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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.
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