Zimbabwe
I INTRODUCTION
Zimbabwe, country in southern Africa, named after the famous 14th-century stone-built city of Great Zimbabwe, located in the southeast. The country is renowned for the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River and for its bountiful wildlife. Zimbabwe’s population is divided into two main ethnic and linguistic groups, the Ndebele and the Shona, the former mostly inhabiting the southwest. The capital is Harare, which is the center of a commercial farming district.
Inhabited for at least 2,000 years, the region of present-day Zimbabwe was the site of several large African states, notably Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, and the Rozwi Empire. Zimbabwe was the British colony of Southern Rhodesia from the late 1800s until 1965, when its white settlers proclaimed it the state of Rhodesia, which Britain refused to recognize. In 1980 the majority black population won independence for the country as Zimbabwe.
II LAND AND RESOURCES OF ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe has a land area of 390,759 sq km (150,873 sq mi). From north to south its greatest distance is 760 km (470 mi), and from east to west it is 820 km (510 mi). The country borders Mozambique to the east and Botswana to the west. South Africa is located to the south, and the Limpopo River forms the boundary between the two countries. In the north the border is formed by the Zambezi River, beyond which is Zambia.
A Natural Regions
The dominant topographical feature of Zimbabwe is its central granite plateau, which runs diagonally from the southwest to the northeast and is covered with rich farmland. The plateau is marked by granite outcrops and hills known as kopjes and is cut by a narrow outcropping of volcanic rock that runs roughly north to south for about 520 km (about 320 mi). This feature is known as the Great Dyke and is rich in gems and minerals. South of the plateau, the land slopes gently down to the valley of the Limpopo River. North of the central plateau, the land drops to the valley of the Zambezi River through the Zambezi Escarpment, an 80-km (50-mi) wide belt of hilly country that runs from east to west. In the northwest the land slopes more gently towards the Zambezi. Along the country’s eastern border are the Inyanga, Vumba, and Chimanimani mountain ranges. The highest point in Zimbabwe is Mount Inyangani at 2,592 m (8,504 ft), in the Inyanga Mountains. The lowest point is 150 m (480 ft) at the junction of the Lundi and the Sabi (Save) rivers in the southeast. The hot and humid valleys of the Zambezi and the Limpopo are infested with tsetse flies, which inhibit livestock raising, although the far southwest is dry grassland suitable for ranching and cattle breeding.
B Rivers and Lakes
The Zambezi River, along the northern border, is Zimbabwe’s most important river. On the river, in the country’s far west, is Victoria Falls, a spectacular waterfall where the Zambezi flows over a cliff into a narrow gorge. The Zambezi is navigable between Victoria Falls and the Cabora Bassa Dam in Mozambique. A number of smaller rivers, chief among them the Mazoe and the Sanyati (known in its upper course as the Munyati), join the Zambezi in the north. The Sabi River rises in the center of the country and flows into Mozambique (where it is known as the Save River). The Limpopo River forms the country’s southern boundary with South Africa.
Kariba Dam is located on the Zambezi and houses a hydroelectric power station that serves both Zimbabwe and neighboring Zambia. The dam has formed Lake Kariba, a reservoir that is 282 km (175 mi) long and is a major source of fish and wildlife. A large number of smaller dams have been built throughout the country to provide water for cities or to support irrigated agriculture. There is extensive irrigation in the valley of the Sabi, and water from the upper Zambezi is used to irrigate the dry southwestern parts of the country.
C Plant and Animal Life
Most of Zimbabwe is covered with savanna grassland and dotted with low masasa trees. Aloe plants are common in the drier areas, and the low-lying river valleys have baobab, acacia, and teak trees. The higher elevations have grassland and shrubs, interspersed with dense forests and patches of rain forest. Wildlife includes elephants, hippopotamuses, lions, hyenas, crocodiles, giraffes, baboons, and many types of antelope. For the most part, wildlife is confined in Zimbabwe’s game parks, the largest of which is Hwange National Park in the west. All the major mammal species are protected, with rhinoceros, cheetah, and hartebeest being among the endangered species.
D Natural Resources
Zimbabwe possesses rich agricultural resources. In 2003 an estimated 8 percent of the country was cultivated. Forests cover 45 percent of the country, although the logging industry is small and wood cut in Zimbabwe is used mostly for fuel. Zimbabwe is also rich in minerals. Gold has been mined since ancient times, and the Great Dyke contains deposits of dozens of different lucrative minerals.
E Climate
Zimbabwe’s climate is dependent on the rains brought by the Indian Ocean monsoons (seasonal winds). Up to 1,000 mm (40 in) of rain falls each year in the eastern part of the country between the months of October and March; rain levels reduce to about half that amount in the dry southwest. Little if any rain falls from March to October, when the weather gets cold with frosts common in the mountains and central plateau areas. Since the late 1970s rainfall has been very irregular and there have been serious droughts, which have led to soil erosion in some areas and decreased agricultural production. On the central plateau, average daily temperatures range from 7º to 21ºC (44º to 70ºF) in July and 16º to 26ºC (61º to 79ºF) in January. In the Zambezi valley they range from 13º to 28ºC (55º to 83ºF) in July and 22º to 32ºC (71º to 90ºF) in January.
F Environmental Issues
Zimbabwe was among the first African nations to formulate a coherent conservation strategy, introduced in 1987. About 14.7 percent (2007) of the country’s land is protected in a system that includes national parks, wildlife reserves, safari parks, and other areas. The government officially views the promotion of wildlife management as an economic form of sustainable resource use, and the country has a strong record of involving local people in the management of national parks, wildlife reserves, and other protected areas. Poaching is a serious threat, especially to valuable endangered species such as the black rhinoceros and African elephant. The government protects some animal reserves with armed wardens. Zimbabwe shares several transborder protected areas with its neighbors Botswana and Zambia.
Zimbabwe’s growing population puts significant pressure on Zimbabwe’s land. Overfarming and overgrazing have led to soil erosion. Widespread pesticide contamination—especially from the dieldrin and DDT used in tsetse fly control—has significantly affected wildlife and human health.
III PEOPLE AND SOCIETY OF ZIMBABWE
In 2008 Zimbabwe’s population was estimated to be 12,382,920, giving the country a population density of 32 persons per sq km (83 per sq mi). With a birth rate of 27 per 1,000 and a death rate of 22 per 1,000, Zimbabwe’s population growth rate is 0.6 percent. Life expectancy at birth was estimated at 40 years in 2008, down from 59 years in 1985. This drastic decline is largely attributable to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in Zimbabwe that began in the late 1980s. Zimbabwe’s people have steadily drifted away from rural areas to the towns and cities since the 1980s. Still, by 2005 just 36 percent of the populated lived in urban areas.
Harare, the capital, is the center of government and a manufacturing and distribution hub for the surrounding agricultural area. Harare is located in north central Zimbabwe. The second most important city is Bulawayo, which was the capital of the Ndebele kingdom in the 19th century and is now the principal city of the southwest. Other towns of significant size include Chitungwiza, Gweru, and Mutare.
A Ethnic Groups and Languages
Zimbabwe’s population is divided into two major linguistic and ethnic groups: the Shona and the Ndebele. Numerous Shona subgroups, such as the Tavara, Korekore, and Manyika, are traditionally distinguished by region and dialect of Shona. Altogether, the Shona constitute 71 percent of the population. The Ndebele minority, representing 16 percent of the population, speak a language related to Zulu and are concentrated in the southwest. There are small but politically and economically significant minorities of people of Asian and European descent, as well as immigrants from nearby African countries, principally Mozambique. English is the official language of Zimbabwe and is used in government and education. Some of the white population are of Afrikaner origin and speak Afrikaans.
B Religion
Protestant and Catholic missionaries attempted to spread Christianity into what is now Zimbabwe starting in the early 17th century. However, they made few converts until the establishment of British colonial control in the late 19th century. An estimated 62 percent of the population adhere to Christianity or to syncretic religions (merging Christian and indigenous beliefs). Most of the rest adhere to traditional indigenous religions. The largest Christian churches are Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Methodist. Each church draws its following from black and white segments of the population and from across social ranks. There are also a large number of African independent churches. The country also has small groups of Greek Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
C Education
Christian missionaries conducted the first formal education in Zimbabwe, and many schools still retain a strong religious affiliation. With the growth of white settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, schools for the white population were established in all the major towns. Public day schools were initially single sex and were complemented by private boarding schools modeled on those in Britain. As late as 1965 there were only two government-run secondary schools for blacks.
Primary education in Zimbabwe has been universal and compulsory since 1987. With nearly half the population of school age, there has been massive growth since the country’s independence in the provision of education. Education accounts for about 24 percent (1997) of government expenditure. About 94 percent (2002–2003) of primary school-aged children are enrolled in school, but only 40 percent of appropriate-aged children attend secondary schools and just 4 percent attend colleges or universities. Zimbabwe has a number of colleges and universities, including the University of Zimbabwe (founded as the University College of Rhodesia in 1955) and Zimbabwe Open University (1999) in Harare, and the National University of Science and Technology (1990) in Bulawayo. Literacy has increased dramatically since independence. Adult literacy was estimated at 92 percent (95 percent for males and 89 percent for females) in 2005, up from only 39 percent in 1962.
D Way of Life
Zimbabwe has inherited many traits from its colonial past. The white population reproduced the sport-based culture of colonial Britain and has produced world-class sports figures, competing at the highest level in rugby, cricket, and golf. Africans tend to be more interested in football (soccer). The African middle and upper classes tend to imitate the lifestyle of the old colonial ruling class, while younger Africans are drawn to the popular urban styles of South Africa. European-style clothing and housing are fashionable, although traditional rondavels (round thatched huts made of wood) are preferred in rural areas.
E Social Issues and Social Services
Zimbabwe’s white population still lives very much aloof from the African majority, and there is relatively little social mixing. Whites enjoy a high standard of living and control most of the country’s private businesses. The government promised since independence to redistribute white farmland to landless African peasants and began seizing white farms in 2000. The seizure and subsequent distribution of the land are sources of tension in the country.
Zimbabwe’s biggest social problem is the spread of AIDS, which became an epidemic in the 1990s. In 2003 it was estimated that 1.5 million people in Zimbabwe were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. The growing number of people who contract AIDS increases costs of medical and social services, as well as of education and training programs. In response to the epidemic, the government launched a campaign to educate people about the causes of AIDS and to encourage them to take steps to prevent its spread.
IV ARTS OF ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe has important cultural traditions that distinguish it from other African states, notably its history of architecture. The central granite plateau was traditionally home to various Shona peoples who built elaborate and precisely constructed stone structures. There are hundreds of stone ruins throughout the country ranging from large town sites like Great Zimbabwe (after which the country is named), Dhlodhlo, and Khami, to small isolated villages; some of the ruins date as far back as the 11th century ad. The stone building tradition was unique to this area and reached high levels of skill and sophistication. The Shona also have a tradition of carving the green and brown soapstone found in the region, and the carved soapstone birds of Great Zimbabwe have inspired a thriving modern industry of stone carving. Shona sculptors have achieved international fame.
Traditional dance and music, which makes use of the mbira (a hand-held board with mounted metal strips that are plucked with the thumbs) and the marimba (a type of xylophone), were neglected during the colonial period. Since independence, however, there has been a revival of traditional styles, with performers finding new audiences among tourists. Important also in the traditional culture were the stories of the Shona spirit mediums, who provided contact with the ancestors and became guardians of the oral histories of both the Shona and the Ndebele. Illiteracy and censorship by the white-controlled government limited the development of a written literature by black Zimbabweans until the 1980s. Noted postindependence authors include Charles Mungoshi and Tsitsi Dangarembga.
Harare developed originally as a European-style city with European theater and music, museums, an art gallery, and archives. The Queen Victoria Museum played a significant role in developing archaeology in Zimbabwe and a knowledge of the past, while the National Gallery pioneered the appreciation of Shona sculpture. The National Archives remain a major source for the history not only of the colonial period but of the Shona and Ndebele peoples. Bulawayo is home to the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, as well as a number of theaters, libraries, and art galleries.
V ECONOMY OF ZIMBABWE
Before the arrival of European settlers in the late 19th century, the peoples of what is now Zimbabwe practiced mixed farming (raising both crops and livestock), with cattle ranching predominating in the drier south and west. Gold mining and trade supplemented agriculture. The arrival of Europeans led to the growth of the commercial farming sector. Much of the best land was taken over by white settlers, who grew maize (corn) or fruit or practiced mixed farming. By the 1930s, however, the mainstay of settler agriculture was tobacco. Large numbers of low-paid Africans worked settler farms, many recruited from Mozambique. Gold mining continued, but the development of a large mining and industrial sector only took off after World War II (1939-1945), when Southern Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then called) benefited from large-scale investment that flowed into the colony. A wide range of mining enterprises were begun, exploiting the colony’s chrome, asbestos, and copper deposits, and an industrial sector developed producing consumer goods and even heavy steel manufactures such as railway locomotives.
The international community imposed economic sanctions on Rhodesia when its white government declared independence in 1965. This resulted in further diversification of industrial production, particularly in the sector of consumer goods, as local producers sought to beat the sanctions by servicing the demands of domestic and regional markets. After independence in 1980, Zimbabwe joined the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (now the Southern African Development Community), a regional economic bloc. However, the country faced strong competition from South African industries, and agriculture suffered from severe drought for much of the 1980s.
In the early 21st century the Zimbabwean government deepened the country’s economic crisis. Starting in 2000 the government began seizing white-owned farms, ostensibly to redistribute the farmland to landless black Zimbabweans. Many of Zimbabwe’s skilled professionals, as well as most of its white farmers, left the country in the first years of the century. Agricultural production plummeted, depriving the country of its traditional source of export revenue, and debt and inflation skyrocketed. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended aid due to the government’s poor fiscal management, and Zimbabwe plunged into an economic meltdown. Inflation reached a stage that economists refer to as hyperinflation (see Inflation and Deflation). As prices soared out of control, a thriving black market emerged. In January 2008 Zimbabwe reported an annual inflation rate of 100,000 percent. Zimbabwe’s economy ranked as the most bankrupt and fiscally untenable in the world.
A Labor
In 2006 Zimbabwe’s labor force was 6 million people. Trade unions represent Zimbabwe’s major industries and service sectors. All are affiliated with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which was founded in 1981. Employers’ associations are strong in the agricultural sector, particularly the Commercial Farmers’ Union, founded in 1942.
B Services
The service sector accounts for 59 percent of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP). Tourism, education, and public services are the most important sectors. Zimbabwe has some of the most important tourist attractions in southern Africa and is now a major destination for tourists from all over the world. The biggest attraction is Victoria Falls, followed by Hwange National Park, Lake Kariba, and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. The mountains of eastern Zimbabwe also receive many visitors. In 2006, 2.3 million tourists visited the country.
C Industry
The industrial sector diversified during the years that sanctions were imposed on Rhodesia (1965 to 1980), and today Zimbabwe produces a wide range of consumer goods. The most important products are iron and steel, textiles, processed food, and chemicals. Industry, primarily manufacturing and mining, accounted for 23 percent of GDP in 2005.
