Brigadier General Al-Habili Talks [Archives:2000/50/Reportage]

On the 30th Nov, Yemeni people celebrated the thirty third anniversary of independence of the southern part of Yemen from Britain.
On this occasion, we have hosted on of the most important political and military characters whos been refusing to talk about himself and his role during the revolution for independence. We tried hard to persuade him to write about one of the most important stages of the 14th Oct. revolution. He finally agreed and started writing about the time before independence.
Brigadier General, Al.sharif Haider Bin Saleh Al. Habili , was born in Mareb in 1940, married and has four children, finished high school at Jabal Hadid college in Aden then joined the Jordanian military academy in 1956. Did many courses in Jordan and Britain in 1962 and 1963 then he got masters in military science in 1965 from Britain. For a while, he worked for the British army working in Western Germany.
The following are some of the posts hes had in the south before independence.
– commander of the eastern region, 1960,
– commander of the western region, 1963,
– commander of the union guard, 1965
– chief of staff, 1967,
– leader of peace forces, 1981- 1994.

These were forces opposing the regime in the south of Yemen and were situated in Saudi Arabia.
After he returned to Yemen in 1994, he was assigned for the post of consultant of the president in 1995, then a member of the consultative council in 1997.
At the beginning, I would like to thank the reporter of the Yemen Times for giving me the chance to talk about this great occasion, which is the 33rd anniversary of independence, that took place on November 30, 1967. As we start the holy month of Ramadan, we celebrate the 33rd anniversary of independence of the southern part of our country on Nov 30 1967 from the British rule. Independence crowned a long march of struggle against British occupation for the southern part of Yemen. Undoubtedly, struggle against British occupation started on the first day Aden was occupied, 18-19 January 1839, a battle took place in which 139 Yemeni were killed while the losses of the British troops were 15 people, some killed and the other injured. Clearly, the revolution on the 14th October in the southern part was an extension of the revolution on the 26th September in the northern part and greatly affected by the revolution led by Jamal Abdul.Nasser in Egypt in 1952. The main goal of both revolutions, the 14th Oct. and 26th Sep. has been the unity of the two parts which indeed what happened

Reasons forced the British to leave the southern part
The reasons behind that were the increasing rejection to British occupation and the balance that has to be maintained between eastern and western camps. The withdrawing party should prepare the ground for the coming one and indeed that what happened, Britain left Aden and went to the Gulf countries under the excuse of fighting communism in the Gulf leaving the southern part of Yemen to be ruled by the communists.
There were three parties in the south competing with each other to receive power from the British, union of the Arabic south, liberation front and national front. Britain had to decide which of those parties to be given the power without harming its future interests in the region then it chose to pass power to the national front and rejected both of the rest because the union wasnt prepared to have power and Britain wanted to get away with the commitments it made of paying an annual amount of money to cover some expenses of the union and keeping a sea force to defend Aden against any external aggression. The liberation front was supported by Egypt and had strong ties with it, that what made Britain work very hard to keep it away from power and even fight it. For all those reasons, power was passed to the national front. Measures taken by the front after receiving power were to make the whole country pro-Communist and implement Marxism in a Moslem country. On its way to do that, the front brutally killed many, filled jails with many others and showed severe aggression to Islam. All that made many people leave the country. What happened on the 3rd Jan 1986 was the start of the end of that regime until the actual came on the 7th Jul 1994.
Revolutions on the 26th Sep and 14th Oct have had many accomplishments that are not easy to list down, the most important of which are having the British leave Aden and the unity accomplished on 22nd May 1990. During the last 38 years, the country has witnessed development in all fields and as the president Ali Abdullah Saleh said that the revolution has moved Yemeni people from the dark centuries into the third millennium and created new values and foundation to move into the twenty first century.
Now, we are at a stage where we have to forget our conflicts and start serious and sincere work according to certain priorities to build a democratic state of law and order that respects human rights.

——
[archive-e:50-v:2000-y:2000-d:2000-12-11-p:./2000/iss50/report.htm]