Peace Prospects Recede in Yemen as Saudis-Emiratis Violate Sweden Truce

 By: Kayhan Int’l 

The handshake last Thursday in the Swedish town of Rimbo between the two antagonists of the Yemen war was historic and a good augur for peace, provided the United Nations under whose auspices the weeklong negotiations were held, doesn’t take sides and is fair enough to insist that the invaders, whether those have   landed armies or those who are relentlessly bombing to bits the Arab World’s poorest country, leave.

Unfortunately, there is no such statement so far from the World Body. It has neither called on the UAE to withdraw its invasion troops nor told Saudi Arabia to stop its aerial bombardment of Yemen.

This means the handshake between Mohammad Abdus-Salaam of the popular Ansarallah Movement, who represented the legal government in San’aa and Khaled al-Yamani who likes to call himself foreign minister of the ousted and unelected self-styled president, Mansour al-Hadi, might be a mere symbolic gesture unrelated to ground realities.

True, the two sides agreed to halt hostilities, especially around the besieged port of Hodeidah, and to swap prisoners, with the Ansarallah delegation assuring that if all goes well, the strategic port would be demilitarized and function under UN supervision to avert the impending famine, but definitely not be handed over to the aggressors.

The terms of the truce are a resounding slap on the face of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as their backers in Europe and North America, and this is the reason the two countries are reluctant to end either their ground offensive or their air strikes.

This was evident on Saturday when Saudi war planes carried more than a score of sorties over Hodeidah raining death and destruction on civilians, while the UAE-led forces violated the terms of the truce by attempting to launch an offensive on the port city that was beaten back by the defenders.

These two invading powers are loathe to see peace prevail in Yemen, and seem to have no intention of loosening their tentacles on the Yemeni tribes and mercenaries under their direct control, and through them under the vassalage of the West.

Any doubts in this regard became fully manifest when in Rimbo, Sweden, not just the British ambassador to Stockholm Michael Aron was present at the talks, but British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt flew in from London on the final day for discussions with Mansour Hadi’s delegation.

At the opposite end of the table, the much maligned Ansarallah, who are unjustly called ‘rebels’ and Iran’s ‘proxies’, gave a solo performance during the negotiations, thereby proving once again that it is they who are the real representatives of all the Yemeni people and are defending the integrity and dignity of their homeland, against the nefarious designs of the imperialists, the Zionists, and reactionary Arab regimes.

From the outset of the almost 4-year old war that was imposed on Yemen by Saudi Arabia in complicity with the UAE, and the full support of the US and Britain, it was clear that it wasn’t an internal conflict but an imperialist plan to take full control of the strategic land which overlooks the Bab al-Mandeb Strait commanding entrance to the Red Sea. 

It is now up to the Yemeni factions, whom Khaled al-Yamani represented at the talks in Sweden, to prove that they are real patriots and not being used as mercenaries or cannon-fodder by the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Americans, the British, and the Israelis.
Mohammad Abdus-Salaam said the Ansarallah had signed the agreement in good faith in order to avert the impending famine for the sake of the Yemeni people. 

The ball is now in the court of the Aden-based factions, who must now summon the courage to tell Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Washington, and London, to stay away from the devastating conflict and let the people of Yemen work out the solution.

If not, the war will be further enflamed and any devilish designs the aggressors have will boomerang upon them and their mercenaries, because the Ansarallah very well know that an imposed peace is worse than an imposed war. 

The War in Yemen is Not a War, It is a Massacre

by CESAR CHELALA 

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The numbers are mind-blowing: Since the beginning of the conflict in Yemen, an estimated 85,000 children under five may have died from extreme hunger and disease, according to the last analysis by Save the Children, the international health and human rights organization. Although children are the most affected by the conflict, 14 million people are at risk of famine, according to data compiled by the United Nations.

For almost four years, Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been ravaged by a bloody conflict between Houthi rebels and supporters of Yemen’s internationally recognized government. In 2015, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of Arab states to fight the Houthis, which included Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, and Senegal. These countries have either sent troops to fight on the ground in Yemen or have carried out air attacks.

Iran has reportedly sent armaments and military advisers to help the Houthis, thus exacerbating their long-held animosity against the Saudis. In addition to fighting the Houthis in Yemen, the Saudis are backing the rebels fighting against Bashar al-Assad’s government, while Iran has a strong influence over the Assad regime. In Lebanon, while Iran has shown strong support for Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni Future Movement, led by Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The Yemen war, however, goes beyond a Saudi-Iranian geopolitical or Sunni-Shia conflict. The Houthis’ demands have been primarily economic and political, trying to take the Yemenis out of a cycle of poverty. The brutal and indiscriminate attacks of the Saudi-led coalition have left a ravaged country, with millions of civilians fighting for survival.

Fearing for their lives, more than 3 million Yemenis have become internally displaced persons, and almost 300,000 have sought asylum in other countries, including Djibouti and Somalia. Both the internally displaced, as well as those who have left to other countries often lack adequate nutrition and shelter. According to UNICEF, Yemen’s health care system is on the verge of collapse.

Those remaining in the country must cope with the relentless attacks by the coalition, which don’t distinguish between civilian and soldiers. In addition, across the country, aid organizations are unable to provide needed assistance. Hospitals have been bombed, provoking tens of deaths both as a result of the attacks and those left without urgent care.