D Agriculture
Despite the government’s dismantling of the country’s well-developed commercial sector starting in 2000, agriculture remains one of the keys to Zimbabwe’s economic prosperity. In 2005 agriculture (including forestry and fishing) accounted for 18 percent of GDP. The country’s main commercial products are tobacco, sugar, and various grains. Citrus fruit, cut flowers, cotton, and coffee are smaller but still important products. Cattle ranching is important in the southwest. Subsistence farmers grow corn, cassava, and beans, and raise goats, sheep, and cattle.
E Mining
Zimbabwe has a long tradition of mining, going back before European colonization. The country contains a wide range of minerals, especially in and around the Great Dyke. Zimbabwe’s chief mineral exports include gold, nickel, and chromite. Coal is an important power source.
F Energy
Zimbabwe is rich in coal and hydroelectric resources. Coal-burning thermal power stations produced 51 percent of the country’s electricity in 2003, while the remaining 49 percent came from hydroelectric facilities at the Kariba Dam.
G Transportation
Zimbabwe’s major rail line runs along the country’s central plateau between the cities of Harare and Bulawayo. Bulawayo is linked by rail to the major cities of South Africa by way of Botswana, and to the copper-mining towns of Zambia via Victoria Falls. Spurs lead to the Mozambican ports of Beira and Maputo. The country has an extensive network of roads, of which 19 percent (2002) are paved. Harare has an international airport, and smaller airfields serve other cities and the main tourist areas, including Victoria Falls. Air Zimbabwe is the national airline.
H Communications
The state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation operates a national television station and numerous national radio stations broadcasting in English, Shona, Ndebele, and other African languages. The Chronicle, published in Bulawayo, and The Herald, published in Harare, are Zimbabwe’s largest English-language daily newspapers. Both are government-owned and -monitored. Dozens of nondaily registered periodicals and newspapers, most in English, are published, as well.
I Foreign Trade
Zimbabwe’s foreign trade position is structurally unhealthy, in that it typically imports more than it exports. The country’s main customers for exports are the United Kingdom, Germany, South Africa, Japan, and China. South Africa is by far the primary source for imports; other large suppliers are Mozambique, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Zimbabwe’s most important imports include petroleum products, machinery, motor vehicles, and foodstuffs. Chief exports include tobacco and other agricultural products as well as gold and other minerals.
J Currency and Banking
Zimbabwe’s basic unit of currency is the Zimbabwe dollar. Officially, 30,669 Zimbabwe dollars equal U.S.$1 (2008). The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, founded in 1964, is the bank of issue, and several commercial banks operate throughout the country. The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange is located in Harare.
VI GOVERNMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Until independence in 1980, Zimbabwe was effectively ruled by the white population, through a parliament elected by a voting population limited to whites and only a small number of blacks. After independence a new constitution was drawn up that declared Zimbabwe a majority-rule republic. The 1980 constitution guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, regardless of race, ethnic group, place of origin, creed, or gender. Constitutional amendments approved in 1987 and 1990 provide for direct election of the president, abolish reserved seats in the legislature for whites, and establish a unicameral legislature. There is universal suffrage, and the voting age is 18.
A Executive
The head of state and government is an executive president, who is elected by direct popular vote. The president appoints the Cabinet, and two of the Cabinet members are vice presidents. Cabinet members must answer to the parliament for their actions.
B Legislature
Zimbabwe’s unicameral (single chamber) parliament is called the House of Assembly, made up of 150 members. Of these, 120 are directly elected to represent local constituencies, 10 are elected by traditional chiefs (5 from among the Shona and 5 from the Ndebele), 12 are appointed by the president, and 8 are provincial governors. All representatives serve five-year terms, and there is no limit to the number of terms they may serve. The House of Assembly is independent of the president and has the power to enact and modify laws and to levy taxes.
C Judiciary
Zimbabwe’s legal system is based on English common law (the body of law that developed in England beginning in the 12th century) and traditional Zimbabwean law. There is a Supreme Court, consisting of a chief justice and four judges of appeal. Below the Supreme Court is the High Court, consisting of 13 judges, which has original jurisdiction in major civil and criminal cases. Below the High Court are regional courts, magistrates courts, customary law courts, and local courts. These last two tiers are traditional Zimbabwean courts presided over by chiefs and headmen, which hear small claims cases and cases concerned with marriage and children. The executive branch appoints all judges.
D Local Government
Zimbabwe is divided into eight provinces and the cities of Harare and Bulawayo, which have provincial status. Each of these units is governed by a provincial council and a provincial governor. The powers of the provincial administrations are closely circumscribed by the central government. Beneath the provincial councils are dozens of district councils, rural councils, town councils, and municipal councils. At the lowest level of administration are village development councils and ward development councils.
E Political Parties
Zimbabwe’s dominant political party is the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). ZANU-PF began as the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which was founded in 1963 as a Marxist party seeking majority rule in Zimbabwe. The military wings of both ZANU and the rival nationalist party Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) merged after 1976 as the Popular Front (PF), and after independence in 1980, ZANU was known as ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF and ZAPU merged in 1988. In the 1990s ZANU-PF moved away from Marxism. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is the main opposition party. Smaller parties include the conservative Zimbabwe African National Union-Ndonga (ZANU-Ndonga), founded by ZANU cofounder Ndabaningi Sithole; and the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM), a breakaway party from ZANU-PF.
F Defense
Zimbabwe’s armed forces, consisting of an army and an air force, had 29,000 personnel in 2004. Military service is not compulsory.
G International Organizations
Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU). The country also helped found the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (now the Southern African Development Community), an organization for economic cooperation between southern African countries.
VII HISTORY OF ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe’s central plateau historically has formed a distinct cultural area. Bounded on the north and south by the Zambezi and Limpopo river valleys, on the east by mountains, and on the west by the Kalahari Desert, the area was well watered, fertile, and rich in minerals, and therefore was favorable for human habitation. San (Bushmen) hunters lived on the plateau for many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years during prehistoric times and created remarkable rock paintings that are found throughout Zimbabwe in high-elevation granite shelters.
A Early Civilizations
About 2,000 years ago Iron Age peoples established themselves on the plateau, developing a series of distinctive pottery styles, herding cattle, and mining gold and copper that they traded with peoples of the coast. These people were the ancestors of the modern Shona population. About the 11th century ad the first stone building began, and this rapidly developed into a distinctive and impressive architectural style. Stone building reached its first peak in the city of Great Zimbabwe, which was built between the 11th and 15th centuries.
By the 11th century the population was grouped in small village communities that were ruled over by dynasties of chiefs, called Karanga. The major Karanga chiefs built their capitals in stone and by the 15th century they controlled the trade in gold to the coast of present-day Mozambique. The most important of the chieftaincies were Mutapa in the Mazoe River valley, Chicanga in the Inyanga highlands, and Quiteve in the Mozambique lowlands. These states established gold-trading fairs in their territory, which attracted traders from the coast.
B Portuguese Influence
In 1498, in the same period that the Karanga chiefs were extending their power over the lowland areas of Mozambique, the Portuguese arrived on the Indian Ocean coast. The Portuguese traded gold at the fairs and in 1569 sent a large military expedition led by Francisco Barreto to establish Portuguese control over the chieftaincy of Mutapa. This attempt failed, but Portuguese traders became influential in all the main fairs. Early in the 17th century locally recruited armies under Portuguese control conquered the Karanga chieftaincies of the north, including Mutapa, and invaded the central and southern areas. Small Portuguese trading towns were established, the most important being at Dambarare on the upper Mazoe.
C The Rozwi Empire and the Ndebele
In 1693 the Portuguese were defeated by the Rozwi chieftaincy of Changamire, whose power was based in Torwa (also called Butua) in the southwest. The Portuguese were driven off the central plateau and only retained a nominal presence at one of the fairs in the eastern highlands. The whole of present-day Zimbabwe was brought under the control of Changamire and became known as the Rozwi Empire. The Rozwi chiefs revived the tradition of building in stone and constructed impressive cities throughout the southwest. The economic power of the Rozwi Empire was based on cattle wealth, but gold mining continued, and gold was traded for luxury imports.
In the 1790s the whole southern African region began to experience a prolonged series of droughts. They weakened the Rozwi Empire, which allowed local chiefs and spirit mediums to begin seizing power. The gold fairs functioned only intermittently. Then in the early 19th century, the period of regional warfare and forced migrations known as the mfecane began. Following victories by the Zulu king Shaka in what is now eastern South Africa, the Ndwandwe, a Nguni-speaking people, were forcibly dispersed, and armed bands led by Ndwandwe chiefs migrated northward, invading the Rozwi Empire. The empire was devastated by the Ndwandwe armies of Nxaba and Zwangendaba. In the early 1830s the last Rozwi ruler was killed in his capital of Khami.
A decade later, another Nguni people, the Ndebele, entered what is now Zimbabwe from the southwest under their king, Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi had fled the Transvaal (present-day northern South Africa) after his armies were defeated by Afrikaners (South African descendents of Dutch and French Huguenot settlers). The king built a new Ndebele capital, called Bulawayo, in the southwest. The Ndebele kingdom replicated the military and economic organization of the Zulu and introduced the Ndebele dialect (a Nguni language similar to Zulu). In addition to his powerful military force, the Ndebele monarch derived his wealth and power from large herds of cattle. During the mid-19th century most of the Karanga chieftaincies (whose people were now known as Shona) of central and northern Zimbabwe retained their independence, though from time to time they were forced to pay tribute to the Ndebele.
D Cecil Rhodes
Beginning in the 1860s increasing numbers of European ivory hunters entered the area from the south and from the coast. These hunters returned to Europe with reports of vast gold deposits, spurring European interest in Matabeleland (as Europeans called the territory of the Ndebele, in the south) and Mashonaland (as they called the land of the Shona, in the north). During the 1880s the coastline of Africa was partitioned between Germany, Portugal, and Britain, and competition between European and African powers for land in the interior became intense. The Portuguese sent missions to secure the submission of the northern Shona chiefs, the Gaza Empire of southern Mozambique brought the eastern borderlands under its rule, and Afrikaner settlers began to spread north from the Transvaal. However, it was the British rulers of Cape Colony (in what is now western South Africa) who in the end successfully won concessions of land from the Ndebele king. In 1888 Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, granted a mineral concession encompassing Mashonaland (which he nominally controlled) to Cape Colony politician and financier Cecil John Rhodes. The following year the British government granted Rhodes a charter to establish the British South Africa Company. The company was given sweeping powers, including the power not only to mine but also to settle and administer a huge, vaguely defined area north of the Transvaal, including both Mashonaland and Matabeleland.
Although Rhodes held nominal authority over this ill-defined region, in 1890 very little of it was actually under British control, so Rhodes organized expeditions to secure the region and as far north as possible. In 1890 Rhodes’s “pioneer column” crossed Matabeleland and established the city of Salisbury (present-day Harare) in northern Mashonaland. The white settlers proceeded to conquer and settle a vast territory, while Rhodes built railroads and telegraphs to link the region to the outside world. Faced with severe economic problems, as workable gold had not been discovered, Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson, the administrator of the territory, organized an attack on the Ndebele king. In 1893 the British defeated the Ndebele and distributed vast herds of captured cattle and land to white settlers, temporarily rescuing Rhodes’s company from financial disaster. The chartered territory was officially named Rhodesia, after Rhodes, in 1895.
In late 1895 Jameson led a British military force from Rhodesia in a raid on the Transvaal, hoping to incite British settlers there to overthrow the Afrikaner government. Jameson and his party were quickly arrested, however, and the raid was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, in Rhodesia the Shona and Ndebele took the opportunity to unite under the leadership of influential spirit mediums to overthrow the settlers’ rule. It was not until British troops had been sent in 1897 that the rebellion was finally put down. The same year, colonial administrators divided Rhodesia into two separate colonies: Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe). Rhodes worked to encourage British settlement in Northern and Southern Rhodesia until his death in 1902.
E Settler Colony
As Rhodes hoped, Southern Rhodesia grew as a settler-dominated colony under the rule of the British South Africa Company. Whites laid out farms along the railroad, which ran along the plateau between Salisbury and Bulawayo. In order to provide cheap labor for the colony’s farms and mines, colonial administrators imposed heavy monetary taxes on black inhabitants (who had no money, and therefore were forced to seek jobs) and encouraged immigration from Mozambique.
The settlers established a legislative council, and when the British South Africa Company charter expired in 1923, a referendum was held on whether to join South Africa. The vote went against union, and Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony. This marked the beginning of decades of prosperity for white settlers in Southern Rhodesia. In 1930 the colonial government passed the Land Apportionment Act, which divided the colony into separate areas for whites and blacks. The act allocated white settlers, who numbered only about 50,000 (less than 5 percent of the colony’s population), approximately 50 percent of the land.
The Great Depression of the 1930s held back economic prosperity and white immigration. Tobacco farming developed, however, and after World War II (1939-1945) the colony witnessed considerable immigration and investment. By 1950 the white population had risen to about 125,000.
In 1953 white settlers in Northern and Southern Rhodesia pressured the British government to unite Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) to form the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (also known as the Central African Federation). The federation, which allowed white settlers in the colonies to consolidate their economic power, had its capital in Salisbury and was dominated by Southern Rhodesia. The federation lasted until 1963 and saw rapid economic expansion, as Southern Rhodesia industrialized and became the second-most powerful economy in southern Africa, after South Africa. The regions of the colony allocated to blacks grew overcrowded in the 1950s, prompting large numbers of blacks to move to the colony’s urban areas. By 1960 the white population had grown to 220,000.
During this period, black opposition to white settler rule grew more active and vocal. The first African labor unions began to appear in the 1920s, and in the 1950s African nationalist parties formed. As support for the parties grew, the colonial government became increasingly repressive and resisted the idea of majority rule.
F White-Ruled Rhodesia
In 1962 Nyasaland broke away from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which was formally dissolved in 1963. Southern Rhodesia’s white settlers, now led by Ian Douglas Smith and his Rhodesian Front party, sought independence from Britain. However, Britain’s newly elected Labour government refused to agree to independence without significant constitutional reform that would provide for eventual black African rule. In November 1965 Smith announced the Unilateral Declaration of Independence for Rhodesia, severing ties to Britain. The United Nations (UN) quickly levied sanctions against the illegal nation. In 1969 Rhodesia formally declared itself a republic.
Britain failed to take any decisive action against Rhodesia’s white government and in 1970 and 1971 tried to negotiate a settlement with Smith. Smith refused to make significant concessions and defied the weak international sanctions that had been imposed. Covertly supported by South Africa, another white-ruled state, the white Rhodesians held power without much difficulty until the mid-1970s.
The first Zimbabwean nationalist parties had emerged in the 1950s, and the early political leader of stature was Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo led a number of political movements, most notably the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which was formed in 1962 and supported largely by the Ndebele of the southwest. In 1963 the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was established by dissident Marxists who sought a more radical political stance. ZANU was led by Ndabaningi Sithole until he was replaced in 1976 by Robert Gabriel Mugabe. The colonial government banned both ZAPU and ZANU shortly after their creation, and the movements consequently developed as clandestine guerrilla groups seeking the overthrow of the white government.
