Aden Street riots

Last updated
Aden Street riots
Part of Aden Emergency
DateJanuary-February 1967
Location
Belligerents
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom
Aden Police
Flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf.svg NLF
FLOSY
Commanders and leaders
Sir Richard Turnbull

The Aden Street riots took place in early 1967 during the Aden Emergency. On 19-20 January 1967 the NLF prompted street rioting in Aden. The Aden police lost control, so British High Commissioner Sir Richard Turnbull deployed British troops to crush the riots. This was followed by pro-FLOSY rioters taking to the streets which then led to conflict with British troops until February. The mood created by the riots helped lead to the Arab Police mutiny.

There had previously been riots in Aden in October 1965. [1]

Related Research Articles

Aden Port city and temporary capital of Yemen

Aden is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea, some 170 km (110 mi) east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. Aden's natural harbour lies in the crater of a dormant volcano, which now forms a peninsula joined to the mainland by a low isthmus. This harbour, Front Bay, was first used by the ancient Kingdom of Awsan between the 5th and 7th centuries BC. The modern harbour is on the other side of the peninsula. Aden gives its name to the Gulf of Aden.

1967 Detroit riot American race riot

The 1967 Detroit Riot, also known as the Detroit Rebellion and the 12th Street Riot, was the bloodiest incident in the "Long, hot summer of 1967". Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan.

1967 Hong Kong riots Pro-Maoist riots in Hong Kong

The 1967 Hong Kong riots were large-scale riots led by local communists in Hong Kong against the British Hong Kong government, in the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China.

Free Derry Self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry 1969–1972

Free Derry was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland, that existed between 1969 and 1972, during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The area, which included the mainly-Catholic Bogside and Creggan neighbourhoods, was first secured by community activists on 5 January 1969 following an incursion into the Bogside by RUC officers. Residents built barricades and carried clubs and similar arms to prevent the RUC from entering. Its name was taken from a sign painted on a gable wall in the Bogside which read, "You are now entering Free Derry". For six days the area was a no-go area, after which the residents took down the barricades and RUC patrols resumed. Tensions remained high over the following months.

1968 Washington, D.C., riots

The Washington, D.C., riots of 1968 were a four-day period of violent civil unrest and rioting following the assassination of leading African American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968. Part of the broader King-assassination riots that affected at least 110 U.S. cities, those in Washington, D.C.—along with those in Chicago and Baltimore—were among those with the greatest numbers of participants.

The Plainfield riots was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the "Long Hot Summer of 1967". This riot was a series of racially charged violent disturbances that occurred in Plainfield, New Jersey, which mirrored the 1967 Newark riots in nearby Newark.

The Baltimore riot of 1968 was a period of civil unrest that lasted from April 6 to April 14, 1968, in Baltimore. The uprising included crowds filling the streets, burning and looting local businesses, and confronting the police and national guard.

Aden Colony 1937-1963 UK possession on the Arab Peninsula

Aden Colony, also the Colony of Aden, was a British Crown colony from 1937 to 1963 located in the south of contemporary Yemen. It consisted of the port of Aden and its immediate surroundings.

State of Aden

The State of Aden was a state constituted in Aden within the Federation of South Arabia. Following its establishment on 18 January 1963, Sir Charles Johnston stepped down as the last Governor of Aden.

The modern history of Yemen began with the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire. In 1839 the British set up a protective area around the southern port of Aden and in 1918 the northern Kingdom of Yemen gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. North Yemen became a republic in 1962, but it was not until 1967 that the British Empire withdrew from what became South Yemen. In 1970, the southern government adopted a communist governmental system. The two countries were formally united as the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990.

Aden Emergency

The Aden Emergency, also known as the Radfan Uprising, was an armed insurgency by NLF and FLOSY during the Cold War against the Federation of South Arabia, a protectorate of the United Kingdom, which now forms part of Yemen.

