Muhsin Ahmad al-Aini

Already in 1972, Muhsin al-Aini (left) had agreed to unification with South Yemen in Tripoli through the mediation of Libya's revolutionary leader Gaddafi (right)

Muḥsin Aḥmad al-ʿAinī (born October 20, 1932 in Bani Bahloul, Northern Yemen ; † August 25, 2021 in Cairo ), (Arabic محسن أحمد العيني) occasionally transcribed Mohsen Ahmed el-Ainy , al-Ayni or Alaini , was a Yemeni politician and Arab socialist. Between 1962 and 1975 he was foreign minister five times and prime minister four times of the Yemeni Arab Republic (Northern Yemen).

Live and act

After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris (1956–1957) and at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cairo (1952–1959), Muhsin al-Aini worked as a teacher in Aden (South Yemen) until 1961, where he was involved in the anti-colonial trade union movement from 1960 onwards British rule. Expelled from Aden by the British in 1961, he returned to Egypt as a delegate of the trade union federation. In Cairo he joined the Baath Arab Socialist Party and allied himself with the moderate Nasserists. Since 1962 he was married to Aziza Abulahom (Abu Luhum), Al-Aini's brother-in-law and most important supporter Sinan Abu Luhum was governor of the port city of al-Hudaida for many years . Under the Luhum clan belonging to the Bakil Federation or the Nihm tribe (Nahm), both al-Aini and the Baath party had their own power or base of power. Still, he later claimed in his biography

"I have never been a representative of any political party, tribe, group or coalition."

"I was never a representative of a political party, a tribe, a group or a coalition."

- MA Al-Aini : 50 Years In Shifting Sands

After the fall of the Imam monarchy in North Yemen, he became the first foreign minister of the newly founded Yemeni Arab Republic under President Abdullah as-Sallal in September 1962 , but was sent as the first permanent representative of the new republic to the UN in December. He remained a UN representative until May 1965, when he was briefly reappointed Foreign Minister in Ahmad Muhammad Numan's cabinet and conducted the first peace talks with the royalists who had been fighting against the republic since 1962. Numan's and al-Aini's calling, however, strained Yemen's relations with Nasser. After Numan resigned because of internal political differences with al-Sallal, al-Aini was again only a UN representative from July 1965 (until 1966).

With the fall of Sallal, al-Aini was first prime minister under the new President Abdul Rahman al-Iriani on November 5, 1967 , but was ousted by Hassan al-Amri on December 21, 1967 and sent back to the UN. From 1968 to 1970 he was ambassador to the Soviet Union. In between, on July 29, 1969, he was again given the task of forming a government after al-Amri had resigned. But al-Aini was unable to bring a stable government together in Sana'a, so that al-Amri's deputy prime minister, Abdul Salam Sabrah, continued to serve until finally, on September 2, 1969, Abdullah Kurschumi formed a government and al-Aini returned to Moscow. During al-Aini's second term as prime minister and foreign minister from February 5, 1970 to February 26, 1971, the peace agreement with the royalists was concluded (May 1970). Al-Aini's declared aim was the cooperation of all moderate political forces through a reconciliation between republicans and royalists. The royalists recognized the republic, and in return al-Aini accepted five of their representatives into his cabinet.

Initially ousted by al-Amri and deported as ambassador to France, he became prime minister and foreign minister again after al-Amri's resignation on September 18, 1971. Al-Aini's deputy prime minister and interior minister became General Ibrahim al-Hamdi . In this term, a new constitution was (Dec. 1971), a little successful campaign against addiction of Qat -Kauens and in the summer of 1972, first a worsening of relations with the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), but then reconciliation and even an agreement to union both Yemen (November 1972), but that among others as a result of al-Aini's renewed recall on December 30, 1972, was not implemented. On December 18 and 21, 1972, North Yemen had established diplomatic relations with the GDR under al-Aini .

Al-Aini was first ambassador to Great Britain in 1973, but after al-Iriani's overthrow on June 22, 1974, the new head of state Ibrahim al-Hamdi reappointed Prime Minister and in October to the Supreme Command. Al-Aini initially took over the deputy prime minister of his predecessor, Hassan Muhammad Makki (until October 1974). In terms of foreign policy, al-Aini was not bound by a pact , but Yemen remained financially dependent on Saudi Arabia. The resistance of pro-Saudi, feudal forces of the local tribes to al-Aini's anti-corruption measures and his centralization efforts finally led to the final overthrow of al-Aini on January 16, 1975 (because of alleged pro-Egyptian inclinations).

Instead, Al-Aini was again ambassador to France (until 1976) and to the UN (until 1981), before he was sent as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (until August 1984) and then to the USA (until 1997) in November 1981. After the unification of the two Yemen (1990), al-Aini remained ambassador for all of Yemen. Finally, in 1997, President Ali Abdullah Salih appointed him a member of the Shura Council (a kind of council elder statesmen ).

With his wife Aziza (* 1945), Muhsin al-Aini had two sons, two daughters and six grandchildren.

The Fischer Weltalmanach and the Munzinger archive categorized al-Aini as a moderate socialist , who , according to the British orientalist Robin Leonard Bidwell , was closer to Baathism than to Nasserism. Bidwell attested al-Aini the best and most honest reform intentions. He described al-Aini as a very sociable, tolerant and diplomatically skilled man who lacked the ambition and ruthlessness to keep himself at the top.

literature

• Gustav Fochler-Hauke ​​(Ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1973 , page 386. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1972
• Gustav Fochler-Hauke ​​(Ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1975 , page 381. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974
• Gustav Fochler-Hauke ​​(Ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1976 , page 374. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1975
• Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 (The struggle for the development path in the Arab world), pages 313-316. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1983
• Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , 56-56. Routledge, New York 1998
• The International Who's Who 1988-89, p. 17. Europa Publications Limited, London 1988
• Robert D. Burrowes: Historical Dictionary of Yemen , 24 Lanham 2010

Web links

• Mohsen A. El-Aini , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 28/1975 of June 30, 1975, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• rulers.org:
  • Aini, Mohsin (Ahmed) al- (short biography)
  • Prime Ministers of Yemen (Sana)
  • Foreign Ministers of Yemen (Sana)
• worldstatesmen.org mentions another term in office in the North Yemen section (1969)
• ambassadors.net: 50 Years in Shifting Sands (Book Revue)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.elbalad.news/4941059
2. ↑ News of death. In: alwasat.ly. August 25, 2021, accessed August 25, 2021 (Arabic).