In the mid-1970s guerrilla attacks became more formidable, with ZANU proving the more effective of the guerrilla movements. After 1976 the military wings of ZANU and ZAPU joined forces to create a more powerful liberation army, called the Patriotic Front (PF). Peace negotiations, at first brokered by South Africa, began in 1976, but no agreement was reached. In 1979 Rhodesia’s white regime attempted to compromise by introducing a new constitution that allowed limited black majority rule with political safeguards for whites. After elections the same year, a moderate black leader, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, formed a coalition government with the Rhodesian Front and took office as prime minister. However, ZANU and ZAPU did not accept this arrangement, viewing Muzorewa as a puppet of the white government. In 1980 the Rhodesian government accepted British and American mediation and signed the Lancaster House agreement for majority rule. In elections held that year, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), as ZANU became known, decisively defeated ZAPU. Mugabe was installed as prime minister, and the nation was renamed Zimbabwe.
G Independent Zimbabwe
The Lancaster House agreement had protected the position of Zimbabwe’s white inhabitants, who were allocated 20 seats in parliament. Land reform, specifically the redistribution of white-owned land to landless black peasants, was promised but was delayed in order to smooth the transition to majority rule. During the 1980s the new government increasingly moved away from its Marxist rhetoric and toward supporting a capitalistic economy. The civil war in Mozambique and unresolved political conflict in South Africa threatened the stability of the new state. Zimbabwe incurred the wrath of South Africa by supporting both the African National Congress (ANC), which opposed South Africa’s minority-rule government, and Mozambique’s government, which South Africa was attempting to overthrow by supporting a rebel group. South Africa threatened to attack ANC bases in Zimbabwe and blocked Zimbabwean exports through South African ports. Zimbabwe consequently suffered economic dislocation as it was forced to export its products through Mozambique. This required the Zimbabwean armed forces to protect the railroad corridor to the Mozambican port of Beira from South African-sponsored rebel attacks. Mugabe was one of the founders of the Southern African Development Cooperation Committee (SADCC), an organization formed to reduce regional economic dependence on South Africa, and he played a prominent role in trying to counter the influence of South Africa.
The 1980s also saw unrest within Zimbabwe. Insurrection threatened in Matabeleland in the southwest, as Ndebele dissidents who questioned the validity of the 1980 elections began to stockpile arms. The government severely repressed the Ndebele opposition, and Nkomo and other members of the Ndebele-supported ZAPU were expelled from the government. In 1985 legislative elections, ZANU won again by a landslide everywhere but in Matabeleland. However, corruption scandals rocked Mugabe’s government, and several splinter parties broke away from ZANU-PF. In an effort to consolidate his power, in 1987 Mugabe had the constitution revised, replacing the office of prime minister with that of president, which combines the posts of head of state and head of government. In 1988 Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Nkomo’s ZAPU agreed to merge under the name of ZANU-PF, and Zimbabwe’s ethnic and political tension eased greatly. Mugabe appointed Nkomo one of two joint vice presidents in 1990.
H Recent Developments
In the early 1990s the transition to majority rule in South Africa coincided with peace negotiations in Mozambique, and Zimbabwe seemed poised to turn its lackluster economy around. In exchange for economic aid and assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Zimbabwe agreed to a structural adjustment package designed to move the country from a state-controlled economy to a free-market economy. These measures led to further economic struggles for many Zimbabweans, and popular discontent for Mugabe grew. Mugabe was reelected as president in 1996, running unopposed after the withdrawal of two opposition candidates who protested against allegedly unfair electoral regulations.
In 1997 Mugabe announced a controversial program of land redistribution. Hundreds of white-owned commercial farms, making up nearly half of Zimbabwe’s total commercial farmland, were designated to be seized without compensation and divided among landless blacks and blacks with only small landholdings. Faced with strong protests by white farmers and the international economic community, the Zimbabwean government retreated from this position. In what was widely seen as a significant challenge to Mugabe’s authority, Zimbabwean voters in February 2000 rejected a constitutional referendum that would have expanded Mugabe’s powers and allowed the government to seize white-owned farms without compensation. Soon after the referendum, however, government-backed militias began violently occupying white-owned farms. Most of Zimbabwe’s white farmers fled the country, and soon few white-owned farms remained. Opposition groups accused the government of distributing seized farmland only to supporters of the ruling party. The seizures and resulting chaos destroyed the country’s commercial agricultural sector, forcing many Zimbabweans to survive on food donated from other countries.
Mugabe was reelected president in March 2002. Allegations of voter intimidation and other irregularities led some international observers to declare the presidential election flawed. ZANU-PF similarly dominated 2005 legislative elections. In May 2005 Zimbabwean police forces abruptly began demolishing what the government termed “illegal structures” in urban areas around the country. The bulldozing of shantytowns left hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans without homes.
In the aftermath of the farmland seizures, the economy of Zimbabwe suffered a complete meltdown. The collapse of the agricultural sector deprived the country of its main source of revenue, and the country became mired in massive deficits. The rate of inflation soared beyond control several years in succession, and in January 2008 officially reached 100,000 percent annually. About 80 percent of the people lived in poverty, and shortages of food and fuel were widespread. The economic collapse led to growing discontent with Mugabe and his ZANU-PF. Also, divisions within the ruling party became evident when a former finance minister, Simba Makoni, presented himself as a candidate in the 2008 presidential election. He ran against Mugabe and the main opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Presidential and parliamentary elections were held concurrently in March 2008. ZANU-PF lost its majority for the first time since independence in 1980, winning 97 seats in the 210-seat House of Assembly. The MDC won 99 seats, and a breakaway MDC faction won 10 seats; the remainder went to independents. The results for the Senate were evenly divided, with ZANU-PF and the combined opposition each taking 30 seats. Meanwhile, the election commission delayed announcing the results of the presidential election. The MDC claimed that Tsvangirai won just over 50 percent of the vote, making a runoff unnecessary, but the Mugabe camp disputed those claims and called for a recount.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
ZAMBIA
Zambia
I INTRODUCTION
Zambia, republic in south central Africa, bounded on the north by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) and Tanzania; on the east by Malawi; on the southeast by Mozambique; on the south by Zimbabwe, Botswana, and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia; and on the west by Angola. The area is 752,614 sq km (290,586 sq mi). Zambia’s capital and largest city is Lusaka.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Most of Zambia is high plateau with a flat or gently undulating terrain. Elevations average between about 1,100 and 1,400 m (about 3,500 and 4,500 ft). Mountains in the northeast exceed 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Major rivers are the Zambezi in the west and south and its tributaries, the Kafue in the west and the Luangwa in the east; and the Luapula and Chambeshi, in the north. Lake Bangweulu, in the north, is surrounded by a vast swampy region. Lake Kariba is a large reservoir formed by Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River.
A Climate
Although lying within the Tropic Zone, much of Zambia enjoys a pleasant subtropical climate because of the high altitude. The average temperature in Lusaka during July, the coldest month of the year, is 16°C (61°F); the hottest month, January, has an average temperature of 21°C (70°F). Annual rainfall ranges from 750 mm (30 in) in the south to 1,300 mm (51 in) in the north. Nearly all of the rain falls between November and April.
B Natural Resources
Most of the country has savanna-type vegetation—grasslands interspersed with trees. Teak forests are in the southwest. Animals include elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, and several varieties of antelope. Of overwhelming importance are the rich mineral veins of the country’s copper belt. The belt extends down into Zambia from southern DRC and contains major deposits of copper, cobalt, and other minerals. Zambia also has substantial hydroelectric potential. The Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River is the country’s main power source. Zambia shares the Kariba system with Zimbabwe. Other stations on the Lunsemfwa and Mulungushi rivers serve Kabwe. Installations have also been built on the Kafue River. In 2003 the total output of electricity was 8.3 billion kilowatt-hours, nearly all of which was produced by hydroelectric plants.
C Environmental Issues
Zambia is one of the most industrialized countries in Africa, and air pollution and the resulting acid rain are growing problems. The lack of adequate water-treatment facilities presents substantial health risks to the population.
Wetlands, including floodplains, swamps, and mudflats, make up about 6 percent of Zambia’s area, although none are adequately protected from degradation. Only about 42.2 percent (1995) of the land is forested, mostly with open woodland. Deforestation takes place at a rate of about 1 percent per year. Some important habitats are endangered, such as mountain areas in the northeast.
National forest makes up about 9 percent of the land. In addition, there are 19 national parks that protect about 8 percent of the country’s land, although game management areas and protected forests cover more than 20 percent of the land. Threats to protected land include brushfires, agricultural encroachment, prospecting and mining activities, hydroelectric development, habitat destruction due to local overpopulation of some game species, and poaching, especially of elephant and rhinoceros.
Zambia has ratified international environmental agreements concerning biodiversity, climate change, endangered species, hazardous wastes, the ozone layer, and wetlands. Regionally, the country participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
III POPULATION
Zambia’s population, predominantly rural, is made up of more than 70 ethnic groups, many of them Bantu-speaking. Most groups are small; the largest are the Bemba, Nyanja, and Tonga peoples.
A Population Characteristics
The population of Zambia at the time of the 1990 census was 7,818,447. A 2008 estimate was 11,669,534, giving the country an overall population density of 16 persons per sq km (41 per sq mi); much of the northeast and west is sparsely inhabited.
B Political Divisions and Principal Cities
Zambia is divided into nine provinces, each governed by a minister appointed by the president. Lusaka, the capital, had a population (2003 estimate) of 1,394,000. Other major centers are Ndola (374,757), Kitwe (376,124), Mufulira (204,104), and Luanshya (186,372), all in the copper belt.
C Religion and Language
About 80 percent of the people of Zambia are Christian; many of them adhere to independent churches which combine elements of Christianity and African religions. Most of the remainder follow traditional religions. More than 70 African languages are spoken, including Bemba, Lozi, Luvale, Tonga, and Nyanja. The official language is English.
D Education
School attendance has increased substantially since Zambia’s independence in 1964. In 2000 some 1.6 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools, representing 82 percent of school-aged children. Only 28 percent of secondary school-aged children were enrolled. The University of Zambia (founded in 1965), at Lusaka, had about 10,500 students in the mid-1990s.
The Livingstone Museum, at Livingstone, has a collection relating to the archaeology and natural history of southern Africa. The Institute for African Studies of the University of Zambia publishes studies relating to central Africa.
IV ECONOMY
The wealth of Zambia is based largely on mining in the rich copper belt, and downturns in copper prices have severely damaging economic consequences. Some processing and manufacturing has been started since independence, and during the 1970s attempts were made to diversify agriculture and to make the country self-sufficient in food. In 2006 the national budget showed $1,898 million in revenue and $2,143 million in expenditure.
A Labor
In 2006 some 5 million Zambians participated in the labor force. The principal labor organization is the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, which has about 400,000 members. Civil servants and miners also have unions.
B Agriculture
Some 70 percent of Zambia’s working population is engaged in agriculture, largely subsistence farming. Principal crops and the amount produced in metric tons in 2006 were corn, the staple grain (865,000); sugarcane (2.7 million); and cassava (1 million). Sunflower seeds, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and tobacco are also grown. Beef and dairy cattle are raised for domestic use. The agricultural sector remains underdeveloped and vulnerable to weather fluctuations, and food shortages have occurred.
C Mining
The copper mines of Zambia are among the richest in the world. Although world copper prices collapsed in 1975, damaging the Zambian economy, in the early 1990s the country still received about half of its export earnings from copper. Output in 2004 was 426,900 metric tons. Zambia is also among the world’s largest producers of cobalt. Other minerals extracted were gold (150 kg/331 lb), silver (7 metric tons), and gem-quality emeralds. A diamond field was discovered in 1992.
D Manufacturing
Manufacturing, mining, and construction employ only 7 percent of the labor force but account for 33 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Principal activities were the smelting and refining of copper and other metals, vehicle assembly, petroleum refining, food processing, and the production of fertilizers, explosives, and textiles.
E Currency and Banking
The decimal system of currency, issued in 1968, is based on the kwacha, consisting of 100 ngwee (3,603 kwachas equal U.S.$1; 2006 average). The country’s central bank is the Bank of Zambia (1964); commercial, development, and foreign banks are widely represented.
F Foreign Trade
Imports—such as machinery and transport equipment, mineral fuels and lubricants, chemicals, food, and basic manufactured goods—totaled $1,253 million in 2002. Exports—chiefly copper and cobalt—totaled $930 million. Principal partners for exports are Japan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Belgium and Luxembourg (which constitute a single trading entity), France, and Malaysia; principal partners for imports are South Africa, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
G Transportation and Communications
Zambia has 1,273 km (791 mi) of railroads. A railroad from Zimbabwe runs to Livingstone, Lusaka, and Ndola, connecting with the DRC system, and then to Benguela on the Atlantic coast of Angola. The Tanzania-Zambia Railroad (Tazara) connects Lusaka with the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Some 91,440 km (56,818 mi) of roads connect the towns of Zambia. Lusaka is served by an international airport. The government operates radio and television stations at Lusaka and Kitwe. In 1999 there were 149 radio receivers and 142 television sets in use for every 1,000 inhabitants.
V GOVERNMENT
Zambia is a republic with a president elected to a maximum of two five-year terms by direct universal suffrage. The president appoints a cabinet, which is headed by a prime minister. Zambia’s legislative body, the National Assembly, has 159 members: 150 popularly elected members, 8 members appointed by the president, and the speaker of the house. The 27-member House of Chiefs is an advisory body.
The United National Independence Party (UNIP) was Zambia’s sole legal political organization until 1990. In 1991 the legislature enacted a new constitution providing for a multiparty system and limiting presidential powers. An opposition group, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), won the 1991 general elections. The constitution was amended in 1996. In 2001 the MMD emerged from general elections with less than half of the seats in the National Assembly, but remained the largest single party.
A Judiciary
The judicial system includes a supreme court, a high court, and lower courts on the British model. African customary law is applied in special courts.
B Defense
In 2004 the armed forces of Zambia consisted of an army of 13,500 and an air force of 1,600. Military service is voluntary.
VI HISTORY
Southward-migrating Bantu farmers and herders settled in the area that is now Zambia over a period of several centuries beginning around the 4th century ad. These forerunners of the Sotho and Nguni groups developed mining and metalworking techniques. A new group, the Shona Bantu, arrived in the 12th century. Later, the Karanga clan of the Shona established the great empire of Mutapa, which included southern Zambia. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Lunda and Lozi from the Congo (now the DRC) populated the northern plains and upper Zambezi River area. In the 19th century, the Kololo, fleeing the wars in South Africa, moved northward and established brief control over much of central and northern Zambia before the Lozi once again asserted their dominance. Eastern Zambia was settled by Bantu peoples related to those in Malawi. Despite their differences, these various Bantu groups shared certain common characteristics. They were primarily agriculturists, but most of them also kept cattle. They were tribally oriented, and their states usually were small, except when a dominant king, such as the ruler of the Karanga, Kololo, or Lozi, imposed his will on neighboring tribes. Consequently, when the British moved into Zambia—or Barotseland, as they called it—in the latter part of the 19th century, no powerful kingdoms were there to resist them.
A British Rule
At the time of British penetration in the area, the strongest state in Zambia was that of the Lozi under Chief Lewanika, who openly solicited British protection. A treaty establishing British protection was signed between the Lozi overlord and a representative of the British South Africa Company in 1889. Eastern Zambia was added to Britain’s empire by Sir Harry Johnston during his conquest of Nyasaland (now Malawi). A regular British resident, titled “agent in charge,” was sent to Lewanika in 1897. Three years later the British government directly assumed jurisdiction over the entire area.
