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Jarallah 'Umar was assassinated in 2002.
Yemeni politician shot dead
BBC, 28 December 2002
The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar
by Sheila Carapico, Lisa Wedeen and Anna Wuerth
Obituary (British Yemeni Society journal)
Obituary (The Guardian, 4 February 2003)
A short autobiography
EARLY LIFE:
I was born in a village in Yemen in 1942 and life - economically and socially - suffered from stagnation in circumstances generated by the Second World War. Our life in the village, after the death of my father when I was six months old, depended on my mother’s work. Schools were not plentiful. And to the extent that there was learning, it was Islamic fiqh, rather than modern education to which we were exposed. There were few cars and no electricity. And Yemen’s economy relied on sheep herding and subsistence farming, with little in the way of exports. The Imam focused on the struggle with the British in the South and on protecting the autonomy of his state; he therefore closed North Yemen’s doors to the outside world.
In the 1950s I went to a school in Dhamar to study Zaydi fiqh there. It was during that time that I began to have contact with the political opposition. This political opposition was not organised into political parties, but rather was centred on important political personalities who tended to be from members of the intelligentsia - many of them Hashemites or judges.
THE 1960s AND 1970s:
In 1962, the revolution occurred and the Royalists were defeated - ushering in the beginning of the republican period. The lives of people changed in the aftermath of the revolution. I went to a modem high school in Sana’a. Students returning from Egypt and Syria influenced our understandings of modernity and of Arab nationalism - particularly its Nasirist version. Political parties, such as the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Ba’th, and the Communists began to organise cadres, and I became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1962. In the 1960s there were struggles in Yemen between Republicans and Royalists. Egypt, the Soviet Union, and China supported the Republicans. Saudi Arabia supported the Royalists, as did, to some extent the West. During this time of competition between Egypt and other countries, we practised politics in secret because Egypt - whose leaders were the de facto rulers in Yemen - did not permit political parties in Egypt or in Yemen.
In the South, there was an armed struggle against the presence of the British. This armed struggle was under the leadership of a branch of the Arab Nationalist Movement (our colleagues in the South). These allies formed the National Liberation Front that eventually expelled the British from Aden.
Developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the subsequent June 1967 defeat led to Egypt’s departure from Yemen and the transformation in party politics away from Arab nationalist priorities towards leftist and regional emphases.
After the South became independent. the National Front ruled there. In the North, new battles ensued after the Egyptian military’s withdrawal.
I was an officer in the police academy but participated in clandestine party politics during the days of Egyptian rule - which got me fired from the academy. During those days we also constituted a new political party called the Democratic Revolutionary Party. The radical administration in the South was close to us politically.
There was a conflict among Republicans - between the rightists represented by people like al-Iryani and senior officers, on the one hand, and the leftists many of whom were Marxists, on the other. I was in the very heart of that conflict as a leftist. We initiated a battle in Sana’a, but lost. Many of us were imprisoned. I spent three years in jail (from 1968 until 1971) during which time we tried to organise people in prison and encourage them to join the party. The first year in prison was the hardest. We were shackled at the ankles and reading materials were forbidden. One of the most difficult aspects of being in prison was the fear that we’d be sentenced to death - and some prisoners were executed.
Despite the difficulties leftists faced in those years, the left remained strong and influential. After we were released from prison, I became part of the armed struggle against the regime ruling in Sana’a, a struggle influenced by the politics and military strategies of both the Vietnamese and Che Guevara. We tried to conquer the regime from the countryside, as had been accomplished in Asia. The Soviet Union was allied with the South that supported us, but the Soviet Union did not support the armed struggle in the North. The Soviet Union favoured the status quo. in which the South would remain south, the North, north
Our hopes were to unite the North and South under the leadership of the Yemeni Socialist Party in the South. I remember that it was during that stage that General Giap, who was a leader in the Vietnam War, visited Aden. We were living in Aden and directing the resistance in the North. We described our experience and told him proudly that we had waged an armed struggle like the Vietnamese, that we would win, and that we’d manage to control 12,000 square kilometres of territory. He said, "I urge you to rethink this: the situation in Yemen differs from the situation in Vietnam. The conditions of armed struggle in Vietnam are not those in Yemen. We have a national war. You have a civil war. A civil war is hard to win." Moreover, the backing that we depended on -from the South-wasn’t powerful like the backing of Vietnam (from places like China). That encounter prompted me to reconsider our situation.
