Word: sallal
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...ruling monarchs, Saud and Hussein were worried that revolution in Yemen might easily spread to their own lands.* Two armies of about 1,000 men each, most raised from Yemenite tribesmen in Saudi territory, invaded Yemen, but Sallal swiftly assembled his ragtag Yemenite army and, with the help of Soviet arms and Egyptian planes, drove the royalists back across the border into Saudi Arabia and Britain's Aden Protectorate. Twenty-five nations, from Russia to Indonesia, promptly recognized Sallal's regime. The U.S. and Britain, trapped between their alliances with the remaining Arab monarchies and their concern...
Meanwhile. Yemen is opening up to the outside world. TIME Correspondent George de Carvalho last week found Strongman Sallal in his San'a home, sitting shoeless on a mattress, surrounded by fellow officers, adding an occasional cigarette butt to the litter of orange peels on the mosaic floor. Sallal offered a justification of his coup, which turned mostly on reminiscences of the incredibly corrupt and backward rule imposed on Yemen by the gross, 300-lb. Ahmad the Devil...
Outdated Qat. Against this regime, Sallal and his friends were plotting for 20 years, ever since he qualified for training at a military academy in Iraq. "In Baghdad," he says, "I was dazzled by all the wonderful things that did not exist in Yemen. If I viewed Baghdad as progress, you can understand what Yemen is like." Involvement in plots often landed Sallal in jail. He spent ten years as a prisoner, seven of them in solitary confinement in a dungeon at Hajjah, where he was chained to an iron ball. His stomach still suffers from the diet, and Sallal...
Still unanswered is what kind of government Sallal will give Yemen. San'a was thronged last week with hopeful advisers-sleek Egyptians, close-mouthed Russians, eager Yemenite exiles home for a new start. Electric light and water went on and off irregularly, and the royal palaces and guesthouses were jammed with sheiks squatting on the floor smoking water pipes, barefoot soldiers with tommy guns and kohl-eyed women who had daringly torn off their veils. Sheiks who spat qat on the carpets were reproved: ''Yemen is now a modern republic...
...Says Sallal: "I'm fighting against hunger, sickness and ignorance in Yemen. That is my goal, and you can label it anything you want to. I want a constitution within a year or two, and elections within five years. By then we should have done something worthwhile." He adds with humor: "Western diplomats should help us-for them, Yemen must be the worst post in the world...