British government in Zambia (then called Northern Rhodesia) was the same as in its other African territories, consisting of a small central executive authority made up of appointed Europeans headed by a governor; the system of indirect rule allowed great freedom to local rulers. In the late 1920s a major development occurred: the discovery of copper in the north. This led to the extension of the railway and the building of the first smelting plants in the so-called copper belt. By the beginning of World War II in 1939, Zambia had become a major producer of copper, and the extreme urbanization of the northwest was under way. The copper industry brought an influx of European technicians and administrators to Zambia, and although they never gained the political power of European settlers in Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), they became a dominant force in Zambian life.
In 1953, under pressure from the white minority in Southern Rhodesia, the British government forced the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, comprising the territories of Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (now Malawi). It was dominated by the white population of the territories, and the central government headed by Lord Malvern and Sir Roy Welensky was a reflection of Southern Rhodesian politics. The federation was condemned from its inception by every African politician in the state. The path toward independence was more difficult for Zambia than for most other British African territories because the federation had to be broken first. This was accomplished by Malawi in conjunction with pressure applied by Zambian nationalists, led by Kenneth Kaunda.
B Independence
The federation was dissolved at the end of 1963. Nyasaland became independent as Malawi in July 1964, and Northern Rhodesia as Zambia in October 1964. Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Rhodesia. Kaunda’s party, the United National Independence Party (UNIP), won the first and all subsequent elections until the early 1990s. In 1972 Zambia became a one-party state, but its leadership remained moderate and pro-Western. Private land was nationalized in 1975 as part of an unsuccessful agricultural improvement program. The completion of the rail link to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1976, freed Zambia from its dependence on the Rhodesian- and South African-controlled railway for the transport of its copper.
President Kaunda opposed the white-dominated regime in Rhodesia, and his assistance to guerrilla insurgents proved crucial to the establishment of a black majority government there in 1980. Although Kaunda was reelected to a sixth presidential term in 1988, popular discontent with Zambia’s stagnant economy and his autocratic rule continued to grow. In 1990 food riots and an abortive coup shook the government, and the aging leader agreed to allow multiparty voting. The opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the 1991 general election, and its presidential candidate, Frederick Chiluba, defeated Kaunda by a wide margin.
In May 1996 Chiluba’s government amended the Zambian constitution, introducing a controversial provision that required presidential candidates to be from families established in Zambia for at least two generations. The amended constitution also prevented presidents from serving more than two terms. Kaunda, whose parents were immigrants from Malawi, was therefore disqualified on both accounts. In response, the UNIP, under Kaunda’s leadership, boycotted the November 1996 elections. Chiluba was elected to a second term.
In December 2001 elections, MMD presidential candidate Levy Mwanawasa received more votes than any of the 11 opposition candidates. He therefore succeeded Chiluba as president in January 2002, despite having received only 29 percent of the popular vote. Mwanawasa was reelected to a second term in 2006.
I INTRODUCTION
Zambia, republic in south central Africa, bounded on the north by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) and Tanzania; on the east by Malawi; on the southeast by Mozambique; on the south by Zimbabwe, Botswana, and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia; and on the west by Angola. The area is 752,614 sq km (290,586 sq mi). Zambia’s capital and largest city is Lusaka.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Most of Zambia is high plateau with a flat or gently undulating terrain. Elevations average between about 1,100 and 1,400 m (about 3,500 and 4,500 ft). Mountains in the northeast exceed 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Major rivers are the Zambezi in the west and south and its tributaries, the Kafue in the west and the Luangwa in the east; and the Luapula and Chambeshi, in the north. Lake Bangweulu, in the north, is surrounded by a vast swampy region. Lake Kariba is a large reservoir formed by Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River.
A Climate
Although lying within the Tropic Zone, much of Zambia enjoys a pleasant subtropical climate because of the high altitude. The average temperature in Lusaka during July, the coldest month of the year, is 16°C (61°F); the hottest month, January, has an average temperature of 21°C (70°F). Annual rainfall ranges from 750 mm (30 in) in the south to 1,300 mm (51 in) in the north. Nearly all of the rain falls between November and April.
B Natural Resources
Most of the country has savanna-type vegetation—grasslands interspersed with trees. Teak forests are in the southwest. Animals include elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, and several varieties of antelope. Of overwhelming importance are the rich mineral veins of the country’s copper belt. The belt extends down into Zambia from southern DRC and contains major deposits of copper, cobalt, and other minerals. Zambia also has substantial hydroelectric potential. The Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River is the country’s main power source. Zambia shares the Kariba system with Zimbabwe. Other stations on the Lunsemfwa and Mulungushi rivers serve Kabwe. Installations have also been built on the Kafue River. In 2003 the total output of electricity was 8.3 billion kilowatt-hours, nearly all of which was produced by hydroelectric plants.
C Environmental Issues
Zambia is one of the most industrialized countries in Africa, and air pollution and the resulting acid rain are growing problems. The lack of adequate water-treatment facilities presents substantial health risks to the population.
Wetlands, including floodplains, swamps, and mudflats, make up about 6 percent of Zambia’s area, although none are adequately protected from degradation. Only about 42.2 percent (1995) of the land is forested, mostly with open woodland. Deforestation takes place at a rate of about 1 percent per year. Some important habitats are endangered, such as mountain areas in the northeast.
National forest makes up about 9 percent of the land. In addition, there are 19 national parks that protect about 8 percent of the country’s land, although game management areas and protected forests cover more than 20 percent of the land. Threats to protected land include brushfires, agricultural encroachment, prospecting and mining activities, hydroelectric development, habitat destruction due to local overpopulation of some game species, and poaching, especially of elephant and rhinoceros.
Zambia has ratified international environmental agreements concerning biodiversity, climate change, endangered species, hazardous wastes, the ozone layer, and wetlands. Regionally, the country participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
III POPULATION
Zambia’s population, predominantly rural, is made up of more than 70 ethnic groups, many of them Bantu-speaking. Most groups are small; the largest are the Bemba, Nyanja, and Tonga peoples.
A Population Characteristics
The population of Zambia at the time of the 1990 census was 7,818,447. A 2008 estimate was 11,669,534, giving the country an overall population density of 16 persons per sq km (41 per sq mi); much of the northeast and west is sparsely inhabited.
B Political Divisions and Principal Cities
Zambia is divided into nine provinces, each governed by a minister appointed by the president. Lusaka, the capital, had a population (2003 estimate) of 1,394,000. Other major centers are Ndola (374,757), Kitwe (376,124), Mufulira (204,104), and Luanshya (186,372), all in the copper belt.
C Religion and Language
About 80 percent of the people of Zambia are Christian; many of them adhere to independent churches which combine elements of Christianity and African religions. Most of the remainder follow traditional religions. More than 70 African languages are spoken, including Bemba, Lozi, Luvale, Tonga, and Nyanja. The official language is English.
D Education
School attendance has increased substantially since Zambia’s independence in 1964. In 2000 some 1.6 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools, representing 82 percent of school-aged children. Only 28 percent of secondary school-aged children were enrolled. The University of Zambia (founded in 1965), at Lusaka, had about 10,500 students in the mid-1990s.
The Livingstone Museum, at Livingstone, has a collection relating to the archaeology and natural history of southern Africa. The Institute for African Studies of the University of Zambia publishes studies relating to central Africa.
IV ECONOMY
The wealth of Zambia is based largely on mining in the rich copper belt, and downturns in copper prices have severely damaging economic consequences. Some processing and manufacturing has been started since independence, and during the 1970s attempts were made to diversify agriculture and to make the country self-sufficient in food. In 2006 the national budget showed $1,898 million in revenue and $2,143 million in expenditure.
A Labor
In 2006 some 5 million Zambians participated in the labor force. The principal labor organization is the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, which has about 400,000 members. Civil servants and miners also have unions.
B Agriculture
Some 70 percent of Zambia’s working population is engaged in agriculture, largely subsistence farming. Principal crops and the amount produced in metric tons in 2006 were corn, the staple grain (865,000); sugarcane (2.7 million); and cassava (1 million). Sunflower seeds, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and tobacco are also grown. Beef and dairy cattle are raised for domestic use. The agricultural sector remains underdeveloped and vulnerable to weather fluctuations, and food shortages have occurred.
C Mining
The copper mines of Zambia are among the richest in the world. Although world copper prices collapsed in 1975, damaging the Zambian economy, in the early 1990s the country still received about half of its export earnings from copper. Output in 2004 was 426,900 metric tons. Zambia is also among the world’s largest producers of cobalt. Other minerals extracted were gold (150 kg/331 lb), silver (7 metric tons), and gem-quality emeralds. A diamond field was discovered in 1992.
D Manufacturing
Manufacturing, mining, and construction employ only 7 percent of the labor force but account for 33 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Principal activities were the smelting and refining of copper and other metals, vehicle assembly, petroleum refining, food processing, and the production of fertilizers, explosives, and textiles.
E Currency and Banking
The decimal system of currency, issued in 1968, is based on the kwacha, consisting of 100 ngwee (3,603 kwachas equal U.S.$1; 2006 average). The country’s central bank is the Bank of Zambia (1964); commercial, development, and foreign banks are widely represented.
F Foreign Trade
Imports—such as machinery and transport equipment, mineral fuels and lubricants, chemicals, food, and basic manufactured goods—totaled $1,253 million in 2002. Exports—chiefly copper and cobalt—totaled $930 million. Principal partners for exports are Japan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Belgium and Luxembourg (which constitute a single trading entity), France, and Malaysia; principal partners for imports are South Africa, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
G Transportation and Communications
Zambia has 1,273 km (791 mi) of railroads. A railroad from Zimbabwe runs to Livingstone, Lusaka, and Ndola, connecting with the DRC system, and then to Benguela on the Atlantic coast of Angola. The Tanzania-Zambia Railroad (Tazara) connects Lusaka with the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Some 91,440 km (56,818 mi) of roads connect the towns of Zambia. Lusaka is served by an international airport. The government operates radio and television stations at Lusaka and Kitwe. In 1999 there were 149 radio receivers and 142 television sets in use for every 1,000 inhabitants.
V GOVERNMENT
Zambia is a republic with a president elected to a maximum of two five-year terms by direct universal suffrage. The president appoints a cabinet, which is headed by a prime minister. Zambia’s legislative body, the National Assembly, has 159 members: 150 popularly elected members, 8 members appointed by the president, and the speaker of the house. The 27-member House of Chiefs is an advisory body.
The United National Independence Party (UNIP) was Zambia’s sole legal political organization until 1990. In 1991 the legislature enacted a new constitution providing for a multiparty system and limiting presidential powers. An opposition group, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), won the 1991 general elections. The constitution was amended in 1996. In 2001 the MMD emerged from general elections with less than half of the seats in the National Assembly, but remained the largest single party.
A Judiciary
The judicial system includes a supreme court, a high court, and lower courts on the British model. African customary law is applied in special courts.
B Defense
In 2004 the armed forces of Zambia consisted of an army of 13,500 and an air force of 1,600. Military service is voluntary.
VI HISTORY
Southward-migrating Bantu farmers and herders settled in the area that is now Zambia over a period of several centuries beginning around the 4th century ad. These forerunners of the Sotho and Nguni groups developed mining and metalworking techniques. A new group, the Shona Bantu, arrived in the 12th century. Later, the Karanga clan of the Shona established the great empire of Mutapa, which included southern Zambia. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Lunda and Lozi from the Congo (now the DRC) populated the northern plains and upper Zambezi River area. In the 19th century, the Kololo, fleeing the wars in South Africa, moved northward and established brief control over much of central and northern Zambia before the Lozi once again asserted their dominance. Eastern Zambia was settled by Bantu peoples related to those in Malawi. Despite their differences, these various Bantu groups shared certain common characteristics. They were primarily agriculturists, but most of them also kept cattle. They were tribally oriented, and their states usually were small, except when a dominant king, such as the ruler of the Karanga, Kololo, or Lozi, imposed his will on neighboring tribes. Consequently, when the British moved into Zambia—or Barotseland, as they called it—in the latter part of the 19th century, no powerful kingdoms were there to resist them.
A British Rule
At the time of British penetration in the area, the strongest state in Zambia was that of the Lozi under Chief Lewanika, who openly solicited British protection. A treaty establishing British protection was signed between the Lozi overlord and a representative of the British South Africa Company in 1889. Eastern Zambia was added to Britain’s empire by Sir Harry Johnston during his conquest of Nyasaland (now Malawi). A regular British resident, titled “agent in charge,” was sent to Lewanika in 1897. Three years later the British government directly assumed jurisdiction over the entire area.
British government in Zambia (then called Northern Rhodesia) was the same as in its other African territories, consisting of a small central executive authority made up of appointed Europeans headed by a governor; the system of indirect rule allowed great freedom to local rulers. In the late 1920s a major development occurred: the discovery of copper in the north. This led to the extension of the railway and the building of the first smelting plants in the so-called copper belt. By the beginning of World War II in 1939, Zambia had become a major producer of copper, and the extreme urbanization of the northwest was under way. The copper industry brought an influx of European technicians and administrators to Zambia, and although they never gained the political power of European settlers in Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), they became a dominant force in Zambian life.
In 1953, under pressure from the white minority in Southern Rhodesia, the British government forced the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, comprising the territories of Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (now Malawi). It was dominated by the white population of the territories, and the central government headed by Lord Malvern and Sir Roy Welensky was a reflection of Southern Rhodesian politics. The federation was condemned from its inception by every African politician in the state. The path toward independence was more difficult for Zambia than for most other British African territories because the federation had to be broken first. This was accomplished by Malawi in conjunction with pressure applied by Zambian nationalists, led by Kenneth Kaunda.
B Independence
The federation was dissolved at the end of 1963. Nyasaland became independent as Malawi in July 1964, and Northern Rhodesia as Zambia in October 1964. Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Rhodesia. Kaunda’s party, the United National Independence Party (UNIP), won the first and all subsequent elections until the early 1990s. In 1972 Zambia became a one-party state, but its leadership remained moderate and pro-Western. Private land was nationalized in 1975 as part of an unsuccessful agricultural improvement program. The completion of the rail link to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1976, freed Zambia from its dependence on the Rhodesian- and South African-controlled railway for the transport of its copper.
President Kaunda opposed the white-dominated regime in Rhodesia, and his assistance to guerrilla insurgents proved crucial to the establishment of a black majority government there in 1980. Although Kaunda was reelected to a sixth presidential term in 1988, popular discontent with Zambia’s stagnant economy and his autocratic rule continued to grow. In 1990 food riots and an abortive coup shook the government, and the aging leader agreed to allow multiparty voting. The opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the 1991 general election, and its presidential candidate, Frederick Chiluba, defeated Kaunda by a wide margin.
In May 1996 Chiluba’s government amended the Zambian constitution, introducing a controversial provision that required presidential candidates to be from families established in Zambia for at least two generations. The amended constitution also prevented presidents from serving more than two terms. Kaunda, whose parents were immigrants from Malawi, was therefore disqualified on both accounts. In response, the UNIP, under Kaunda’s leadership, boycotted the November 1996 elections. Chiluba was elected to a second term.
