In Yemen, Moscow’s Is the Only Game in Town

By its own choice the United States has remained a bystander in the tumultuous events that rocked the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), one of the most strategically important pieces of real estate in the world.

Our government has missed many opportunities to keep the Soviet Union from using South Yemen as an exclusive asset in carrying out its political, economic and military activities in neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan.

The U.S. State Department has always found an excuse for inaction, and now rather lamely cites the civil war between rival Marxist factions as an embarrassing setback for the Soviet Union, South Yemen’s chief benefactor. The United States can find no reason for rejoicing, however. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the current power struggle, the Soviet Union will retain a significant measure of influence in this important crossroads of the world.

Aden, South Yemen’s capital, is the main port for ships using the Suez Canal and a principal service center for Soviet military vessels and aircraft. Two South Yemen islands are strategically situated. In the Gulf of Aden, Socotra provides military services to a variety of Soviet forces. Perim lies in the straits at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

The U.S. government has effectively yielded this field to the Soviet Union, the only foreign power with military facilities in the country, despite South Yemen’s vital importance--past, present and future--in our relations with the Middle East, the Persian Gulf states, East Africa and the Indian Ocean region.

Since 1969, when South Yemen--in a delayed reaction to the U.S. support of Israel in the 1967 war with Arab states--broke diplomatic relations and expelled all U.S. citizens, the United States has had no official presence. No representative of our executive branch has so much as remained overnight during these 17 momentous years, despite longstanding and repeated invitations.

In fact, I am the only U.S. official to visit Aden in all that time (I went in March, 1974, to plead for the release of a constituent from prison, and President Salim Rubyai Ali granted my request; at Ali’s invitation, I returned in January, 1978, for a visit). During my 22 years in Congress I had first-hand knowledge of several attempts by South Yemen to improve relations with the United States, starting with the release of my constituent and two other U.S. citizens from prison.

Only once did the U.S. government make a positive response, but it came too late. In June, 1978, after keeping Ali waiting for five months, the United States sent a team to take up the question of diplomatic relations, but the day before its scheduled arrival Ali was overthrown and executed in a coup. The U.S. team, although invited to meet with Ali’s successor, returned to Washington. Since then the State Department has been content to let the Soviet Union have a free hand in using Aden as a transit point in its domination of Ethiopia and its growing role throughout the Horn of Africa.

If the United States had quickly seized the hand of friendship offered by Ali and his successors and established a diplomatic mission, listening post and aid program in Aden, the course of recent events might have been different. Perhaps forces friendly to the United States could have been encouraged in the present warfare.

As it is, no matter who loses in Aden the Soviet Union will win. After all, Moscow’s is the only game in town.