Desperation of a Strongman

There are few roads in Yemen, and last week they were all crowded with Egyptian troop convoys headed for the sea. As he promised at the Arab sum mit at Khartoum in August, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser is calling his sol diers home. Five thousand have already left, and another 5,000 are converging on the Red Sea port of Hodeida to await transport. The remaining 10,000 are pulling out of their defensive posi tions in Yemen's bleak highlands, abandoning the Republican-held capital of San'a and the dusty town of Taiz. By the middle of November, according to Cairo's semiofficial newspaper Al Ahram, even the Egyptian political advisers to Republican Strongman Abdul lah Sallal will be gone.

Reign of Terror. Sallal has become a desperate man. Neither Nasser's troops nor his own ragged army has been able to break the stalemate in the country's five-year-old civil war; Royalist tribesmen of the Imam Badr still hold half of Yemen, and are in a good position to contest Sallal's army for control of the rest. In his own camp, moreover, Sallal embarked on a reign of terror in which thousands of his for mer supporters have been jailed and dozens more executed. He has become so widely despised that not even the Yemeni Republican army could be trusted with guarding him against assassination. After two bazooka attacks on his home by disaffected soldiers, Sallal installed Egyptian guards.

The Egyptian pull-out has increased his desperation and turned his love of Nasser into blind hatred. He ordered the execution of his security chief, Colonel Abdel Kader Khatari, after Khatari's police fired into a mob attacking an Egyptian command post in San'a. Most Yemenis, Republicans and Royalists alike, want a negotiated end to the war, but Sallal rejects reconciliation on any terms. He has refused to recognize the committee of Arab leaders (the Premiers of Iraq and the Sudan, the foreign minister of Morocco) appointed at the Arab summit to arrange peace terms. When its members flew into San'a two weeks ago to set up a peace congress, he ordered them to leave.

Blessed Announcement. Sallal feels that Nasser has sold him out, but he is determined to stay in power and fight on against the Royalists. To do so, he must somehow restore his standing with the Republican army, which alone can keep him in power against his many enemies. Last week, in an attempt to mollify his top officers--and keep his eye on them at the same time--he fired his entire Cabinet and formed a new one. Three army men were installed in key ministries. Sallal, in addition to his posts of President and Premier, took over the army ministry and the foreign ministry for himself.

Even his new Cabinet, however, may not be enough to keep Sallal in power. In Cairo, Nasser announced the release of three Yemeni Republican leaders who had been held prisoner for more than a year at Sallal's behest. Two are former Premiers who turned against Sallal, and the third was Republican Yemen's leading judge. All of them favor peace with the Royalists, and all have both the prestige and popular following necessary to overthrow Sallal. At the same time, the three-nation peace mission announced that a national conciliation conference of both Royalists and Republicans will "definitely be convened soon, irrespective of difficulties"--in other words, whether Sallal wants it or not. The announcement, obviously blessed by old friend Nasser, made the isolation of Sallal almost complete.

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