Murder and Menace

Double deaths in a crisis zone

Even for the Arabian peninsula, where the art of politics still involves tribal feuds, intrigue, murder and bloody coups, it was an extraordinary week: within 48 hours the Presidents of both North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic) and South Yemen (the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen) were killed. The double deaths mean political instability for the two neighboring states at the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Both countries are strategically important for they can control access to the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, through which pass tankers carrying 60% of the oil used by Western Europe and Israel.

The violence began in San'a, the sleepy capital of increasingly prosperous North Yemen, which is heavily subsidized by Saudi Arabia. North Yemen had been taking tentative steps toward union with the Marxist regime in impoverished South Yemen, which was a British colony until leftist insurgents gained its freedom in 1967. Seeking to kindle the spirit of friendship, North Yemen's President Ahmed Hussein Ghashmi, 37, prepared to welcome an envoy sent by his South Yemen counterpart, Salem Robaye Ali, 43. Unknown to the visiting diplomat, however, his black leather briefcase, which actually contained Robaye Ali's proposals for a possible merger of the two states, had somehow been switched with one that contained a bomb. When the envoy opened the case in Ghashmi's office, the explosion killed both men.

Blaming South Yemen for the murder, North Yemen immediately broke off relations. President Robaye Ah', however, had nothing to do with the assassination. The man behind the bomb, Western and Arab observers suspect, may have been Robaye Ali's longtime rival, Abdel Fattah Ismail, 38, an ardently pro-Soviet member of South Yemen's Presidential Council.

Scarcely were relations with the North broken when South Yemenite "People's Militia" and troops loyal to Ismail attacked the presidential palace in Aden and overwhelmed Robaye Ali's army guard. Ismail was left in control after the hapless President was shot by a firing squad.

Robaye Ali and Ismail had bitterly differed on recent policy issues. Ismail opposed unification unless the North turned Marxist. He also approved the strong influence of Moscow and Havana on South Yemen. Robaye Ali wanted to keep Aden's diplomatic options more open; seeking better relations with the West, he sent "warm greetings" to Jimmy Carter.

The two rivals also disagreed about South Yemen's role in the Horn of Africa. Robaye Ali, who had ordered 1,000 paratroopers to assist Ethiopia against Somalia in the Ogaden, did not want to use his soldiers against guerrillas in the breakaway province of Eritrea. Ismail did.

The ascendancy of the fanatic Marxist Ismail, who has boasted of defeating all "enemies of the revolution" with his People's Militia, strengthens Moscow's hand in the Arab world's only avowedly Marxist state. Aden has replaced the Somali port of Berbera as the chief Russian naval base in the area. Soviet air force planes use the former British airstrips at Ras Karma and Muri. Large underground arms depots have been constructed to store weapons that can be rushed to pro-Communist movements in black Africa.

Ismail may need outside help to consolidate his hold over the country. South Yemen's Prime Minister Ali Nasser Mohammed Hasani is described by one knowing U.S. observer as a "self-serving opportunist." Defense Minister Ali Antar, the third man in the country's new troika, is--in the words of this diplomat --no better than "a dumb thug."

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