National Front for the Liberation of South Yemen

views updated May 23 2018

NATIONAL FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF SOUTH YEMEN

an association opposed to britain's role in south yemen in the 1960s.

The National Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (NLF), an association of seven organizations, first met in Sanʿa (capital of North Yemen) in 1963 to discuss strategies against the British position in South Yemen; three additional groupings joined later. Its intellectual and ideological origins lie primarily with the Arab national movement. It differed from other groups in two respects: its members agreed on the necessity of military action, and its primary popular base lay in the Protectorates rather than Aden. In 1967 the British turned over South Yemen to the NLF. In 1978 the NLF was recast as the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) and governed South Yemen (PDRY) until the merger with North Yemen in 1990. At that point, it became the second-most important party in the united state, and the major alternative and opposition party to the government of Ali Abdullah Salih. The frictions between the two constituent "regions" continue to be represented in the policies and personalities of their respective leaders and parties in the united state; the YSP continues to have its primary base of support in the old South.

Bibliography

Carapico, Sheila. Civil Society in Yemen. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Dresch, Paul. A History of Modern Yemen. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Gause, F. Gregory. Saudi-Yemeni Relations, 1962–1982. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Halliday, Fred. Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Joffe, E. G. H., et al. Yemen Today: Crisis and Solutions. London: Caravel Press, 1997.

Mundy, Martha. Domestic Government: Kinship, Community and Polity in North Yemen. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

Al-Suwaidi, Jamal, ed. The Yemeni War of 1994. London: Saqi Books, 1995.

Wenner, Manfred. The Yemen Arab Republic: Development and Change in an Ancient Land. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991.

manfred w. wenner

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa Wenner, Manfred W.

Front for the Liberation of South Yemen

views updated Jun 08 2018

FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF SOUTH YEMEN

South Yemeni independence movement.

The Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY) was a political party established in January 1966 in Britain's Aden Crown Colony and the Protectorate States. The party was forged under heavy Egyptian pressure from a combination of the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Organization for the Liberation of the Occupied South (OLOS) in an effort by Egypt to sustain its influence over the course of the campaign against the continued British presence in southern Arabia. When the NLF quickly backed out, FLOSY became nothing more than a renamed OLOS and the political property of Abdullah Ali Asnaj and Abd alQawi Makawi. The NLF successfully fought FLOSY to succeed the British in an independent South Yemen in 1967. FLOSY then became a vehicle for opposition from abroad to the regime, and it remained so with decreasing relevance from the late 1960s through the 1970s.

See also Organization for the Liberation of the Occupied South.