South Yemen

By William E. Smith

As they listened over their shortwave radios, with a battle raging sporadically around them, the British civilians stranded in Aden, the capital of South Yemen, could hardly believe their ears. A BBC announcer in London told them to assemble in "the northeast sector of the Soviet-embassy compound, repeat the Soviet-embassy compound, from which you will be taken to the beaches for evacuation."

Caught unawares by South Yemen's rapidly spreading civil war, the British and Soviet governments were participating in a joint rescue operation that in a modest way resembled the Allied evacuation at Dunkirk during World War II. As savage fighting between Marxist factions spread throughout the desert country, about 5,000 foreigners were transported from Aden, at the southern approach to the Red Sea, to the former French colony of Djibouti, 150 miles away.

Dismayingly little was yet known about what was happening in the war itself. The beleaguered President, Ali Nasser Muhammad, 46, apparently made a quick trip to nearby Ethiopia, possibly to secure arms and ammunition, then returned to South Yemen, where he was reported to be assembling a force of 40,000 soldiers and volunteers in the Abyan region, his stronghold to the east of the capital. Rebel radio broadcasts rarely referred to Abdul Fattah Ismail, the former President who was thought to be leading the rebellion, thereby fueling speculation that he had been killed when fighting began two weeks ago. Late in the week, the radio reported that the insurgents had chosen Prime Minister Haidar Abu Bakr al Attas, who had been in Moscow since the conflict started, as acting leader.

What seemed certain was that the casualties had been heavy--12,000 killed, according to some diplomats on the scene. By week's end it appeared that rebel forces were gradually gaining the upper hand. But with tribal reinforcements pouring into the capital from the hinterlands, the fighting was by no means over.

The significance of the struggle between the Marxist factions, which has both ideological and tribal overtones, is equally murky. Former President Ismail is a Moscow-line ideologue who caused endless mischief for his more conservative Arab neighbors. He was succeeded in 1980 by Muhammad, a pragmatist who sought closer ties with neighboring North Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, Muhammad was trying to build diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union, a long-term aim of the Kremlin's foreign policy. Western diplomats tended to believe that Moscow had felt comfortable with him and was dismayed at the speed with which South Yemen dissolved into tribal warfare.

In the meantime, with the lives of so many foreigners suddenly threatened, the Soviets cooperated with the British and other Western embassies in evacuating refugees. The Soviets even dispatched a liaison officer to the British royal yacht Britannia; he remained on board as the ship helped one group of evacuees after another get to Djibouti. The vessel had been bound for New Zealand to be on hand for Queen Elizabeth II's visit there next month, but was quickly recruited for the rescue operation. Other British naval vessels, including the frigate Jupiter, were not allowed by the South Yemenis to sail within the twelve-mile territorial limit, but the Britannia, as a hospital ship, was permitted to enter the port of Aden. Britons and non-Britons alike were stirred when the Queen's yacht, its Royal Marine band playing Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia, reached Djibouti with the first load of 350 evacuees of 42 nationalities, including mainland Chinese. In the course of the week, the Britannia evacuated 1,082 foreigners from Aden before resuming its voyage to New Zealand.

Among those escaping were Robert McSeveney, 29, of Los Angeles, and Claude Brideau, 33, of British Columbia, who had arrived in Aden the night before the trouble started. They were crew members of the 44-ft. yacht Wathara IV, whose Australian owner, Bruce Cameron, 65, had stopped to take on water and food after 15 days at sea. On shore, they watched as artillery began to fire from the hills, MiGs appeared in the sky and shells suddenly were landing everywhere. "The concussions sucked the air from our lungs," McSeveney said later. "We thought we were going to die." After 24 hours, they swam a quarter mile through a sea of oil to the Wathara IV, only to discover that Cameron and the ship's dinghy were missing. Two days later, they heard over the BBC that Cameron was safe in Djibouti.

< At first, the two had celebrated their return to the yacht with a bottle of Russian vodka and a case of Anchor Steam beer, but by the third night they knew they had to escape. "Outside, it was a scene from Apocalypse Now," recalled McSeveney. During a lull in the firing, they started the engine and slowly found their way to open sea through the darkness, past a capsized freighter and a patrol boat loaded with armed men. When they finally sighted Djibouti 30 hours later, they both cried, "Thank you, Lord!" at the top of their voices.

Behind them, across the water, the flames of tribal warfare had spread to the country's remote regions, and there was a danger that the fighting might eventually extend to North Yemen and beyond. How long the battle of South Yemen might continue was impossible to say. But at week's end the rebels, with apparent Soviet backing, were trying to cobble together some sort of provisional government.

With reporting by Frank Melville/London and James Wilde/ Djibouti