Qaboos Deposes His Father in Oman
Qaboos bin Said deposed his own father in July 1970 and opened a country that had been deliberately closed. Said bin Taimur had ruled since 1932 and governed Oman as a personal estate. There were three primary schools and one hospital in a country of some 750,000 people; sunglasses, radios, bicycles and trousers required permission; the gates of Muscat were shut at dusk and anyone out afterwards had to carry a lantern; and Omanis needed the sultan's permission to leave their own village. He had also refused to spend the oil revenues that began arriving in 1967. His son had been educated at Sandhurst, served in a British regiment in Germany, and been kept under effective house arrest at Salalah for six years on his return. The coup was carried out by a small group with British knowledge and assistance; the old sultan was wounded, abdicated, and lived out his life at the Dorchester Hotel in London. The context was a war. The Dhofar rebellion in the south had begun in 1962 and had been taken over by a Marxist front backed from South Yemen, and the British judgement was that the regime could not be defended as it stood. Qaboos ended the restrictions immediately, offered amnesty and development to the rebels, and won the war by 1976 with British, Iranian and Jordanian help. He then built schools, roads and hospitals for fifty years, ruled absolutely, named no heir until his death in 2020, and kept Oman on speaking terms with everyone.
- Year: 1970 CE
- Category: Political