Colin Mitchell

Colin Campbell Mitchell was a British Army soldier and politician. He became a public figure in 1967 as the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Forces under his command reoccupied the Crater district of Aden which had been taken over by local police mutineers in what became known as "the last battle of the British empire". The reoccupation and subsequent control of the Crater were controversial and Mitchell resigned his army commission in 1968. Subsequently, he became a Conservative Member of Parliament and served one term from 1970 to February 1974. After participation in a failed business venture he subsequently worked as a security and military consultant. In 1989 Mitchell took a leading role in the Halo Trust, a not-for-profit organisation undertaking mine clearance in former war zones.

National Liberation Front (South Yemen)

The National Liberation Front or NLF was a Marxist paramilitary organization and a political party operating in the Federation of South Arabia, during the Aden Emergency. During the North Yemen Civil War, fighting spilled over into South Yemen as the British attempted to establish an autonomous colony known as the Federation of South Arabia. Following the exit of the British armed forces, the NLF seized power from its rival, the Arab nationalist Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY). In the aftermath of the Emergency, the NLF reorganized itself into the Yemeni Socialist Party and established a single-party Marxist-Leninist government, known as the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen

The Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) was an Arab nationalist military organization operating in the Federation of South Arabia in the 1960s. As the British tried to exit its Federation of South Arabia colony Abdullah al Asnag created FLOSY. FLOSY attempted to seize power when the British left from another military group operating in South Arabia, the Marxist National Liberation Front (NLF).

1947 Aden riots Antisemitic Pogrom in Yemen

The 1947 Aden riots were three days of violence in which the Jewish community of Aden was attacked by members of the Yemeni-Arab community in early December, following the approval of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947. It was one of the most violent pogroms in modern times against Mizrahi-Jewish communities in the Middle East, resulting in the deaths of 76–82 Jews, 33 Arabs, 4 Muslim Indians, and one Somali, as well as wide-scale devastation of the local Jewish community of Aden.

The Battle of the Crater or Operation Stirling Castle was an encounter during the Aden Emergency. Following the ambush of British troops by the Arab Armed Police the Crater district in Aden was abandoned by British troops. The British decided to enter the Crater and retrieve the bodies of British soldiers.

The Arab Police mutiny was an incident during the Aden Emergency where Arab soldiers and police mutinied against British troops. While the mutiny itself was localized and quickly suppressed, it undermined the South Arabian Federation which had been organized by Britain in 1959 as an intended successor to direct colonial rule.

Withdrawal from Aden

Withdrawal from Aden was the final withdrawal of British troops from the colony of Aden, 128 years after the Aden Expedition. High Commissioner Sir Humphrey Trevelyan boarded an RAF aircraft at RAF Khormaksar after a short handover ceremony on 30 November 1967. The last troops to leave were the Royal Engineers.

The Children's Party attack was a terrorist attack which took place during the Aden Emergency. Terrorists threw a grenade into a children's party being held at the RAF Khormaksar. One girl was killed and four children wounded.

The 1965 Mauritius race riots in Trois Boutiques refers to a number of violent clashes that started in the village of Trois Boutiques, Souillac on 10 May 1965 and progressed to the historic village of Mahebourg. The unrest eventually led to the declaration of a nationwide State of Emergency on what was then a British colony. This was well before the subsequent 1966 riots and 1968 riots associated with the 1967 elections which preceded the country's independence of 12 March 1968. The first two victims of the riots were Police Constable Jacques Pierre Clément Beesoo and civilian Robert Brousse de Laborde in Trois Boutiques. News of the Trois Boutiques murders spread to surrounding areas. In the coastal historic village of Mahébourg a Creole gang assaulted the Hindu and Muslim spectators who were watching a Hindustani movie at Cinéma Odéon. Mahebourg police recorded nearly 100 complaints of assaults on Indo-Mauritians.

References

  1. Holden, David. "400 held in Aden as troops quell riots." Sunday Times [London, England] 3 Oct. 1965: [1]. The Sunday Times Digital Archive. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.