The coup d'etat and a civil war The Yemeni kingdom's lack of modernity and development led to
revolutionary and
anti-monarchist ideas in various layers of society. The
army also fell victim to dissent. It had many anti-monarchist soldiers and officers with
Republican and
Nasserist views. In 1962, at least four plots against the king were planned in Yemen, two of which were prepared by military commanders. In December 1961, the Organization of Free Officers (similar to the Nasserist
"Free Officers Movement" in Egypt) was created in the Yemeni Kingdom, the purpose of which was to coordinate an anti-monarchist coup. , one of the main organizers of the coup (in military uniform), 1962. But King Ahmad died suddenly, throwing the plotters into disarray. His son
Muhammad al-Badr was crowned in his place on September 19. Badr promised to modernize Yemen so that it could "catch up with the caravan of world progress." The new
government declared the birth of the "Free Yemeni Republic", abolished
slavery, a
curfew was imposed and the Yemeni military police was formed. The coup in the north almost coincided (and inspired) with the beginning of the
uprising and emergency in the south (in Aden). The first country to recognize the republic was the
USSR. Two days after the coup,
Abdullah al-Sallal, one of the main organizers of the
coup and the
first president of the newborn republic, said: "The corrupt monarchy which ruled for a thousand years was a disgrace to the Arab nation and to all humanity. Anyone who tries to restore it is an enemy of God and man!". But Badr not only survived, but was also able to unite a lot of the
tribes that supported him in the opposition to Sallal. He received support from other monarchies (such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan), who were afraid of Sallal's revolutionary nasserist regime and feared that the coup would spread to their monarchy too (Al-Sallal opened the Arabian Peninsula Office in 1963 and openly called for the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy and the creation of a unified socialist Arabia). He opposed the
Yemeni monarchy, but made moves to reconcile with royalists at the end of the civil war. In 1970, he reached a national peace accord with many supporters of the royal regime and established formal relations with Saudi Arabia, persuading it to recognize new republic. Under his rule, a unification agreement with South Yemen was reached in 1972 (which formed the basis for unification in 1990), a permanent constitution was adopted, for example, parliament being dominated by tribal elites. During those times, the penetration of tribal sheikhs into all state institutions reached a new level. All important army units were commanded by tribal sheikhs, and many tribal militias were institutionalized and integrated into the army under Eryani, In January 1973, there were direct reports of local uprisings against the sheikhs and the infiltration of armed agents from South Yemen.
Military junta seizes power Those problems led to Eryani being overthrown in what became known as the "
June 13 Corrective Movement" in 1974 by
Military Command Council or MCC - the Nasserist
military junta consisted of 7 army's officers - and replaced by
Colonel Ibrahim al-Hamdi, the first leader of the MCC.. Leader of
Military Command Council and 3rd
president, he was remembered by the Yemeni people as a reformist. The indirect election system in rural areas, which used during Eryani's period, was suspended by the military junta after a coup, in order to try to reduce the tribal elite's power. Hamdi tried to actively implement reforms within the republic and fought corruption, creating a number of committees to implement them. Unlike Eryani, Hamdi tried to centralize power in the state and actively fought against the influence of large tribes, in all spheres of the country's political and social life. He wanted to unite the
tribal country and eliminate inter-tribal conflicts that were active under the monarchy and during the civil war (but at the same time he disbanded MTA, considering it "an obstacle to economic and social development"), reorganized the
army (he sought to build a strong and modern army, where soldiers' primary loyalty would be to the state, not their tribes), initiated a grand infrastructure plan and sought to educate the population (he allocated 31% of the country's annual budget to education). He called all these reforms the “
Revolutionary Corrective Initiative,” but eventually many of them proved a failure. Hamdi also took steps towards rapprochement with the
socialist regime in South Yemen and steps towards unity. In February 1977, the "
Kataba Agreement" was concluded, which provided for the formation of a Yemeni council of presidents Ibrahim al-Hamdi and
Salim Rubaya Ali (South Yemeni president) to discuss and resolve all border issues that concern the united Yemeni people and to coordinate efforts in all areas, including
foreign policy. In 1977, Hamdi was
assassinated, presumably by a
Saudi agent (although there is still no exact information), others suggest he was killed by
Abdullah al-Ahmar, the leader of the
