Yemen is often in the news as a result of the bitter and brutal civil war ravaging the country.
However, just 30 years ago it was newsworthy for an altogether more positive reason.
The unification of North and South Yemen, in May 1990,
was in fact one of the first powerful symbols of an emerging post-cold war era.
In this video, I'm going to take a look at this unusual process of voluntary union
between two independent countries.
However, as I'll show it was far from straightforward.
With a very different history from each other,
it in fact took 22 years and two border wars to achieve the merger.
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Hello. My name is James Ker-Lindsay.
Welcome to 'Independent Thinking'.
A channel dedicated to international relations, statehood, independence and the origins of countries.
New states can emerge in a variety of ways in international politics.
Over the past 70 years, the most common route has been through the process of decolonization.
However, another route is when two existing states or territories unite to form a new country.
1990 was a crucial year in the history of state mergers.
In that year, two unions took place.
One of these was the reunification of Germany.
In this case, East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, was absorbed into West Germany,
the Federal Republic of Germany, which continued to be internationally recognized
and retain its seat at the United Nations.
The other merger was between North and South Yemen
- more formally the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Unlike Germany, though, the process was a true union of equals.
Both were independent sovereign states and separate members of the United Nations.
More to the point, when the union occurred they both formally ceased to exist.
Instead, an entirely new state came into being.
So, how did it happen?
The Republic of Yemen lies along the southwest coast of the Arabian Peninsula.
At approximately 530,000 square kilometers, or 200, 000 square miles,
it's around the 50th largest of the 193 UN members - coming just ahead of Thailand and Spain.
At present, its population is in the region of around 30 million people.
Although the Ottoman Empire first began to encroach into the territory that would eventually become
North Yemen at the start of the 16th century, it wasn't until the late 19th century that the territory
formally became an administrative district of the Ottoman Empire.
Then, following the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, it achieved independence
as the Kingdom of Yemen on 30 October 1918.
On 30 September 1947, the Kingdom of Yemen joined the United Nations.
And then, in 1958, it reached an agreement to form a loose confederation with the newly established
United Arab Republic; a relatively little-known arrangement known as the United Arab States.
However, this arrangement lasted just three years
and came to an end in 1961 with Syria's decision to secede from the UAR.
In 1962, the monarchy was overthrown and the Yemen Arab Republic was established.
Like North Yemen, the area that would eventually become known as South Yemen
also experienced ottoman rule.
However, it would eventually take a very different path.
In 1839, the port town of Aden,
which lay the strategic point close to where the Red Sea meets the Arabian Sea,
was conquered by the British East India Company.
Later passing to the control of the administration in British India,
in the latter quarter of the 19th century a number of surrounding tribal sultanates and emirates
came under british protection; thus expanding the area under effective imperial control.
During the First World War, when Britain was at war with the Ottoman Empire,
the Protectorate was placed under direct British military control from London.
Then, in 1937, the town of Aden formally became a British Colony.
By the start of the 1960s, it was clear that Britain's time as a colonial power was coming to an end
and steps were now taken to start uniting the various states under British protection.
This led to the creation of the Federation of South Arabia, which included Aden itself,
and the Protectorate of South Arabia, which included a number of territories further to the east.
Despite this, an uprising began against British rule in 1963 and Britain decided to relinquish its holding.
On 30 November 1967, the Federation and the Protectorate united to form the newly independent
People's Republic of South Yemen.
Two weeks later, on 14 December 1967,
South Yemen joined the United Nations as the organization's 123rd member.
So, this is the story of how these two separate countries emerged as independent states.
But how did they then unite?
First of all, it's perhaps worth noting that the impetus for unification was driven by several factors.
For a start, there was a historical dimension to the process.
Long before South Yemen's independence, the Kingdom of Yemen had regarded British rule as illegitimate
and envisaged the creation of a unified Greater Yemen.
This would not only include the British controlled areas, but also areas within Saudi Arabia.
On top of this, there appeared to be a strong societal and political wish for unity by both sides.
A common sense of national identity clearly existed in many, though by no means all,
quarters of the countries.
