A Man to End the War

It has been four months since Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered his big new win-the-war offensive in Yemen. In preparation, the Egyptian expeditionary force was beefed up to 48,000 men, and a fresh array of Soviet-made tanks, heavy artillery and jet planes was massed in the north, where the deposed Imam Badr makes his headquarters in a cave near the Saudi Arabian border. Republican President Abdullah Sallal fired his moderate Premier and gave Yemen's tough General Hassan Amri a mandate to take charge.

But the long-heralded offensive was an almost instant failure. The Egyptian motorized column was ambushed and stopped dead in the foothills. The republican tribesmen deserted or disappeared at the approach of battle. The royalists even launched an offensive of their own in the east, captured the mud-walled town of Harib despite constant bombing and napalming by the Egyptians.

Tribal Balance. By last week something had to give--and it was the republican Cabinet. Out went Strongman Amri, and in as new Premier came Moderate Ahmed Noman, who had resigned as president of the republican Consultative Council last December in protest against Sallal's "failure to fulfill the people's aspirations," that is, his failure to negotiate instead of fight. Two Deputy Premiers had joined Noman in resigning, and one of them, Mohammed Zubeiri, had founded a group called Allah's Party as a third force to unite royalists and republicans. The premiership would probably have gone to Zubeiri, except that he was assassinated last month by "persons unknown."

White-haired Premier Noman, 60, believes in the republic but believes even more in compromise. Widely respected, and with friends in both camps, Noman is undoubtedly the man with the best chance yet of uniting Yemen. His first act was to name a new 15-man Cabinet remarkable for its even balance between Yemen's two main tribal groupings, the dominant mountain Zeidis, who are mostly royalist, and the Shafis, who are mostly republican. Another hopeful sign is that only two ministers are army officers and the rest civilians, including six who attended schools in the U.S., France or Egypt.

Noman spoke to the nation last week over Radio San'a, offering the hand of reconciliation and issuing a blanket invitation to "all tribes of all persuasions" to meet with him this week at Khamir, 50 miles north of San'a, in order to achieve "the one thing which we all prize over anything else: peace for the nation."

Overbearing Allies. Noman's peace drive obviously has the tacit blessing of Nasser, who is pained by the $500,000-a-day drain and the occupation of the Egyptian army in a bloody and endless war. In fact, everyone is fed up. The royalist tribes have had their villages bombed to rubble and lost an estimated 40,000 dead. The republican tribes resent their overbearing Egyptian allies, and are discouraged by lack of success in the field. Saudi Arabia's King Feisal, who backs the Imam, would be happy to see the Egyptians leave Yemen and an end to the subsidy of Maria Theresa thalers used by the Imam to bribe tribes away from the republicans and keep the mountain Zeidis contented.

At week's end there was still no response from the royalist side. Undismayed, Noman continued his gentle pressure on the combatants, trying to establish some unity on the fractured republican side, holding out the carrot of Egyptian troop withdrawals to the royalists. As an added inducement to lure the Imam out of his cave and to the conference, Noman announced that he personally would head the republican delegation at Khamir--leaving the hated President Sallal behind in San'a.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.