Competition of Hate

Situated in the bowl of an extinct volcano, the Arab quarter of the British colony of Aden is known as the Crater. Last week the Crater erupted with belching smoke from terrorists' grenades and bullets. At least 16 people were killed and 46 injured in disorders provoked by rival nationalist organizations. British troops put down street demonstrations with truncheons and tear gas, while the rioters threw up rock barricades across the dingy alleys to hamper them. At stake was the issue of who should rule Aden's 250,000 people when the British make their scheduled departure some time before the end of this year.

Hurled from a Perch. Once a bastion guarding the shipping lanes of the Empire, barren, steamy Aden today has commercial value only as a bunkering port at the entrance to the Red Sea (the colony has oil refineries but no known oil). Last year the British bowed to nationalist demands and announced that they would grant independence in 1968 to a South Arabian federation of Aden and 16 neighboring sheikdoms. The concession only heated up the long-smoldering terrorism. From the fanatical National Liberation Front to the moderate South Arabian League, each nationalist faction tried to outdo the other to prove that it hates the British the most and is therefore best qualified to lead the federation. One potent organization, the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY), is supported by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, who has 47,000 troops in Yemen to the north, also foments trouble in other countries on the Red Sea, and would like nothing better than to annex Aden for himself. That would turn the Red Sea into an Egyptian lake, enable Nasser to control the shipping routes to Ethiopia, Sudan and the western coast of Saudi Arabia.

Last week's violence was touched off by the shotgun assassination of one FLOSY supporter and a bomb blast that killed three young sons of its leader, Abdul Qawee Mackawee, who is in self-imposed exile in the Egyptian-controlled part of Yemen. Later, two snipers in a mosque minaret fired upon some of the 12,000 mourners in a street funeral procession for Mackawee's sons; a mob rushed up to their perch and hurled them to the street, where they were trampled to death. Though the nationalists seemed to be maiming one another at first, the surging street crowds soon began blaming the bloodshed on the British. Two British women were killed by a Czech-made bomb planted by a servant at a cocktail party. British troops with tommy guns guarded European children at school and European swimmers bathing within the shark nets in the harbor.

Redouble the Blood. So far, Britain has shown no sign that it will abandon plans to withdraw its 14,000-man garrison--despite the pleas of South Arabia's Foreign Minister, Sheik Mohammed Farid, who was in London last week asking for at least a token British force to guarantee the peace. Plainly worried about Nasser's intentions, the U.S. State Department warned against "unprovoked aggression" in Aden. A three-man United Nations team is to arrive later this month to explore ways to smooth Aden's road to independence. But FLOSY's Mackawee for one has already pledged to "redouble the bloodshed" unless the U.N. mission recognizes his organization as the only representative of the people. Since the other nationalists are unlikely to accept this solution, Aden appears headed for further convulsions.

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