In December 2001 elections, MMD presidential candidate Levy Mwanawasa received more votes than any of the 11 opposition candidates. He therefore succeeded Chiluba as president in January 2002, despite having received only 29 percent of the popular vote. Mwanawasa was reelected to a second term in 2006.
YEMEN
Yemen
I INTRODUCTION
Yemen, country in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula (Arabia). Tall mountains divide Yemen’s coastal stretches from a desolate desert interior. Yemen is sparsely populated—half of the country is uninhabitable—and its Arab people are largely rural. The site of several prosperous civilizations in ancient times, Yemen declined in importance and was a poor and forgotten land for more than a thousand years. The discovery of oil in the area in the late 20th century held out the prospect of economic development and an easier life for the people of Yemen.
The Republic of Yemen was created in 1990 out of the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The YAR was commonly called North Yemen, and the PDRY was generally referred to as South Yemen, although South Yemen was actually less to the south than to the east and southeast of North Yemen. Sana‘a (Sanaa) is the Republic of Yemen’s capital and largest city.
Yemen is bounded on the west by the Red Sea and on the south by the Gulf of Aden (an arm of the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean), and is separated from Africa by the narrow strait of Bab el Mandeb. To the north and northeast lies Saudi Arabia and to the east is Oman; these two countries are Yemen’s only contiguous neighbors. Yemen covers about 527,970 sq km (about 203,850 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Yemen is a largely desert land. There are no permanent rivers in the country, and little natural vegetation besides scrub brush. Yemen possesses several sizable islands, most notably Socotra in the Indian Ocean, Perim in the Bab el Mandeb, and Kamaran and the Ḩānīsh Islands in the Red Sea.
The rectangular Arabian plate, which defines the Arabian Peninsula, is tilted and Yemen constitutes its uppermost corner. The edge of this corner takes the form of a steep, jagged mountain range that separates a low coastal plain (west and south of the mountains) from a high interior plateau (east and north of the mountains).
A Natural Regions
The Yemeni highlands average about 1,830 m (about 6,000 ft) above sea level and rise at Jabal an Nabī Shu‘ayb to 3,760 m (12,336 ft), the highest peak on the Arabian Peninsula. The highlands in the north are loftier and more extensive than in the south. Since the northern highlands have a generally less forbidding climate and greater rainfall, they support more intensive and extensive agriculture and a larger population.
To the west and south, the highlands drop abruptly to a low, flat coastal desert plain called the Tihāmah. Averaging about 50 km (about 30 mi) in width, this plain parallels the Red Sea the length of northern Yemen, turns abruptly east at the corner of the peninsula, and then runs parallel to the Gulf of Aden for part of the length of southern Yemen. The Tihāmah is hot, humid, and arid, and has little vegetation.
To the east and north, the highlands descend gradually to the interior plateau that holds the vast Arabian desert known as the Rub‘ al Khali (Empty Quarter). The eastern half of Yemen is basically uninhabitable. The exception is the region of Hadhramaut, a large valley running parallel to the Gulf of Aden coast then turning southward to the sea. Here, some fertile valleys allow agriculture and larger settlements.
B Climate
The Yemeni highlands have a generally semiarid but otherwise temperate climate. By contrast, the coastal plain is hot and humid much of the year, and at times extremely so; summer and winter winds often bring severe sandstorms. Average temperatures for Yemen as a whole vary from about 27°C (80°F) in June to about 14°C (57°F) in January.
Every year during the summer months, monsoon winds blow inland over the water, picking up moisture, and the mountains force the warm air to rise, cool, and condense. The considerable, although erratic, seasonal rainfall allows for intensive cultivation, much of it on stonewalled terraces and in wadis—streambeds that flow with water only during and after the rains. The average rainfall in the highlands varies from 303 to 762 mm (8 to 30 in), whereas on the coast it varies from 76 to 229 mm (3 to 9 in).
III PEOPLE AND SOCIETY
Most inhabitants of Yemen are ethnic Arabs, although there exist relatively small communities of Africans, South Asians, and Europeans. People of different regions of Yemen are culturally distinct. Many of the inhabitants of Hadhramaut reflect the cultural and genetic influence of Southeast Asia with which the district has historic commercial ties. Those Yemenis living in the coastal lowlands reflect the racial and cultural influences of nearby Africa. Cosmopolitan Aden, which Britain ruled as part of India from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, still bears traces of the culture of the Indian subcontinent.
A significant minority of the population is organized into tribes, and for many Yemenis tribal identity is of primary importance. This is particularly true in the northern highlands, where the sheikhs of several individual tribes and two large tribal confederations, the Hashid and Bakil, can still mobilize large numbers in defense of tribal interests. Virtually all of the inhabitants of northern Yemen are sedentary, meaning they have fixed homes and do not move from place to place like nomads. A slightly smaller percentage is sedentary in the south. A small number of nomadic pastoralists can be found on the edge of the desert far to the east. Although Yemen has traditionally been characterized by a stratified social system marked by castelike groups at the top and bottom, this structure is breaking down as economic opportunities become available and new social ideas come to prevail.
A Population Characteristics
The total population of Yemen is 23,013,376 (2008 estimate). The average population density is 44 persons per sq km (113 per sq mi). Although more than one and a half times its size in land area, the former South Yemen had less than one-third the population of the former North Yemen when they merged in 1990. The population of southern Yemen is concentrated in and around its urban areas and the Hadhramaut region. By contrast, the far larger population of northern Yemen is scattered over a great many towns, villages, and hamlets; the combined populations of its principal urban centers comprise just a fraction of the north’s total population.
B Principal Cities and Towns
Yemen has four major cities. Sana‘a, located in the northern highlands, is Yemen’s political capital and largest city (population, 2003 estimate, 1,469,000). Aden (634,710), on the Gulf of Aden coast 180 km (110 mi) east of the Bab el Mandeb, was the capital of South Yemen and is the unified country’s economic hub and largest port. Al Ḩudaydah (155,110), in the Tihāmah, is the second largest port. Ta‘izz, (178,043), in the highlands above Aden, is an important commercial and light industrial center. Among Yemen’s larger towns are Şa‘dah, far to the north; Dhamār, Yarim, and Ibb, in the middle region; Al Mukallā, on the southern coast; and in Hadhramaut, the towns of Shibām, Say‘ūn, and Tarīm.
C Language
Nearly all Yemenis speak Arabic. However, the country’s extremely rugged terrain, widely separated population centers, and less-developed means of transportation and communications have produced several different dialects. The most notable difference exists between the dialect of the northern Yemeni highlands and that of Aden and the southern part of the former North Yemen.
D Religion
The indigenous people of Yemen are almost all Muslims, with small resident communities of Christians, Jews, and Hindus. The Christian population that existed in Yemen in pre-Islamic times virtually disappeared during the Islamic era, which began in the 7th century ad. All but a few thousand members of the formerly significant Jewish community, which may have resided continuously in Yemen since pre-Islamic times, emigrated to Israel shortly after its creation in 1948. Yemen’s Muslim population has suffered from divisiveness. Through centuries of persecution, the once large and powerful Ismaili Shia community (see Ismailis) was reduced to an insignificant minority residing in the mountains, although this number has increased somewhat in recent years.
A long-standing division remains between Yemen’s two principal religious groups, the Zaydi Shia Muslims and the Shafi’i Sunni Muslims (see Shia Islam; Sunni Islam). The Zaydis of the northern highlands dominated politics and cultural life in northern Yemen for centuries. With the unification of Yemen and the addition of the south’s almost totally Shafi’i population, the numerical balance shifted dramatically away from the Zaydis.
E Education
Yemen’s constitution grants all citizens the right to an education. Nevertheless, the country’s educational system, probably better in the south than in the north, still fails to reach a large part of the population, especially girls. In 2002–2003 only 68 percent of Yemen’s primary school-age girls attended school, compared to 98 percent of primary school-age boys. Just 33 percent of Yemen’s adult female population is literate, while 73 percent of adult men are literate.
Public schools exist in larger towns and cities, and children in most rural areas attend Islamic religious schools. Secondary schools in Yemen funnel many students into Sana‘a University (1970) and the University of Aden (1975).
F Way of Life
Yemeni tribesmen are known by the jambiyya, or curved dagger, carried in a scabbard on a wide belt at the front of the body. Men often wear one of several types of skirts rather than pants, and a straw hat or headcloth. They also may wear Western styles of clothing. The clothing of Yemeni women, which includes robes, shawls, and veils, varies greatly from region to region; much of it is colorful, striking, and imaginative.
Women in Yemen tend to live secluded from unrelated men, although this is less true under the more relaxed conditions in the countryside and former South Yemen generally. The most distinctive and important Yemeni social institution is the “khat session,” a relaxed but ritualized afternoon gathering at which men and women socialize separately and chew the mildly narcotic leaves of the khat (qat) plant. Most men and many women chew khat at least twice a week.
The Yemeni diet includes rice, bread, vegetables, fish, and lamb. A spicy green stew called salta is one of Yemen’s most popular dishes. Housing in Yemen varies from region to region. In the Tihāmah, near the Red Sea, people live in African-style circular reed huts. Residents of the highlands, many of whom are farmers, sometimes live in stone or mud-brick houses of multiple stories, often intricately decorated with alabaster or stained glass. City dwellers also reside in houses of this type, or else in modern-style houses or flats.
Yemen’s relative isolation and traditionally weak economy have produced a number of long-standing social problems. Because education was until recently unavailable to the majority of Yemenis, the country has traditionally had one of the lowest literacy rates in Asia. This is particularly true for women in Yemen, who have not generally been encouraged to seek schooling. In addition, health care in Yemen is notoriously underdeveloped. Polluted drinking water, inadequate vaccination, and a shortage of medical personnel and facilities have contributed to the quick spread of numerous diseases among Yemenis. These conditions have also given Yemen a high infant mortality rate and a much lower rate of life expectancy than in other countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Since the late 20th century, Yemeni leaders have made greater efforts to provide social welfare for the nation’s inhabitants; with the help of foreign aid, new training and treatment facilities have opened, and new health-care programs are in operation in some rural areas.
G Art and Architecture
Yemen has a rich and varied tradition of arts and handicrafts. In addition to painting, sculpture, and metalwork, the making of stained glass is a popular art form in Yemen, and the brightly colored glass is often used to decorate public buildings and private homes. Yemenis also have a tradition of oral literature; poetry is often delivered during celebrations and is sometimes broadcast via radio or television.
Although Yemen’s public architecture is undistinguished, the country is graced with spectacular works of domestic architecture, from the stone fortress villages on mountain slopes to the often fancifully decorated, multistoried stone and mud-brick skyscrapers of Sana‘a and Shibām. Other examples of striking architecture include the serpentine mud construction of Şa‘dah in the north and the geometrically decorated mud-brick buildings of Zabīd on the Tihāmah.
Cultural sites in Yemen include the Republican Palace in Sana‘a, where the imam, or Zaydi political ruler, lived. There are important mosques in most of Yemen’s major cities, and dozens in Sana‘a alone; especially notable is the Great Mosque in Sana‘a, an important Zaydi house of worship.
IV ECONOMY
For centuries, Yemen’s economy was based on subsistence agriculture and was largely self-sufficient. However, with the import of cheap goods from abroad, North Yemen moved quickly from self-sufficiency to dependence after 1960, as the south had done decades earlier. During the 1970s and 1980s North Yemen came to rely heavily on Saudi Arabia, the Arab Gulf states, and to a lesser extent, the western industrial countries for financial and other assistance, while South Yemen became equally dependent on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other communist countries.
The unification of Yemen in 1990 and the negative effects of the Persian Gulf War the following year caused economic hardship but also spurred a new commitment to economic planning and development in Yemen. Efforts to improve the economy focused on Yemen’s petroleum industry, its considerable agricultural and fishing potential, job training, and infrastructure. By the late 1990s Yemen’s efforts, particularly in developing its petroleum industry, had resulted in a stable, growing economy.
A Mining
Oil was discovered in Yemen relatively recently, in the 1980s and 1990s. Yemen’s oil production grew from 70 million barrels per year in 1990 to 164 million barrels per year in 2004. Oil consequently came to dominate Yemen’s economy—more than half of government revenue now comes from oil. Yemen also has natural gas fields that remain largely unexploited. Other mines and quarries in Yemen produce rock salt, limestone, marble, and alabaster.
B Agriculture and Fishing
Yemen’s economy was primarily agricultural until the rise of the petroleum industry. Agriculture remains an important sector, and farming and livestock raising remain the chief livelihood for most of the country’s population. The extremes of topography and climate, especially in the north, permit a wide variety of crops, including grain (particularly sorghum, but also wheat, millet, and barley), fruits and vegetables (most notably tomatoes, potatoes, grapes, watermelons, papayas, and bananas), coffee, and the domestically valuable khat. In most areas of the highlands, crops are grown in terraced fields cut into the hills. Since the 1980s Yemeni farmers have developed various irrigation projects in an effort to turn some of the country’s plentiful desert into workable farmland and to further increase the variety of crops that can be planted. Sheep and goats are widely raised in Yemen, as are some cattle.
Fishing is also important to Yemen’s economy. Tuna, mackerel, cod, and lobster are caught by commercial as well as independent boats; the catch is sold fresh and dried, and canning factories are in operation in some of the country’s coastal areas.
C Manufacturing
Yemen’s petroleum refineries account for a large share of the country’s industrial output. Other manufactured products include foodstuffs, textiles, farming equipment, cement, and cigarettes. Oil-fueled electrical power plants produce all of Yemen’s electricity. Many products in Yemen continue to be made by hand and sold locally. Woven fabrics, glass and leatherwork, pottery, and jewelry are made by craftspeople who sell their work in the suqs (bazaars) held in many of Yemen’s cities, towns, and villages.
D Currency
Yemen’s unit of currency is the riyal (197 riyals equal U.S.$1, 2006). The riyal consists of 100 fils.
E Foreign Trade
Oil dominates Yemen’s export trade, and the rise of the petroleum industry has allowed the country to turn from large trade deficits in the mid-1990s to large trade surpluses in the early 21st century. In 2004 Yemen’s exports totaled $4.05 billion, and its imports $3.73billion. Petroleum products account for more than 95 percent of export earnings. Other exports include textiles, hides and skins, and coffee. Yemen’s chief imported products are food, manufactured consumer goods, machinery, transportation equipment, and chemicals. Leading purchasers of Yemen’s exports are India, Thailand, South Korea, China, and Singapore; chief sources of imports are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, Kuwait, and the United States.
F Transportation and Communications
Yemen has international airports in Sana‘a, Aden, Ta‘izz, and Al Ḩudaydah, and a good domestic air system. The ports at Aden and Al Ḩudaydah provide access to major sea routes. A network of paved roads is replacing old dirt tracks, a process that began in the 1960s. Trucks and cars are widely used for land transportation, although some Yemenis still use donkeys and camels. Since unification in 1990 the government has worked to extend utilities such as electricity, water, and sewage disposal to all Yemenis, and to make telephone service, radio, and television more widely available. A state-run broadcasting corporation operates several radio and television stations. Several daily newspapers are published in Yemen.
V GOVERNMENT
Yemen is governed under a constitution adopted in 1991, and subsequently amended. The amended constitution states that Yemen is a democratic, Islamic republic, and that Sharia (Islamic law) is the basis of all Yemeni legislation.