Indeed, the fact that the territories under British rule had even taken the name Yemen when they
achieved independence was, in itself, a clear sign of the intended direction of travel.
In terms of the process itself, the South's independence naturally gave rise to an initial hope
that unification would take place fairly quickly.
However, such expectations proved short-lived.
Just two years later, in 1969, the formerly British-controlled South fell under communist rule,
becoming the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in 1970.
The overthrow of the administration in the South led to a rise in tensions between North and South Yemen
and in September 1972 a brief border conflict erupted between them.
Despite this, the two sides remained committed to eventual unification
and soon afterwards talks were convened in Egypt and then Libya.
Although this led to an agreement on the basic principles of reunification,
political instability in both countries made further discussions impossible in the years that followed.
Indeed, in 1979, a second border conflict erupted between the sides.
Again, peace talks were held, this time in Kuwait,
that saw the two countries reaffirm their desire for eventual reunification.
Over the course of the 1980s, little to no progress was made;
largely due to the ideological differences that existed between the North and South.
However, towards the end of the decade, things began to change.
By now, unification was increasingly in the interests of both countries.
For the impoverished South, the gradual weakening of the Soviet Union, which had been a key supporter,
made a deal with the economically more prosperous North ever more attractive.
Likewise, President Saleh, who had led the North since the late 1970s,
but was also facing growing economic pressures,
now came to see a deal with the South as the best way to cement his political standing.
On 18 April 1988, the leaders of North and South Yemen agreed to reduce tensions
and renewed discussions on unification.
Soon afterwards, they agreed that large parts of the border would be demilitarized
and joint frontier posts would be established.
Likewise, people would be able to travel between the two countries with just identification cards.
Despite all this, few believe that the talks would amount to anything.
Given the depth of differences between the sides,
many thought that it would be decades before unification actually happened.
However, on 30 November 1989, the two sides unveiled a draft constitution.
Over the course of Spring 1990, the pace of discussions rapidly increased.
And on May 22, 1990, the unification of the Arab Republic of Yemen, North Yemen,
and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, South Yemen, was formally declared.
By mutual agreement, both states ceased to exist and a new country, the Republic of Yemen came into existence.
Importantly, as it had been agreed that the international legal personality of the North and South
would be integrated into the new state, the new Republic of Yemen was not in fact required to reapply
for membership of the United Nations or other international organizations.
To this day, Yemen is therefore listed as actually having been a member of the United Nations since 1947.
Unfortunately, as we know, the unification did not go well.
Relations between the two parts of the new Republic of Yemen soon deteriorated.
And, in 1994, a civil war broke out and the South unilaterally declared independence.
This went unrecognized by the international community and the government quickly reasserted its authority.
Nevertheless, separatist sentiment remains strong in the South and an active independence campaign still exists.
More recently, in 2015, the country returned to civil war.
Although not directly tied to the issue of secession, many in South Yemen hope that this will have opened
the way to renewed statehood.
Needless to say, I plan to return to these issues in future videos.
So, if you're interested in finding out more, please do consider subscribing to the channel.
State creation through mergers of two independent and sovereign countries
is a rather unusual occurrence in modern international politics;
certainly, as compared to the other key process of state formation, namely decolonization.
The most recent example was the creation of the Republic of Yemen, in May 1990, following the union
of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen,
better known as North and South Yemen respectively.
While it may be tempting to think that unification was a natural and inevitable process of coming together of a
previously united country that had somehow been divided, as was the case for Germany,
this wasn't actually the case for Yemen.
In fact, prior to their unification, North and South Yemen had had very different histories for well over a century.
And while the impetus for unification was a wish to create a political union
based on a broader sense of shared heritage, realizing that ambition proved to be a prolonged process
that suffered numerous setbacks and even two brief border wars before it was realized.
In the end, reunification came down to the very specific circumstances on the ground in the two countries.
Yemen therefore represents a fascinating case of state merger between two long-standing sovereign states.
And yet, as subsequent events have highlighted, breaking such unions once they have been created,
even when they come about as a wholly voluntary decision of two independent and equal
sovereign countries, is incredibly difficult.
I hope you found this interesting.
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Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.