18 killed, 50 injured--mostly because the Fusiliers freely wielded rifle butts and heavy boots to keep the mobs disorganized and at bay.

Through it all, the U.N. team stayed holed up in the Sea View Hotel. Both extremist groups refused to talk to the diplomats, and they made only two excursions beyond the barbed wire surrounding their hotel, one of them to the Al Mansoura detention camp in hopes of interviewing political prisoners. The prisoners jeered wildly, refused to be interviewed. Instead of fact-finding, the mission then decided to make a videotape appearance on the government television station to appeal for order and cooperation.

No sooner had the appeal been put on film than Venezuela's Ambassador Manuel Perez Guerrero, chief of the three-man team, brought on a fresh crisis by announcing abruptly that his delegation did not recognize the Federation government, and would deal only with British authorities in Aden. The government thereupon canceled the television appearance, and the U.N. mission left Aden in a huff--charging that everything and everybody, including the British, had been against them from the start. Their departure had one positive effect. The general strike was called off, the terrorism subsided, and passing ships were advised that Aden was again safe as a port of call.

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