Before unification, North Yemen was governed by a benign authoritarian regime dominated by the military, and South Yemen functioned as a centralized socialist party-state. Politics opened up with the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1990, and the number of freely functioning parties, lobbying groups, and communications outlets multiplied. The 1993 election was the first multiparty election on the Arabian Peninsula, and the first in which women could vote. The vast majority of Yemenis participated.
A Executive
Yemen’s head of state is a president, who is popularly elected to a seven-year term. The president appoints a vice president, prime minister, and cabinet of ministers.
B Legislative
Yemen has a bicameral (two-chambered) legislature. The 111 members of the upper house, called the Shura Council, are appointed by the president. The 301 members of the lower house, called the House of Representatives, are popularly elected to six-year terms.
C Political Parties
The General People’s Congress (GPC), the former ruling party of North Yemen, has held a dominant position in the government since the first elections in unified Yemen, in 1993. The main opposition parties are the conservative Islamic Reform Grouping (al-Islah) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling party of South Yemen.
VI HISTORY
With the rise of the great ancient civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and along the Mediterranean Sea, historic Yemen became an important overland trade link between these civilizations and the highly prized luxury goods of South Arabia and points east and south. As a result, several pre-Islamic trading kingdoms grew up astride an incense trading route that ran northwest between the foothills and the edge of the desert. First, there was the Minaean kingdom, which lasted from about 1200 to 650 bc, and whose prosperity was due mainly to the trade of frankincense and spices. The large and prosperous kingdom of Saba’ (Sheba), founded in the 10th century bc and ruled by Bilqis, the queen of Sheba, among others, was known for its efficient farming and extensive irrigation system built around a large dam constructed at Ma‘rib. Farther south and east, in the region that would later become South Yemen, were the Qataban and Hadhramaut kingdoms, which also participated in the incense trade. The last of the great pre-Islamic kingdoms was that of Himyar, which lasted from about the 1st century bc until the ad 500s (see Himyarites). At their heights, the Sabaean and Himyarite kingdoms encompassed most of historic Yemen.
Because of their prominence and prosperity, the states and societies of ancient Yemen were collectively called Arabia Felix in Latin, meaning “Happy Arabia.” However, when the Romans occupied Egypt in the 1st century bc they made the Red Sea their primary avenue of commerce. With the decline of the caravan routes, the kingdoms of southern Arabia lost much of their wealth and fell into obscurity. Red Sea traffic sailed past Yemen, and what seaborne commerce Yemen engaged in had little impact on the country’s interior. The Tihāmah region, which was hot, humid, swept by sandstorms, and clouded in haze, isolated the comparatively well-watered and populous highlands. The weakened Yemeni regimes that followed the trading kingdoms were unable to prevent the occupation of Yemen by the Christian Abyssinian kingdom (modern Ethiopia) in the 4th and early 6th centuries ad and by the Sassanids of Persia in the later 6th century, just before the rise of Islam.
A Rise of Islam
The Islamic era, which began in the 7th century, contains many events critical to the formation of Yemen and the Yemeni people. The force with which Islam spread from its origins in Mecca and Medina in the nearby region of Al Ḩijāz (the Hejaz) led to Yemen’s rapid and thorough conversion to Islam. Yemenis were well-represented among the first soldiers of Islam who marched north, west, and east of Arabia to expand Muslim territory.
Yemen was ruled by a series of Muslim caliphs, beginning with the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled from Damascus in the latter part of the 7th century; Umayyad rule was followed by the Abbasid caliphs in the early 8th century (see Caliphate). The founding of a local Yemeni dynasty in the 9th century effectively ended both Abbasid rule from Baghdād and the authority of the Arab caliphate. This allowed Yemen to develop its own variant of Arab-Islamic culture and society in relative isolation. In the 10th century, the establishment of the Zaydi imamate, essentially a theocracy, in the far north of Yemen forged a deep, lasting link between the towns and tribes of the northern highlands and the Zaydi Shia sect of Islam. By contrast, the two-century-long rule of the Rasulids, beginning in the 1200s and initially based in Aden, identified the coastal regions and the southern uplands with Shafi’i Islam. The Rasulids, one of the major dynasties in the history of Yemen, broke from the Egyptian Ayyubid dynasty to rule independently. Their capital, later located at Ta‘izz, was famous for its diverse artistic and intellectual achievements.
B Ottoman Rule
In the early 16th century Portuguese merchants came to Arabia and took over the Red Sea trade routes between Egypt and India. The Portuguese annexed the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, and from that vantage point tried unsuccessfully to take control of Aden. Following the Portuguese, the Egyptian Mamluks attempted to take power in Yemen, successfully capturing Sana‘a but failing to take Aden. Armies of the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt in 1517, and in 1538 brought most of Yemen under their control. The Ottomans were expelled nearly a century later, after a long struggle led by the Zaydi imamate that united and strengthened Yemeni identity and ushered in a long period of Zaydi rule.
Yemen developed an extensive coffee trade under Ottoman rule, with the coastal town of Mocha (Al Mukhā) becoming a coffee port of international importance. Despite this, the highlands of Yemen remained economically and culturally isolated from the outside world from the mid-17th century to nearly the mid-19th century, a period during which Western Europe was greatly influenced by modern thought and technology.
C Divided Yemen
The process by which Yemen and the Yemeni people were divided into two countries began with the British seizure of Aden in 1839 and the reoccupation of North Yemen by the Ottomans in 1849. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, both the Ottomans and the British expanded their control of Yemeni lands. In the early 20th century, the two powers drew a border between their territories, which came to be called North and South Yemen, respectively. This boundary remained intact for most of the 20th century.
C1 North Yemen in the 20th Century
In North Yemen, Ottoman rule met with significant opposition during the early 1900s. Under the leadership of the Zaydi imam, Yemenis staged many uprisings. After years of rebellion, in 1911 the Ottomans finally granted the imam autonomy over much of North Yemen. Defeat in World War I (1914-1918) forced the Ottomans to evacuate Yemen in 1918.
For the next 44 years North Yemen was ruled by two powerful imams. Imam Yahya ibn Muhammad and his son Ahmad created a king-state there much as the kings of England and France had done centuries earlier. The two imams strengthened the state and secured its borders. They used the imamate to insulate Yemen and revitalize its Islamic culture and society at a time when traditional societies around the world were declining under imperial rule. While Yemen under the two imams seemed almost frozen in time, a small but increasing number of Yemenis became aware of the contrast between an autocratic society they saw as stagnant and the political and economic modernization occurring in other parts of the world. This produced an important chain of events: the birth of the nationalist Free Yemeni Movement in the mid-1940s, an aborted 1948 revolution in which Imam Yahya was killed, a failed 1955 coup against Imam Ahmad, and finally, the 1962 revolution in which the imam was deposed by a group of nationalist officers and the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was proclaimed under the leadership of Abdullah al-Sallal.
The first five years of President al-Sallal’s rule, from 1962 to 1967, comprised the first chapter in the history of North Yemen. Marked by the revolution that began it, this period witnessed a lengthy civil war between Yemeni republican forces, based in the cities and supported by Egypt, and the royalist supporters of the deposed imam, backed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In 1965 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser met with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to consider a possible settlement to the civil war. The meeting resulted in an agreement whereby both countries pledged to end their involvement and allow the people of North Yemen to choose their own government. Subsequent peace conferences were ineffectual, however, and fighting flared up again in 1966.
By 1967 the war had reached a stalemate, and the republicans had split into opposing factions concerning relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In late 1967 al-Sallal’s government was overthrown and he was replaced as president by Abdul Rahman al-Iryani. Fighting continued until 1970, when Saudi Arabia halted its aid to royalists and established diplomatic ties with North Yemen. Al-Iryani effected the long-sought truce between republican and royalist forces, and presided over the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1970.
In June 1974 military officers led by Colonel Ibrahim al-Hamdi staged a bloodless coup, claiming that the government of al-Iryani had become ineffective. The constitution was suspended, and executive power was vested in a command council, dominated by the military. Al-Hamdi chaired the council and attempted to strengthen and restructure politics in North Yemen. Al-Hamdi was assassinated in 1977, and his successor, former Chief of Staff Ahmed Hussein al-Ghashmi, was killed in June 1978. The lengthy tenure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled North Yemen from 1978 until it merged with South Yemen in 1990, proved more stable. Saleh strengthened the political system, while an influx of foreign aid and the discovery of oil in North Yemen held out the prospect of economic expansion and development.
C2 South Yemen in the 20th Century
The history of South Yemen after the British occupation of Aden in 1839 was quite different. After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Aden became a vitally important port along the sea lanes to India. In order to protect Aden from Ottoman takeover, the British signed treaties with tribal leaders in the interior, promising military protection and subsidies in exchange for loyalty; gradually British authority was extended to other mainland areas to the east of Aden. In 1937 the area was designated the Aden Protectorate. In 1958 six small states within the protectorate formed a British-sponsored federation. This federation was later expanded to include Aden and the remaining states of the region, and was renamed the Federation of South Arabia in 1965.
During the 1960s British colonial policy as a whole came under increasing challenge from a nationalist movement centered primarily in Aden. Britain finally withdrew from the area in 1967, when the dominant opposition group, the National Liberation Front (NLF), forced the collapse of the federation and assumed political control. South Yemen became independent as the People’s Republic of South Yemen in November of that year. The NLF became the only recognized political party and its leader, Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi, was installed as president. In 1969 al-Shaabi was ousted and replaced by Salem Ali Rubayi; until 1978, South Yemen was governed under the co-leadership of Rubayi and his rival, Abdel Fattah Ismail, both of whom made efforts to organize the country according to their versions of Marxism. In 1970 the country was renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Foreign-owned properties were nationalized, and close ties were established with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Rubayi was deposed and executed in 1978; under the prevailing authority of Ismail, Soviet influence intensified in South Yemen. Ismail was replaced by Ali Nasser Muhammad al-Hasani in 1980. In 1986 a civil war erupted within the government of South Yemen; the war ended after 12 days, and al-Hasani fled into exile. Former premier Haydar Bakr al-Attas was elected president in October.
D Unified Republic
Relations between North Yemen and South Yemen grew increasingly conciliatory after 1980. Border wars between the two countries in 1972 and 1979 both had ended surprisingly with agreements for Yemeni unification, although in each case the agreement was quickly shelved. During the 1980s the two countries cooperated increasingly in economic and administrative matters. In December 1989 their respective leaders met and prepared a final unification agreement. On May 22, 1990, North and South Yemen officially merged to become the Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh, then leader of North Yemen, became president of unified Yemen, while Ali Salem al-Beidh and Haydar Bakr al-Attas of South Yemen became vice president and prime minister, respectively. Sana‘a was declared the political capital of the Republic of Yemen, and Aden the economic capital. By the summer of 1990 more than 30 new political parties had formed in Yemen. Rising oil revenues and financial assistance from many foreign countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, brought hope that Yemen could begin to strengthen and expand its economy.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Persian Gulf War took a serious toll on Yemen’s economy and newfound political stability. Yemen’s critical response to the presence of foreign military forces massed in Saudi Arabia led the Saudi government to expel 850,000 Yemeni workers. The return of the workers and the loss of remittance payments produced widespread unemployment and economic upheaval, which led in turn to domestic political unrest. Bomb attacks, political killings, and violent demonstrations occurred throughout 1991 and 1992, and in December 1992 a rise in consumer prices precipitated riots in several of Yemen’s major cities. Concern arose that declining economic and social conditions would give rise to Islamic fundamentalist activities in Yemen. Political turmoil forced the government to postpone general elections, which were finally held on April 27, 1993, completing the Yemeni unification process begun three years earlier. The General People’s Congress (GPC), the former ruling party in North Yemen, won 121 seats in parliament; the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling party of South Yemen, won 56 seats; a new Islamic coalition party, al-Islah, won 62 seats; and the remaining 62 seats were won by minor parties and independents. The president and prime minister remained in office after the election, and the three major parties formed a legislative coalition.
D1 Civil War
The successful elections quickly gave way to political turmoil. In August 1993 Vice President al-Beidh withdrew from Sana‘a to Aden and ceased to participate in the political process. This followed his visit to the United States, where he had held talks with Vice President Al Gore, apparently without the consent of President Saleh. From his base at Aden, al-Beidh issued a list of conditions for his return to Sana‘a; the conditions centered on the security of the YSP, which, according to the vice president, had been subject to northern-instigated political violence since unification. Al-Beidh also protested what he considered the increasing economic marginalization of the south.
Clashes between northern and southern forces broke out in early 1994 and Yemen exploded into full-scale civil war in early May. Both sides carried out missile attacks in and around Sana‘a and Aden. On May 21 al-Beidh announced the secession of the South from the Republic of Yemen and the formation of a new southern state, the Democratic Republic of Yemen (DRY). The DRY assembled a political structure similar to that of unified Yemen, and al-Beidh was elected president by a five-member Presidential Council. Meanwhile, Saleh dismissed a number of YSP party members from Yemen’s government in an attempt to remove the influence of al-Beidh.
Fighting continued throughout June 1994, much of it centered around the port cities of Aden and Al Mukallā. Both sides launched attacks on oil installations, and a great deal of infrastructure—particularly in and around Aden—was damaged or destroyed. Following the failure of a Russian cease-fire agreement, Saleh’s northern forces launched a final drive on Aden and Al Mukallā in early July, ultimately defeating the DRY army. By mid-July all of the former South Yemen was under Saleh’s control.
After the collapse of the DRY, Saleh’s government was faced with the task of rebuilding Yemen’s economy and government. In September 1994 the Yemeni legislature approved a number of major reforms to the country’s 1991 unification constitution. Saleh was formally reelected president by the legislature in October, and he appointed Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi as his new vice president. In an attempt to revive the country’s economy, Yemeni leaders made efforts to devise and implement an economic austerity program called for by several international economic agencies; this was achieved with a great deal of difficulty in the spring of 1995.
D2 Territorial Disputes
In February 1995 the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia agreed to negotiate a settlement to their long-standing dispute over their shared border. The agreement to negotiate defused a potentially explosive situation, as Yemen and Saudi Arabia had skirmished in the region only a few months before. Five years later, in June 2000, the two countries announced an agreement settling the disputed boundary.
In December 1995 Eritrea, which lies across the Red Sea from Yemen, seized Ḩānīsh al Kabīr (Greater Ḩānīsh Island), strategically located at the mouth of the Red Sea, from Yemeni troops stationed there. At least 12 people were killed in the fighting. Both Yemen and Eritrea claimed the Ḩānīsh Islands; Yemeni plans for a resort on Ḩānīsh al Kabīr reportedly sparked the attack. By May 1996 the two countries had reached a truce and agreed to submit the question of sovereignty over the islands to arbitration. In October 1998 the arbitration tribunal ruled that the Ḩānīsh Islands belonged to Yemen, and Eritrea withdrew its forces. Both countries accepted the ruling and moved to normalize relations.
D3 Recent Developments
In April 1997 President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) was returned to power in the first parliamentary elections since the 1994 civil war. Many members of the opposition boycotted the elections, alleging unfair tactics by the GPC. International election monitors, however, reported that the elections were mostly fair. In September 1999 Saleh was elected president in the country’s first direct presidential elections. Opposition parties took part in 2003 parliamentary elections but the GPC retained its dominant majority.
