S. Yemen War Blamed on Party Squabble

A South Yemeni diplomat said here Thursday that the brief but destructive civil war in his home country was prompted by differences over policies in the ruling Socialist Party, the economy and the exercise of authority, rather than inter-tribal or foreign policy differences as recent reports have suggested. Charge d’Affaires Saif Sahal Khalid said that the country’s acting president, Haider abu Bakr Attas, will retain ousted strongman Ali Nasser Hasani’s policy of improving relations with other Arab states.

Earlier reports had suggested that Hasani, himself a Marxist, had stirred up opposition from harder-line Marxists by seeking to improve relations with conservative and pro-Western Arab states such as Saudi Arabia.

At a news conference, the Yemeni spokesman also contradicted some Western press reports that the clash had revolved around inter-tribal conflicts.

Casualty Estimate

Khalid insisted that fewer than 10,000 people had been killed in the two-week street fighting, but he provided no estimate of casualties. A detailed report on casualties will be released later, he said. In Aden, South Yemen’s capital, observers had estimated the death toll at 12,000.

The spokesman confirmed previous accounts of how the fighting started, blaming Hasani for an abortive attempt to assassinate his political opponents in an pre-emptive ambush Jan. 13.

According to Khalid’s account, Hasani invited members of the ruling Politburo to a meeting. As they arrived, his guards opened fire, killing three members.

Abdul-Fattah Ismail, a former president who was reported to be a leader of the group opposed to Hasani and who had returned from exile in Moscow only last fall, was among those wounded in the attack, the spokesman said.

Some officials of the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and Security Ministry were also assassinated by Hasani supporters, Khalid added.

False Statement

He said that Hasani then ordered a false statement to be broadcast over government radio stations which alleged that he had been the target of a coup attempt by political foes, whom he had had to kill. At the same time, Khalid said, Hasani arranged for cars to take him, his chief political supporters and their families to a border city.

The plan was to return to Aden only if the bid to wrest total power were successful. If it failed, however, he would be well placed to flee the country. Khalid said Hasani is now believed to have sought refuge either in neighboring Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

Hasani has been deposed as president and removed as general secretary of the Socialist Party, the embassy spokesman said. In all, 20 of the 77 members of the party’s Central Committee were expelled at a special meeting of the committee last Friday, he said.

During the fighting, Khalid said, about 5,000 Hasani supporters dug themselves in at key locations. Most of them were “mercenaries” who had been out of the country for years, he said.

Aden Back to Normal

“Resistance by them was lengthy,” Khalid said, accounting for the high number of killed and wounded. But he added that Aden is back to normal now, with water and electricity supplies restored and food available once more. He invited foreign residents, thousands of whom were evacuated by British, Soviet and other ships during the fighting, to return if they had business there.

“The situation in the country is calm,” the Khalid said.

The diplomat said that his country’s relationship with the Soviet Union is “strong” and that the new government welcomes Moscow’s view that the struggle in South Yemen was an internal problem to be settled without outside interference.

The Soviet Union, which has important bases in South Yemen, supported Hasani’s regime but also sheltered his rival, Ismail. It remained neutral in the fighting until it was clear that the rebels were winning.