Hashid tribal confederation and the most powerful tribal sheikh in the YAR.). Ghashmi was a conservative, unlike his predecessor, and advocated rolling back Hamdi reforms. He also was known for his closeness to Saudi Arabia (he once called for unity with Saudi Arabia) and opposed Hamdi's attempts to reduce Saudi influence in Yemen.), in which the influence of tribes dominated. On April 22, 1978, the Constituent People's Assembly voted to dissolve the MCC and appoint Ghashmi as president. In May–June 1978, a uprising began against Ghashmi near the PDRY border, led by
leftist major Ali Abd Aalim, one of the members of the disbanded MCC, which is successfully crackdown: 50 people were killed as a result of the uprising. After the uprising was suppressed, Aalim fled to
Aden and joined the leftist
NDF forces. He became influential already during Hamdi’s rule and used his clout to place his supporters into strategically important positions in the army. On 17 July 1978, Saleh was elected by
parliament as President of the Yemen Arab Republic, simultaneously serving as Chief of Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, in theory controlling all power in the country. But in reality his power was unstable. Few people inside or outside the North Yemen expected him to survive for long, and most expected him to suffer the same fate as his two predecessors. In 1978–1979, several military coups and assassination attempts followed, and a coalition of North Yemeni opposition groups, the
National Democratic Front (NDF), launched an initially successful
years-long rebellion against the central government, with support from
Libya and
South Yemen. But to the surprise of outside observers, Saleh outlived them all. He managed to defeat his opponents, and after 4 years of rebellion, he was able to suppress the NDF forces in 1982 with the support of the
United States and
Taiwan. Saleh tried to reconcile with the tribal leaders whose power some of his predecessors had tried to curtail, for example by bringing the government closer to the
Hashid, one of Yemen's tribal confederations (to which Saleh belonged) and its leader
Abdullah al-Ahmar. The Hashid confederation became to dominate the security services and play an important role in maintaining the Saleh regime: 70% of the command positions in various security sector institutions or the army were from the
Sanhan tribe, which was part of the confederation. opening the way to the
corruption that had kept him in power. Saleh carried out major purges of military commanders to eliminate dissent and prevent further coups, and while these purges had a corresponding impact on the army's performance in the
second war with southern Yemen, they allowed Saleh to remain in power. His seven brothers were placed "in key positions", and later he relied on "sons, daughters, sons-in-law and nephews". Robert Worth accused Saleh of exceeding the aggrandisement of other Middle Eastern strongmen by managing to "rake off tens of billions of dollars in public funds for himself and his family" despite the
extreme poverty of his country. Saleh's estimated current wealth of $62 billion made him the 5th richest person in the world in the 21st century. Saleh managed to reconcile most factions (though he, like the monarchy before him, exploited tribal conflicts and played off those who threatened his power), improved
relations with Yemen's neighbors, and relaunched various programs of economic and political development and
institutionalization. He led Yemen into the oil age. However, citizens felt little benefit from his development programs, since it was mainly the top ranks of the government and the army (including Saleh himself) who got rich. As in the
south, Saleh had three titles that were invariably repeated after his first and last name were pronounced: the brother president of the republic, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and secretary of the General People's Congress. By the mid-1980s, the North Yemeni state, however weak it was, was much stronger than it had been in the 1970s. Saleh was unable to build a strong economy and equality of all citizens, but he was able to bring stability to the YAR. The Saleh regime was able to establish a strong central government, and strengthen and expand the army and security forces: in 1982, the YAR spent 1,810 million
Yemeni rials on the army, which was about three times more than it spent on
medicine and
education combined (580 million rials that same year), and was able to achieve military parity with the South in the mid-1980s. The first stamp bearing the inscription "Yemen Republic" was issued in October 1990. Saleh and his system of patrons became the president of a united Yemen. While government ministries proceeded to merge, both currencies remained valid until 11 June 1996. Over time, the government of the united Yemen was able to integrate and unite two very different economic and political systems, however, the two Yemeni armies were not united. In 1994,
another civil war broke out in Yemen, when the Southerners
tried to separate from Northern Yemeni government, clearly feeling the deterioration of their standard of living and their social status. But the central government in Sana'a has brutally, and successfully, suppressed the separatists and prevented another division of Yemen. the former YAR dominated the PDRY in a united Yemen, communists of South Yemen were persecuted, and the south became economically marginalized: for example, income from resources extracted in the South went mainly to the North, and the capital became the city of Sana'a, the capital of the former YAR. == Economy ==