TEHRAN (FNA)- International aid leaders are saying now what has been known for several years that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are practicing double standards for both providing aid and instigating violence and humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Humanitarian aid leaders say the two Persian Gulf countries give large cash flows amid their vicious military campaign in the war-torn country. Worse still, aid chiefs note that the Saudi-led coalition members have been committing war crimes in Yemen, including bombing villages, torture and the use of child soldiers.
For instance, Jan Egeland, who previously headed United Nations aid operations, railed against the “hypocrisy of nations trading in arms or raining down shells and bombs on Yemeni civilians” in a strongly worded statement earlier this week.
According to Egeland, head of the charity Norwegian Refugee Council, 60 percent of last year’s aid to Yemen came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US, which has at the same time helped its Arab allies’ war effort with arms, intelligence and aerial refuelling.
It is time for the United Nations to take aim at this vicious hypocrisy, this double standard. The world body should put people before politics and Saudi-Emirati cash flows.
It is no longer acceptable to hear that Saudi Arabia has once again managed to successfully lobby against such moves at the UN. There should be no compromise. The world body and its Human Rights Council should establish a new commission of inquiry into these violations in Yemen, where Riyadh and company have been killing thousands of innocent civilians with impunity and no accountability.
Per its Charter, the UN should carry out a comprehensive examination of such bogus aids and all violations and abuses of international human rights and other appropriate and applicable fields of International Law in war-torn Yemen. This includes embracing its legally defined duty to blacklist Saudi Arabia and the UAE for murdering children and using child soldiers in the vicious conflict.
Failure to do so will only scar the UN’s reputation, for the irresponsibility of allowing Western governments and others to help this humanitarian crisis continue to unfold as well, including the United States.
The US continues to provide massive support for Saudi Arabia’s brutal military campaign. This illegal participation is equally responsible for creating the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, pushing millions of human beings to the brink of famine. Indeed without US participation and arms, this Saudi-UAE war and “humanitarian” theatre in Yemen would not be possible.
By looking the other way as this double standard and hypocrisy unfolds, the UN cannot bring stability to Yemen, nor can it increase prospects for lasting peace. The inaction will only help to turn a horrible circumstance into a nightmare. It is about time the world body got on the right side of history, played a real role in addressing and ending this deliberate catastrophe, and held to account those responsible.
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