In the early 1970s, the left had different political movements in the North and the South. We unified into one party -the Yemeni Socialist Party-in 1978 and constituted a single leadership, but we did so, of course, in secret. These were exceptional circumstances, in many ways similar to the situation in Vietnam (despite the differences to which Giap pointed): the Party governed in the South and participated in armed struggle in the North. Our goal was to unify Yemen. We had one Politbureau. I was chosen as the First Secretary of the Northern Branch of the party in 1979. I was also the person responsible for the NDF (National Democratic Front) in the North [NOTE: The NDF led the leftist insurgency in North Yemen - with South Yemen’s support - between 1976 and 1982.]
At that time, there were also struggles within the party. There were those who supported the fighting in the North and those who did not. There was also a struggle for political control, for the seat of power. In addition, there were conflicts between leftists and rightists. and between those who looked towards China for ideological inspiration and financial support and those who were oriented towards the Soviet Union. Salamayn (President of the PDRY during the 1970s until his execution in June 1978) was supported by China. Salamayn died, of course, and the wing that was allied with the Soviet Union won. Despite the changes within the party, the armed struggle in the North continued. By 1982, however, the Soviet Union was placing increased pressure on the South to stop supporting armed resistance in the North. The regime in the South could not afford to subsidise us, and these circumstances led to an agreement between the governments of the North and the South to cease hostilities in the Yemen Arab Republic. The South discontinued its support, and this influenced my own thinking. forcing me to question the merit of this decision.
Those who were victorious over Salamayn became increasingly divided among themselves in 1985, and these divisions between Ali Nasir and Ali Antar, on the one hand, and Abd al-Fatah Isma’il, on the other, culminated in the killings of January 13, 1986.
JANUARY 1986:
The January events exemplified a struggle for the seat of power; they were also a product of conflicts over ideological commitments, interests, and regional affiliations. We became part of that struggle in these explosive days, even though many of us (from the North) were against the fighting
Ali Nasir Muhammad was from Abyan and managed to galvanise factions from there. Abd al-Fatah Isma’il’s support came primarily from Lahaj in the South, and he was able to mobilise troops from that region. Ideologically, Ali Nasir supported a politically pragmatic program with some economic liberalisation, whereas Abd al-Fatah was more radical - more of a visionary. I was against this conflict, but I also participated in it on the side of Abd al Fatah.
Despite the victory of my faction, I had the increasing sense that we had all lost. The January events prompted me to ask why there were these constant struggles within the party. Why had such killing occurred? Why had the South stopped its support of armed struggle in the North? I concluded that the problem resulted from the absence of democracy within the party and in our society. There were simply no possibilities for criticising the party.
In the aftermath of January 1986, I called for political pluralism inside the party. The leadership first rejected this suggestion. but events in the Soviet Union, the troubled economic situation in the South, and the deleterious effects of the January events eventually worked to encourage the leadership to accept the call for political pluralism. We also began discussing with the Yemen Arab Republic the possibilities of creating a unified nation-state of Yemen. My role was to support unification but on the condition that there would be democracy -political pluralism and permission for parties to operate.
UNIFICATION 1990:
A unified Yemen was, indeed, established, and political pluralism and democracy were announced, but …
I had imagined a more gradual shift from separate states to unity, but President Ali Salim al-Bayd of the South and President Ali Abd Allah Salih of the North decided on comprehensive unification in 1990.
From 1990 to 1994 - what might be called a transitional phase - newspapers enjoyed freedom to publish, a multiparty system flourished, and free elections took place. Socialists won one-third of the votes and controlled the seats in the South. Differences between the ruling GPC party and the Socialist Party revolved around the nature of the state, the content of the future constitution, and the position of both family law and the role of women in the new polity. The President proposed merging the two parties as a way of resolving the crisis, but I believed that such a suggestion. were it to be realised in practice. would end political pluralism. Instead, I argued, that the Socialist Party should withdraw and leave the regime to President Ali Abd Allah Salih. My opinion, however, was rejected by the party.
The political crisis worsened and threatened democratic practices because President Ali Abd Allah Salih was prepared to use military force. I was against solving the problems between the GPC and the Socialists militarily. I differed from my colleagues, as I’d differed from them before: I was against the war and against secession. When the war broke out in 1994. my position was particularly unpopular with both sides and I left Yemen for Egypt. I returned in 1996 to work with the remainder of my colleagues to re-build the party on the basis of social democracy. I had become convinced that social democracy was the best way to solve people’s problems because it combines both political freedom and social justice.
I participated in the recent YSP congress (August 30-September 1, 2000) and in crafting the new documents on political pluralism and general freedom. The Congress was particularly important because no such meeting had been held in 14 years. Nor had there ever been democratic elections within the party. I think that the party plays an important role in Yemen because it is devoted to building a program that prioritises modernisation and women’s emancipation, and because it combines political freedom with social justice. These are the features that make the party contemporary and of the future. I now serve as the Socialist Party’s Assistant Secretary General.
