[News] Bombing Yemen as British as Afternoon Tea

[Anti-Imperialist News]

consortiumnews.com 
<https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/14/bombing-yemen-as-british-as-afternoon-tea/> 



  Bombing Yemen as British as Afternoon Tea

January 14, 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The U.K. military’s latest bombing of Yemen comes on the 60th 
anniversary of a forgotten British campaign in the country, Mark Curtis 
reports.*

An RAF Typhoon takes off from Akrotiri on Cyprus to bomb Yemen. (MOD via 
DeclassifiedUK)

*By Mark Curtis* <https://consortiumnews.com/tag/mark-curtis/>
/Declassified UK/ 
<https://www.declassifieduk.org/raf-bombing-yemen-as-british-as-afternoon-tea/>

*U.*K. air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen – who have dared to challenge 
Western support for Israel over Gaza – are taking place exactly 60 years 
after a brutal British bombing campaign in the country.

The so-called Radfan revolt of early 1964 in modern-day Yemen has long 
passed out of historical memory.

We should remember it though, as evidence of how British foreign policy 
is practised in reality – and how we only truly find out about that 
reality once government files are released decades later.

*Independence on Our Terms*

The Radfan is a mountainous area about 50 miles north of Aden, Yemen’s 
major southern port. In the early 1960s, it was part of a British 
colonial creation – the Federation of South Arabia, a grouping of 
sheikhdoms and sultanates established by London.

The U.K. was prepared to grant independence to South Arabia, but only on 
certain terms. Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, the high commissioner in Aden, 
noted that independence should “ensure that full power passed decisively 
into friendly hands.”

This would leave the territory “dependent on ourselves and subject to 
our influence.”

Much of the population refused to cooperate with British plans, and not 
only politicised groups in Aden. In January 1964 tribesmen in Radfan 
launched raids on federation targets and British convoys in the area.

Map of Federation of South Arabia with arrow pointing to Radfan. 
(Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

They were concerned about receiving declining revenues as a result of 
British plans for a customs union across the federation and were 
inspired by the anti-colonialism of Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the 
Arab nationalist leader in the Middle East.

*‘Whatever Methods Necessary’*

The response of the British authorities under the Conservative 
government of Alec Douglas-Home was ferocious. Colonial secretary Duncan 
Sandys called in April 1964 for the “vigorous suppression” of the revolt 
and that the U.K. military be authorised “to use whatever methods are 
necessary.”

The only thing that concerned Sandys was to “minimise adverse 
international criticism” — indicating that propaganda operations, then 
as now, were of utmost importance.

A political directive issued 
<https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-study-in-contradictions-human-rights-and-british-counterinsurgency-in-aden-1962-64>to 
British forces in April 1964 stated that U.K. troops “must take punitive 
measures that hurt the rebels, thus leaving behind the memories that 
will not quickly fade.”

The idea was “to make life so unpleasant for the tribes that their 
morale is broken and they submit.”

RAF Westland Wessex helicopter in Aden during the Radfan Campaign in 
1964. (Peter Bannister photo via Flickr account of Dick Gilbert, CC BY 2.0)

Captain Brian Drohan, a scholar at the U.S. military academy at West 
Point who has also analysed the British declassified files, wrote 
<https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-study-in-contradictions-human-rights-and-british-counterinsurgency-in-aden-1962-64>that 
“the Radfan population felt the full force of colonial coercion as 
British forces bombed villages, slaughtered livestock, and destroyed crops”.

*‘Casualties to Women & Children’*

One tactic was “ground proscription,” in which certain areas in Radfan 
were designated as off limits.

“All inhabitants, regardless of their status as civilians or combatants, 
were required to leave, turning virtually the entire population of a 
proscribed area into refugees,” Drohan notes.

*Please DONATE 
<https://consortiumnews.salsalabs.org/ClassicDonationPage1/index.html>**toCN’S 
WinterFund Drive*

British soldiers were ordered to confiscate property, burn fodder and 
destroy grain stores and livestock. Rules of engagement allowed 
commanders to use aerial and artillery bombardment “to the maximum 
extent necessary” when villages refused to surrender.

In such circumstances, “casualties to women and children must be 
accepted,” the U.K. directive stated.

As part of a British army deployment, which involved the Parachute 
regiment and marines, a small SAS team 
<https://britains-smallwars.com/campaigns/radfan/page.php?art_url=farrar-the-para>was 
also sent in April, assisted by ground attack Hunter warplanes. The SAS 
killed some 25 rebels but lost its commander and radio operator, whose 
bodies had to be left behind.