I INTRODUCTION
Yemen, country in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula (Arabia). Tall mountains divide Yemen’s coastal stretches from a desolate desert interior. Yemen is sparsely populated—half of the country is uninhabitable—and its Arab people are largely rural. The site of several prosperous civilizations in ancient times, Yemen declined in importance and was a poor and forgotten land for more than a thousand years. The discovery of oil in the area in the late 20th century held out the prospect of economic development and an easier life for the people of Yemen.
The Republic of Yemen was created in 1990 out of the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The YAR was commonly called North Yemen, and the PDRY was generally referred to as South Yemen, although South Yemen was actually less to the south than to the east and southeast of North Yemen. Sana‘a (Sanaa) is the Republic of Yemen’s capital and largest city.
Yemen is bounded on the west by the Red Sea and on the south by the Gulf of Aden (an arm of the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean), and is separated from Africa by the narrow strait of Bab el Mandeb. To the north and northeast lies Saudi Arabia and to the east is Oman; these two countries are Yemen’s only contiguous neighbors. Yemen covers about 527,970 sq km (about 203,850 sq mi).
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Yemen is a largely desert land. There are no permanent rivers in the country, and little natural vegetation besides scrub brush. Yemen possesses several sizable islands, most notably Socotra in the Indian Ocean, Perim in the Bab el Mandeb, and Kamaran and the Ḩānīsh Islands in the Red Sea.
The rectangular Arabian plate, which defines the Arabian Peninsula, is tilted and Yemen constitutes its uppermost corner. The edge of this corner takes the form of a steep, jagged mountain range that separates a low coastal plain (west and south of the mountains) from a high interior plateau (east and north of the mountains).
A Natural Regions
The Yemeni highlands average about 1,830 m (about 6,000 ft) above sea level and rise at Jabal an Nabī Shu‘ayb to 3,760 m (12,336 ft), the highest peak on the Arabian Peninsula. The highlands in the north are loftier and more extensive than in the south. Since the northern highlands have a generally less forbidding climate and greater rainfall, they support more intensive and extensive agriculture and a larger population.
To the west and south, the highlands drop abruptly to a low, flat coastal desert plain called the Tihāmah. Averaging about 50 km (about 30 mi) in width, this plain parallels the Red Sea the length of northern Yemen, turns abruptly east at the corner of the peninsula, and then runs parallel to the Gulf of Aden for part of the length of southern Yemen. The Tihāmah is hot, humid, and arid, and has little vegetation.
To the east and north, the highlands descend gradually to the interior plateau that holds the vast Arabian desert known as the Rub‘ al Khali (Empty Quarter). The eastern half of Yemen is basically uninhabitable. The exception is the region of Hadhramaut, a large valley running parallel to the Gulf of Aden coast then turning southward to the sea. Here, some fertile valleys allow agriculture and larger settlements.
B Climate
The Yemeni highlands have a generally semiarid but otherwise temperate climate. By contrast, the coastal plain is hot and humid much of the year, and at times extremely so; summer and winter winds often bring severe sandstorms. Average temperatures for Yemen as a whole vary from about 27°C (80°F) in June to about 14°C (57°F) in January.
Every year during the summer months, monsoon winds blow inland over the water, picking up moisture, and the mountains force the warm air to rise, cool, and condense. The considerable, although erratic, seasonal rainfall allows for intensive cultivation, much of it on stonewalled terraces and in wadis—streambeds that flow with water only during and after the rains. The average rainfall in the highlands varies from 303 to 762 mm (8 to 30 in), whereas on the coast it varies from 76 to 229 mm (3 to 9 in).
III PEOPLE AND SOCIETY
Most inhabitants of Yemen are ethnic Arabs, although there exist relatively small communities of Africans, South Asians, and Europeans. People of different regions of Yemen are culturally distinct. Many of the inhabitants of Hadhramaut reflect the cultural and genetic influence of Southeast Asia with which the district has historic commercial ties. Those Yemenis living in the coastal lowlands reflect the racial and cultural influences of nearby Africa. Cosmopolitan Aden, which Britain ruled as part of India from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, still bears traces of the culture of the Indian subcontinent.
A significant minority of the population is organized into tribes, and for many Yemenis tribal identity is of primary importance. This is particularly true in the northern highlands, where the sheikhs of several individual tribes and two large tribal confederations, the Hashid and Bakil, can still mobilize large numbers in defense of tribal interests. Virtually all of the inhabitants of northern Yemen are sedentary, meaning they have fixed homes and do not move from place to place like nomads. A slightly smaller percentage is sedentary in the south. A small number of nomadic pastoralists can be found on the edge of the desert far to the east. Although Yemen has traditionally been characterized by a stratified social system marked by castelike groups at the top and bottom, this structure is breaking down as economic opportunities become available and new social ideas come to prevail.
A Population Characteristics
The total population of Yemen is 23,013,376 (2008 estimate). The average population density is 44 persons per sq km (113 per sq mi). Although more than one and a half times its size in land area, the former South Yemen had less than one-third the population of the former North Yemen when they merged in 1990. The population of southern Yemen is concentrated in and around its urban areas and the Hadhramaut region. By contrast, the far larger population of northern Yemen is scattered over a great many towns, villages, and hamlets; the combined populations of its principal urban centers comprise just a fraction of the north’s total population.
B Principal Cities and Towns
Yemen has four major cities. Sana‘a, located in the northern highlands, is Yemen’s political capital and largest city (population, 2003 estimate, 1,469,000). Aden (634,710), on the Gulf of Aden coast 180 km (110 mi) east of the Bab el Mandeb, was the capital of South Yemen and is the unified country’s economic hub and largest port. Al Ḩudaydah (155,110), in the Tihāmah, is the second largest port. Ta‘izz, (178,043), in the highlands above Aden, is an important commercial and light industrial center. Among Yemen’s larger towns are Şa‘dah, far to the north; Dhamār, Yarim, and Ibb, in the middle region; Al Mukallā, on the southern coast; and in Hadhramaut, the towns of Shibām, Say‘ūn, and Tarīm.
C Language
Nearly all Yemenis speak Arabic. However, the country’s extremely rugged terrain, widely separated population centers, and less-developed means of transportation and communications have produced several different dialects. The most notable difference exists between the dialect of the northern Yemeni highlands and that of Aden and the southern part of the former North Yemen.
D Religion
The indigenous people of Yemen are almost all Muslims, with small resident communities of Christians, Jews, and Hindus. The Christian population that existed in Yemen in pre-Islamic times virtually disappeared during the Islamic era, which began in the 7th century ad. All but a few thousand members of the formerly significant Jewish community, which may have resided continuously in Yemen since pre-Islamic times, emigrated to Israel shortly after its creation in 1948. Yemen’s Muslim population has suffered from divisiveness. Through centuries of persecution, the once large and powerful Ismaili Shia community (see Ismailis) was reduced to an insignificant minority residing in the mountains, although this number has increased somewhat in recent years.
A long-standing division remains between Yemen’s two principal religious groups, the Zaydi Shia Muslims and the Shafi’i Sunni Muslims (see Shia Islam; Sunni Islam). The Zaydis of the northern highlands dominated politics and cultural life in northern Yemen for centuries. With the unification of Yemen and the addition of the south’s almost totally Shafi’i population, the numerical balance shifted dramatically away from the Zaydis.
E Education
Yemen’s constitution grants all citizens the right to an education. Nevertheless, the country’s educational system, probably better in the south than in the north, still fails to reach a large part of the population, especially girls. In 2002–2003 only 68 percent of Yemen’s primary school-age girls attended school, compared to 98 percent of primary school-age boys. Just 33 percent of Yemen’s adult female population is literate, while 73 percent of adult men are literate.
Public schools exist in larger towns and cities, and children in most rural areas attend Islamic religious schools. Secondary schools in Yemen funnel many students into Sana‘a University (1970) and the University of Aden (1975).
F Way of Life
Yemeni tribesmen are known by the jambiyya, or curved dagger, carried in a scabbard on a wide belt at the front of the body. Men often wear one of several types of skirts rather than pants, and a straw hat or headcloth. They also may wear Western styles of clothing. The clothing of Yemeni women, which includes robes, shawls, and veils, varies greatly from region to region; much of it is colorful, striking, and imaginative.
Women in Yemen tend to live secluded from unrelated men, although this is less true under the more relaxed conditions in the countryside and former South Yemen generally. The most distinctive and important Yemeni social institution is the “khat session,” a relaxed but ritualized afternoon gathering at which men and women socialize separately and chew the mildly narcotic leaves of the khat (qat) plant. Most men and many women chew khat at least twice a week.
The Yemeni diet includes rice, bread, vegetables, fish, and lamb. A spicy green stew called salta is one of Yemen’s most popular dishes. Housing in Yemen varies from region to region. In the Tihāmah, near the Red Sea, people live in African-style circular reed huts. Residents of the highlands, many of whom are farmers, sometimes live in stone or mud-brick houses of multiple stories, often intricately decorated with alabaster or stained glass. City dwellers also reside in houses of this type, or else in modern-style houses or flats.
Yemen’s relative isolation and traditionally weak economy have produced a number of long-standing social problems. Because education was until recently unavailable to the majority of Yemenis, the country has traditionally had one of the lowest literacy rates in Asia. This is particularly true for women in Yemen, who have not generally been encouraged to seek schooling. In addition, health care in Yemen is notoriously underdeveloped. Polluted drinking water, inadequate vaccination, and a shortage of medical personnel and facilities have contributed to the quick spread of numerous diseases among Yemenis. These conditions have also given Yemen a high infant mortality rate and a much lower rate of life expectancy than in other countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Since the late 20th century, Yemeni leaders have made greater efforts to provide social welfare for the nation’s inhabitants; with the help of foreign aid, new training and treatment facilities have opened, and new health-care programs are in operation in some rural areas.
G Art and Architecture
Yemen has a rich and varied tradition of arts and handicrafts. In addition to painting, sculpture, and metalwork, the making of stained glass is a popular art form in Yemen, and the brightly colored glass is often used to decorate public buildings and private homes. Yemenis also have a tradition of oral literature; poetry is often delivered during celebrations and is sometimes broadcast via radio or television.
Although Yemen’s public architecture is undistinguished, the country is graced with spectacular works of domestic architecture, from the stone fortress villages on mountain slopes to the often fancifully decorated, multistoried stone and mud-brick skyscrapers of Sana‘a and Shibām. Other examples of striking architecture include the serpentine mud construction of Şa‘dah in the north and the geometrically decorated mud-brick buildings of Zabīd on the Tihāmah.
Cultural sites in Yemen include the Republican Palace in Sana‘a, where the imam, or Zaydi political ruler, lived. There are important mosques in most of Yemen’s major cities, and dozens in Sana‘a alone; especially notable is the Great Mosque in Sana‘a, an important Zaydi house of worship.
IV ECONOMY
For centuries, Yemen’s economy was based on subsistence agriculture and was largely self-sufficient. However, with the import of cheap goods from abroad, North Yemen moved quickly from self-sufficiency to dependence after 1960, as the south had done decades earlier. During the 1970s and 1980s North Yemen came to rely heavily on Saudi Arabia, the Arab Gulf states, and to a lesser extent, the western industrial countries for financial and other assistance, while South Yemen became equally dependent on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other communist countries.
The unification of Yemen in 1990 and the negative effects of the Persian Gulf War the following year caused economic hardship but also spurred a new commitment to economic planning and development in Yemen. Efforts to improve the economy focused on Yemen’s petroleum industry, its considerable agricultural and fishing potential, job training, and infrastructure. By the late 1990s Yemen’s efforts, particularly in developing its petroleum industry, had resulted in a stable, growing economy.
A Mining
Oil was discovered in Yemen relatively recently, in the 1980s and 1990s. Yemen’s oil production grew from 70 million barrels per year in 1990 to 164 million barrels per year in 2004. Oil consequently came to dominate Yemen’s economy—more than half of government revenue now comes from oil. Yemen also has natural gas fields that remain largely unexploited. Other mines and quarries in Yemen produce rock salt, limestone, marble, and alabaster.
B Agriculture and Fishing
Yemen’s economy was primarily agricultural until the rise of the petroleum industry. Agriculture remains an important sector, and farming and livestock raising remain the chief livelihood for most of the country’s population. The extremes of topography and climate, especially in the north, permit a wide variety of crops, including grain (particularly sorghum, but also wheat, millet, and barley), fruits and vegetables (most notably tomatoes, potatoes, grapes, watermelons, papayas, and bananas), coffee, and the domestically valuable khat. In most areas of the highlands, crops are grown in terraced fields cut into the hills. Since the 1980s Yemeni farmers have developed various irrigation projects in an effort to turn some of the country’s plentiful desert into workable farmland and to further increase the variety of crops that can be planted. Sheep and goats are widely raised in Yemen, as are some cattle.
Fishing is also important to Yemen’s economy. Tuna, mackerel, cod, and lobster are caught by commercial as well as independent boats; the catch is sold fresh and dried, and canning factories are in operation in some of the country’s coastal areas.
C Manufacturing
Yemen’s petroleum refineries account for a large share of the country’s industrial output. Other manufactured products include foodstuffs, textiles, farming equipment, cement, and cigarettes. Oil-fueled electrical power plants produce all of Yemen’s electricity. Many products in Yemen continue to be made by hand and sold locally. Woven fabrics, glass and leatherwork, pottery, and jewelry are made by craftspeople who sell their work in the suqs (bazaars) held in many of Yemen’s cities, towns, and villages.
D Currency
Yemen’s unit of currency is the riyal (197 riyals equal U.S.$1, 2006). The riyal consists of 100 fils.
E Foreign Trade
Oil dominates Yemen’s export trade, and the rise of the petroleum industry has allowed the country to turn from large trade deficits in the mid-1990s to large trade surpluses in the early 21st century. In 2004 Yemen’s exports totaled $4.05 billion, and its imports $3.73billion. Petroleum products account for more than 95 percent of export earnings. Other exports include textiles, hides and skins, and coffee. Yemen’s chief imported products are food, manufactured consumer goods, machinery, transportation equipment, and chemicals. Leading purchasers of Yemen’s exports are India, Thailand, South Korea, China, and Singapore; chief sources of imports are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, Kuwait, and the United States.
F Transportation and Communications
Yemen has international airports in Sana‘a, Aden, Ta‘izz, and Al Ḩudaydah, and a good domestic air system. The ports at Aden and Al Ḩudaydah provide access to major sea routes. A network of paved roads is replacing old dirt tracks, a process that began in the 1960s. Trucks and cars are widely used for land transportation, although some Yemenis still use donkeys and camels. Since unification in 1990 the government has worked to extend utilities such as electricity, water, and sewage disposal to all Yemenis, and to make telephone service, radio, and television more widely available. A state-run broadcasting corporation operates several radio and television stations. Several daily newspapers are published in Yemen.
V GOVERNMENT
Yemen is governed under a constitution adopted in 1991, and subsequently amended. The amended constitution states that Yemen is a democratic, Islamic republic, and that Sharia (Islamic law) is the basis of all Yemeni legislation.