Close to 15 million men, women, and children have no access to health care. An outbreak of cholera which started in October 2016 has not yet been controlled. It doesn’t help that water infrastructure in Yemen, one of the world’s most water-scarce countries, has been continuously attacked by the Saudi coalition.

As a consequence, 8.6 million children in Yemen don’t have adequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene services. “Since 2015, the escalation of the conflict has only exacerbated this already dire situation, with attacks and military action on and around water infrastructure cutting off even more people from access to safe drinking water,” states UNICEF.
Last August, a United Nations report on the situation in Yemen sharply criticized all parties in the conflict but placed stronger blame on the Saudi coalition’s attacks on Yemeni civilians. Three UN experts said that the Saudi-led coalition routinely failed to consult its own “no-strike” list of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. According to the experts’ report, restrictions that Saudi Arabia has placed on the delivery of aid by sea or air have had such a severe humanitarian impact that “such acts, together with the requisite intent, may amount to international crimes.”

There is something pathetic when looking at some of the most powerful countries in the world: the United States, Great Britain, and France plotting with Saudi Arabia’s criminal regime to destroy the Houthis’ resistance movement in Yemen. In the last few weeks, hundreds of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in and around Hodeidah have endangered the lives of 150,000 children. These coalition actions violate basic humanitarian rules and the rule of law. The War in Yemen is a massacre, and it is the responsibility of the international community to uphold justice in the face of such tragedy.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America award for the article “Missing or Disappeared in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims.”

Yemen’s Message to UN for Only Durable Peace vis-a-vis Saudi Seditions

By: Kayhan Int’l 

Saudi Arabia is the main impediment for peace in Yemen, a country on which for almost the past four years Riyadh has imposed an uneven war that has destroyed the infrastructure of the Arab World’s poorest country and plunged it into famine and epidemic diseases. 

The Saudis, who on the orders of the US and the Zionist regime, have killed around 30,000 men, women, and children, have now tightened their illegal blockade of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah in violation of the peace draft for immediate stopping of hostilities, by not just preventing merchant ships bringing vital food and medicine to the besieged nation, but targeting poor fishermen who venture into the open sea for their livelihood.

This latest provocative move comes hours after the special UN envoy, Britain’s Martin Griffiths, held talks in the Yemeni capital Sana’a with leaders of the popular Ansarallah Movement, as part of efforts to resolve the crisis. 

It is clear the Saudis fear the prospects of talks in Sweden next month among the various Yemeni groups since this might lead to restoration of peace and stability through democratic means in the Arabian Peninsula’s only republican country, thereby encouraging the suppressed masses groaning under the tyrannical rule of the Najdis to rise up for their own rights. 

Hopefully, Griffiths has realized that the villain of the piece is Saudi Arabia, and if he is really sincere in his peace efforts he should make it clear that any negotiations on Yemen will be among the Yemeni people without the presence of either the Saudis of the Emiratis – let alone their American masters. 

The UN ought to know that as long will as Ansarallah are branded as "Houthi rebels” and as long as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their accomplices in the war on Yemen not considered aggressors and war criminals, peace is not possible in Yemen.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi want a client regime in Yemen, coupled with total deprivation of the rights of over forty percent of the country’s Zaydi Shi’a Muslim population which forms the overwhelming majority in northern Yemen.

This is totally unacceptable. Fortunately, the Ansarallah, as defenders of the independence and integrity of Yemen, have seen through the devilish plot of the American stooges, who in an attempt to deprive the besieged Yemenis of even medicine and food, including the daily fish catch of the half-starved people, think they can dent the resistance of the heroic people of Hodeidah through such dastardly moves.

This warrants the Ansarallah, which as a goodwill gesture had ceased its missile attacks on Yemen’s Saudi occupied regions of Najran, Asir, and Jizan, to be on guard, because the cowardly enemy knows only the language of weapons, and Insha Allah (God Willing) will be defeated on the battlefield.

It is clear the defenders of Yemen are wary of the weakness of the UN as well, who is under intense pressure from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Washington and Tel Aviv, to impose a humiliating peace which would be worse than the ongoing imposed war. 

Perhaps this was the reason, the chief negotiator of the legal government of Yemen, Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi, during his latest round of talks with Griffiths, made sure to place an AK-47 rifle under the table next to where he was sitting.

It is an established tradition among the Yemenis, whether ordinary people or officials, to always girdle themselves with the ubiquitous Jambiyya which is tucked on their waists, whether in peace or war. 

Thus, it was a shrewd move on the part of the Ansarallah to convey a message to all and everybody that those thinking that the Yemenis will be tricked into submission are living in a fool’s paradise.

The enemy media has failed to understand the clear visibility of a machinegun at an official meeting with the UN envoy, and is indulging in feverish propaganda to depict the Ansarallah as warmongering and opposed to peace, while the whole world knows them to be heroic defenders of their homeland against foreign aggression. 

The message, whether from Sana’a or from Hodeidah is loud and clear. There is no question of surrender for the resilient people of Yemen, who want a just peace that safeguards the integrity and independence of their nation, and if not the aggressors, should be ready for spectacular fireworks that will literally make the Red Sea turn crimson red.