These were decapitated and the heads displayed in Yemen, an incident 
that caused anger and shock throughout Britain.

*Air Strikes*

Sortie in an RAF Bristol Belvedere the Radfan Campaign in 1964. (Peter 
Bannister photo via Flickr account of Dick Gilbert, CC BY 2.0)

Air strikes were approved in May and Trevaskis suggested sending 
soldiers to “put the fear of death into the villages” controlled by the 
rebels.

If this wasn’t enough to secure submission, then Trevaskis said “it 
would be necessary to deliver some gun attacks on livestock or men 
outside the villages.”

He added:

    “Since tribesmen have been regularly firing at our aircraft and have
    hit several of them, we might be able to claim that our aircraft
    were shooting back of [sic] men who had fired at us from the ground.”

For the RAF, air proscription meant that “villages may be attacked with 
cannon and grenades” and allowed pilots to target cattle, goats, crops, 
and people in proscribed areas, the files state.

British forces had been authorised by ministers to “harass the means of 
livelihood” of villages in order to bring the rebels to submission.

Livestock and crops were sources of wealth and sustenance for the 
Radfani tribes. “Attacks against these targets amounted to economic 
warfare waged against entire communities with little attempt to 
distinguish between civilian and combatant,” Drohan notes.

In one attack, a single Shackleton bomber expended 600 20mm cannon 
rounds and dropped 60 aerial grenades. The pilot reported firing his 
cannon at a herd of goats while dropping six aerial grenades on another 
goat herd, 11 on cattle, eight on “people” — without specifying civilian 
or combatant — and an additional 14 on “people under trees.”

In more than 600 sorties over Radfan, the RAF fired 2,500 rockets and 
200,000 cannon rounds.

There were no restrictions on using 20lb “anti personnel bombs” – 
similar to what are now called cluster bombs – although “the public 
relations aspect” of these “will want very careful handling”, the 
Ministry of Defence noted.

Thus defence secretary Peter Thorneycroft asked the chief of the Air 
Staff to “ensure the secrecy of the operation” to use these bombs.

*Poverty*

Street riots in Aden in 1967, in aftermath period of the U.K. 1964 
Radfan campaign. (Al-Omari, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

As the files in so many other of Britain’s wars in the Middle East show, 
U.K. planners were perfectly aware of the plight of the people they were 
attacking.

The Middle East commander in chief, Lt Gen Sir Charles Harington, 
recognised that the Radfan tribesmen “have been eking out a poor and 
primitive existence for hundreds of years.” Their situation was that 
“there is barely sufficient substance to support the population, 
families seldom making more than £50 a year profit.”

“Therefore,” he noted, “the temptation and indeed the necessity to look 
elsewhere for aid is understandable” – which is what many people did, 
turning to offers from Nasser’s Egypt and the new republican government 
in North Yemen, against whom the U.K. was also fighting a covert war 
<https://www.declassifieduk.org/britains-covert-war-in-yemen/>.

Harington also noted that if Britain “had given more financial help” to 
the Radfanis in the past “the temptation to go elsewhere for the price 
of subversion might have been avoided.”

*Bribes*

Paying bribes to local tribal leaders was another way to secure control 
over the population. Sandys called for the high commissioner to pay 
“personal subsidies” to key members of the council of the Federation of 
South Arabia.

In January 1964, Trevaskis was given £50,000 to pay such bribes. He was 
also provided with £15,000 “to help undermine the position of the 
People’s Socialist Party in Aden,” the most important political 
opposition to continued British rule in the territory.

The high commissioner noted that this money would help “to prevent their 
winning coming elections.” In July 1964 ministers also approved £500,000 
for Trevaskis “to distribute to rulers where this would help to prevent 
tribal revolts.”

With the advantages of airpower and artillery, the British military 
captured its territorial objectives by late July as Radfan tribes 
retreated over the border into North Yemen. Having removed them from 
their homes, U.K. forces occupied the Radfan and continued enforcing 
proscription through air and ground patrolling.

Official figures 
<https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6421a4ad2fdbff000fb023eb/20230330_UK_armed_forces_Operational_deaths_post_World_War_II-O.pdf>are 
that Britain lost 13 soldiers during the conflict. It is not known how 
many Radfanis were killed.

The Federation of South Arabia went on to become part of independent 
South Yemen in 1967, after a protracted liberation war against British 
forces.

*Mark Curtis is the editor of **/Declassified UK/**, and the author of 
five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.*

/This article is from /Declassified UK*.* 
<https://www.declassifieduk.org/raf-bombing-yemen-as-british-as-afternoon-tea/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20240115/c5f37e4b/attachment-0001.htm>