Before unification, North Yemen was governed by a benign authoritarian regime dominated by the military, and South Yemen functioned as a centralized socialist party-state. Politics opened up with the creation of the Republic of Yemen in 1990, and the number of freely functioning parties, lobbying groups, and communications outlets multiplied. The 1993 election was the first multiparty election on the Arabian Peninsula, and the first in which women could vote. The vast majority of Yemenis participated.
A Executive
Yemen’s head of state is a president, who is popularly elected to a seven-year term. The president appoints a vice president, prime minister, and cabinet of ministers.
B Legislative
Yemen has a bicameral (two-chambered) legislature. The 111 members of the upper house, called the Shura Council, are appointed by the president. The 301 members of the lower house, called the House of Representatives, are popularly elected to six-year terms.
C Political Parties
The General People’s Congress (GPC), the former ruling party of North Yemen, has held a dominant position in the government since the first elections in unified Yemen, in 1993. The main opposition parties are the conservative Islamic Reform Grouping (al-Islah) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling party of South Yemen.
VI HISTORY
With the rise of the great ancient civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and along the Mediterranean Sea, historic Yemen became an important overland trade link between these civilizations and the highly prized luxury goods of South Arabia and points east and south. As a result, several pre-Islamic trading kingdoms grew up astride an incense trading route that ran northwest between the foothills and the edge of the desert. First, there was the Minaean kingdom, which lasted from about 1200 to 650 bc, and whose prosperity was due mainly to the trade of frankincense and spices. The large and prosperous kingdom of Saba’ (Sheba), founded in the 10th century bc and ruled by Bilqis, the queen of Sheba, among others, was known for its efficient farming and extensive irrigation system built around a large dam constructed at Ma‘rib. Farther south and east, in the region that would later become South Yemen, were the Qataban and Hadhramaut kingdoms, which also participated in the incense trade. The last of the great pre-Islamic kingdoms was that of Himyar, which lasted from about the 1st century bc until the ad 500s (see Himyarites). At their heights, the Sabaean and Himyarite kingdoms encompassed most of historic Yemen.
Because of their prominence and prosperity, the states and societies of ancient Yemen were collectively called Arabia Felix in Latin, meaning “Happy Arabia.” However, when the Romans occupied Egypt in the 1st century bc they made the Red Sea their primary avenue of commerce. With the decline of the caravan routes, the kingdoms of southern Arabia lost much of their wealth and fell into obscurity. Red Sea traffic sailed past Yemen, and what seaborne commerce Yemen engaged in had little impact on the country’s interior. The Tihāmah region, which was hot, humid, swept by sandstorms, and clouded in haze, isolated the comparatively well-watered and populous highlands. The weakened Yemeni regimes that followed the trading kingdoms were unable to prevent the occupation of Yemen by the Christian Abyssinian kingdom (modern Ethiopia) in the 4th and early 6th centuries ad and by the Sassanids of Persia in the later 6th century, just before the rise of Islam.
A Rise of Islam
The Islamic era, which began in the 7th century, contains many events critical to the formation of Yemen and the Yemeni people. The force with which Islam spread from its origins in Mecca and Medina in the nearby region of Al Ḩijāz (the Hejaz) led to Yemen’s rapid and thorough conversion to Islam. Yemenis were well-represented among the first soldiers of Islam who marched north, west, and east of Arabia to expand Muslim territory.
Yemen was ruled by a series of Muslim caliphs, beginning with the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled from Damascus in the latter part of the 7th century; Umayyad rule was followed by the Abbasid caliphs in the early 8th century (see Caliphate). The founding of a local Yemeni dynasty in the 9th century effectively ended both Abbasid rule from Baghdād and the authority of the Arab caliphate. This allowed Yemen to develop its own variant of Arab-Islamic culture and society in relative isolation. In the 10th century, the establishment of the Zaydi imamate, essentially a theocracy, in the far north of Yemen forged a deep, lasting link between the towns and tribes of the northern highlands and the Zaydi Shia sect of Islam. By contrast, the two-century-long rule of the Rasulids, beginning in the 1200s and initially based in Aden, identified the coastal regions and the southern uplands with Shafi’i Islam. The Rasulids, one of the major dynasties in the history of Yemen, broke from the Egyptian Ayyubid dynasty to rule independently. Their capital, later located at Ta‘izz, was famous for its diverse artistic and intellectual achievements.
B Ottoman Rule
In the early 16th century Portuguese merchants came to Arabia and took over the Red Sea trade routes between Egypt and India. The Portuguese annexed the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, and from that vantage point tried unsuccessfully to take control of Aden. Following the Portuguese, the Egyptian Mamluks attempted to take power in Yemen, successfully capturing Sana‘a but failing to take Aden. Armies of the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt in 1517, and in 1538 brought most of Yemen under their control. The Ottomans were expelled nearly a century later, after a long struggle led by the Zaydi imamate that united and strengthened Yemeni identity and ushered in a long period of Zaydi rule.
Yemen developed an extensive coffee trade under Ottoman rule, with the coastal town of Mocha (Al Mukhā) becoming a coffee port of international importance. Despite this, the highlands of Yemen remained economically and culturally isolated from the outside world from the mid-17th century to nearly the mid-19th century, a period during which Western Europe was greatly influenced by modern thought and technology.
C Divided Yemen
The process by which Yemen and the Yemeni people were divided into two countries began with the British seizure of Aden in 1839 and the reoccupation of North Yemen by the Ottomans in 1849. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, both the Ottomans and the British expanded their control of Yemeni lands. In the early 20th century, the two powers drew a border between their territories, which came to be called North and South Yemen, respectively. This boundary remained intact for most of the 20th century.
C1 North Yemen in the 20th Century
In North Yemen, Ottoman rule met with significant opposition during the early 1900s. Under the leadership of the Zaydi imam, Yemenis staged many uprisings. After years of rebellion, in 1911 the Ottomans finally granted the imam autonomy over much of North Yemen. Defeat in World War I (1914-1918) forced the Ottomans to evacuate Yemen in 1918.
For the next 44 years North Yemen was ruled by two powerful imams. Imam Yahya ibn Muhammad and his son Ahmad created a king-state there much as the kings of England and France had done centuries earlier. The two imams strengthened the state and secured its borders. They used the imamate to insulate Yemen and revitalize its Islamic culture and society at a time when traditional societies around the world were declining under imperial rule. While Yemen under the two imams seemed almost frozen in time, a small but increasing number of Yemenis became aware of the contrast between an autocratic society they saw as stagnant and the political and economic modernization occurring in other parts of the world. This produced an important chain of events: the birth of the nationalist Free Yemeni Movement in the mid-1940s, an aborted 1948 revolution in which Imam Yahya was killed, a failed 1955 coup against Imam Ahmad, and finally, the 1962 revolution in which the imam was deposed by a group of nationalist officers and the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was proclaimed under the leadership of Abdullah al-Sallal.
The first five years of President al-Sallal’s rule, from 1962 to 1967, comprised the first chapter in the history of North Yemen. Marked by the revolution that began it, this period witnessed a lengthy civil war between Yemeni republican forces, based in the cities and supported by Egypt, and the royalist supporters of the deposed imam, backed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In 1965 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser met with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to consider a possible settlement to the civil war. The meeting resulted in an agreement whereby both countries pledged to end their involvement and allow the people of North Yemen to choose their own government. Subsequent peace conferences were ineffectual, however, and fighting flared up again in 1966.
By 1967 the war had reached a stalemate, and the republicans had split into opposing factions concerning relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In late 1967 al-Sallal’s government was overthrown and he was replaced as president by Abdul Rahman al-Iryani. Fighting continued until 1970, when Saudi Arabia halted its aid to royalists and established diplomatic ties with North Yemen. Al-Iryani effected the long-sought truce between republican and royalist forces, and presided over the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1970.
In June 1974 military officers led by Colonel Ibrahim al-Hamdi staged a bloodless coup, claiming that the government of al-Iryani had become ineffective. The constitution was suspended, and executive power was vested in a command council, dominated by the military. Al-Hamdi chaired the council and attempted to strengthen and restructure politics in North Yemen. Al-Hamdi was assassinated in 1977, and his successor, former Chief of Staff Ahmed Hussein al-Ghashmi, was killed in June 1978. The lengthy tenure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled North Yemen from 1978 until it merged with South Yemen in 1990, proved more stable. Saleh strengthened the political system, while an influx of foreign aid and the discovery of oil in North Yemen held out the prospect of economic expansion and development.
C2 South Yemen in the 20th Century
The history of South Yemen after the British occupation of Aden in 1839 was quite different. After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Aden became a vitally important port along the sea lanes to India. In order to protect Aden from Ottoman takeover, the British signed treaties with tribal leaders in the interior, promising military protection and subsidies in exchange for loyalty; gradually British authority was extended to other mainland areas to the east of Aden. In 1937 the area was designated the Aden Protectorate. In 1958 six small states within the protectorate formed a British-sponsored federation. This federation was later expanded to include Aden and the remaining states of the region, and was renamed the Federation of South Arabia in 1965.
During the 1960s British colonial policy as a whole came under increasing challenge from a nationalist movement centered primarily in Aden. Britain finally withdrew from the area in 1967, when the dominant opposition group, the National Liberation Front (NLF), forced the collapse of the federation and assumed political control. South Yemen became independent as the People’s Republic of South Yemen in November of that year. The NLF became the only recognized political party and its leader, Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi, was installed as president. In 1969 al-Shaabi was ousted and replaced by Salem Ali Rubayi; until 1978, South Yemen was governed under the co-leadership of Rubayi and his rival, Abdel Fattah Ismail, both of whom made efforts to organize the country according to their versions of Marxism. In 1970 the country was renamed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Foreign-owned properties were nationalized, and close ties were established with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Rubayi was deposed and executed in 1978; under the prevailing authority of Ismail, Soviet influence intensified in South Yemen. Ismail was replaced by Ali Nasser Muhammad al-Hasani in 1980. In 1986 a civil war erupted within the government of South Yemen; the war ended after 12 days, and al-Hasani fled into exile. Former premier Haydar Bakr al-Attas was elected president in October.
D Unified Republic
Relations between North Yemen and South Yemen grew increasingly conciliatory after 1980. Border wars between the two countries in 1972 and 1979 both had ended surprisingly with agreements for Yemeni unification, although in each case the agreement was quickly shelved. During the 1980s the two countries cooperated increasingly in economic and administrative matters. In December 1989 their respective leaders met and prepared a final unification agreement. On May 22, 1990, North and South Yemen officially merged to become the Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh, then leader of North Yemen, became president of unified Yemen, while Ali Salem al-Beidh and Haydar Bakr al-Attas of South Yemen became vice president and prime minister, respectively. Sana‘a was declared the political capital of the Republic of Yemen, and Aden the economic capital. By the summer of 1990 more than 30 new political parties had formed in Yemen. Rising oil revenues and financial assistance from many foreign countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, brought hope that Yemen could begin to strengthen and expand its economy.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Persian Gulf War took a serious toll on Yemen’s economy and newfound political stability. Yemen’s critical response to the presence of foreign military forces massed in Saudi Arabia led the Saudi government to expel 850,000 Yemeni workers. The return of the workers and the loss of remittance payments produced widespread unemployment and economic upheaval, which led in turn to domestic political unrest. Bomb attacks, political killings, and violent demonstrations occurred throughout 1991 and 1992, and in December 1992 a rise in consumer prices precipitated riots in several of Yemen’s major cities. Concern arose that declining economic and social conditions would give rise to Islamic fundamentalist activities in Yemen. Political turmoil forced the government to postpone general elections, which were finally held on April 27, 1993, completing the Yemeni unification process begun three years earlier. The General People’s Congress (GPC), the former ruling party in North Yemen, won 121 seats in parliament; the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), the former ruling party of South Yemen, won 56 seats; a new Islamic coalition party, al-Islah, won 62 seats; and the remaining 62 seats were won by minor parties and independents. The president and prime minister remained in office after the election, and the three major parties formed a legislative coalition.
D1 Civil War
The successful elections quickly gave way to political turmoil. In August 1993 Vice President al-Beidh withdrew from Sana‘a to Aden and ceased to participate in the political process. This followed his visit to the United States, where he had held talks with Vice President Al Gore, apparently without the consent of President Saleh. From his base at Aden, al-Beidh issued a list of conditions for his return to Sana‘a; the conditions centered on the security of the YSP, which, according to the vice president, had been subject to northern-instigated political violence since unification. Al-Beidh also protested what he considered the increasing economic marginalization of the south.
Clashes between northern and southern forces broke out in early 1994 and Yemen exploded into full-scale civil war in early May. Both sides carried out missile attacks in and around Sana‘a and Aden. On May 21 al-Beidh announced the secession of the South from the Republic of Yemen and the formation of a new southern state, the Democratic Republic of Yemen (DRY). The DRY assembled a political structure similar to that of unified Yemen, and al-Beidh was elected president by a five-member Presidential Council. Meanwhile, Saleh dismissed a number of YSP party members from Yemen’s government in an attempt to remove the influence of al-Beidh.
Fighting continued throughout June 1994, much of it centered around the port cities of Aden and Al Mukallā. Both sides launched attacks on oil installations, and a great deal of infrastructure—particularly in and around Aden—was damaged or destroyed. Following the failure of a Russian cease-fire agreement, Saleh’s northern forces launched a final drive on Aden and Al Mukallā in early July, ultimately defeating the DRY army. By mid-July all of the former South Yemen was under Saleh’s control.
After the collapse of the DRY, Saleh’s government was faced with the task of rebuilding Yemen’s economy and government. In September 1994 the Yemeni legislature approved a number of major reforms to the country’s 1991 unification constitution. Saleh was formally reelected president by the legislature in October, and he appointed Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi as his new vice president. In an attempt to revive the country’s economy, Yemeni leaders made efforts to devise and implement an economic austerity program called for by several international economic agencies; this was achieved with a great deal of difficulty in the spring of 1995.
D2 Territorial Disputes
In February 1995 the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia agreed to negotiate a settlement to their long-standing dispute over their shared border. The agreement to negotiate defused a potentially explosive situation, as Yemen and Saudi Arabia had skirmished in the region only a few months before. Five years later, in June 2000, the two countries announced an agreement settling the disputed boundary.
In December 1995 Eritrea, which lies across the Red Sea from Yemen, seized Ḩānīsh al Kabīr (Greater Ḩānīsh Island), strategically located at the mouth of the Red Sea, from Yemeni troops stationed there. At least 12 people were killed in the fighting. Both Yemen and Eritrea claimed the Ḩānīsh Islands; Yemeni plans for a resort on Ḩānīsh al Kabīr reportedly sparked the attack. By May 1996 the two countries had reached a truce and agreed to submit the question of sovereignty over the islands to arbitration. In October 1998 the arbitration tribunal ruled that the Ḩānīsh Islands belonged to Yemen, and Eritrea withdrew its forces. Both countries accepted the ruling and moved to normalize relations.
D3 Recent Developments
In April 1997 President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) was returned to power in the first parliamentary elections since the 1994 civil war. Many members of the opposition boycotted the elections, alleging unfair tactics by the GPC. International election monitors, however, reported that the elections were mostly fair. In September 1999 Saleh was elected president in the country’s first direct presidential elections. Opposition parties took part in 2003 parliamentary elections but the GPC retained its dominant majority.
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