UN Must End Saudi War and Brutality in Yemen

TEHRAN (FNA)- America’s controversial relationship with Saudi Arabia was thrust into the spotlight once again in the wake of reports that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, “have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes,” in Yemen, many of which are affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

American media found that US-made weapons have become widely available through the growing black-market arms trade and that American arms have even fallen into the hands of terrorists. This means Saudi Arabia and the UAE have violated the terms of their arms agreements with the United States, which prohibits the transfer of US weapons to terrorists within Yemen. This has also violated the fundamental norms of the UN arms treaty.

This plus the ongoing airstrikes and incidents targeting civilians are an example of the "brutality" of the conflict. The Saudis and allies parties to the conflict continue to show a disregard for the protection of civilians and the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants in the conduct of hostilities.

 

The same brutality is happening in Syria, where the United States and its allies target civilians in their indiscriminate airstrikes. The Syrian government has complained many times to the UN Security Council about the US airstrikes, saying they are excessively targeting civilians and basic infrastructure, but to no avail.

 

Tragically, the only thing the UN has done thus far is condemning these repeated killings – even though the world body is fully in the know that the unprovoked aggression against Yemen is for all the wrong reasons. The unprovoked conflict is in fact a smokescreen. The alliance among Saudi, American and Israeli interests gives the false story about the alleged Iranian takeover of Yemen additional legs, passed on to “fakestream” media from Tel Aviv. Fanning a bogus Shiite-Sunni conflict seems to be a great idea for Riyadh, enthusiastically seconded by its protector and close ally, Israel.  

 

With these in mind, the blitz boys of so many Arab and Western states have attacked and destroyed Yemen’s lifelines for all the criminal reasons. This unqualified alliance stems from motives for regional domination and more. They want to split Yemen, with no intention to comply with International Humanitarian Law, let alone take feasible measures to minimize harm to civilians.

 

Little wonder the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross say they condemn these atrocities and they are extremely worried about the severe damage caused by the Saudi-led attacks on civilian infrastructure. The destruction of key logistic infrastructure, including airports, seaports, bridges and roads is having alarming consequences on the civilian population. The humanitarian situation has now become catastrophic because of the siege and famine too.

 

The current conflict has already caused extreme hardship for the population across the country. The destruction of logistic infrastructure means countless lives are now more at risk, and the UN can no longer afford to stand and watch as people suffer and die of preventable causes. The world body has a duty to demand that robust and unobstructed channels for the provision of humanitarian assistance are opened and respected by the war-mongers in this increasingly desperate situation.

 

The UN should also realize that condemnation per se is not enough. There is an urgent need to a halt in the war. The UN should call for an end to the criminal Saudi strikes against civilians. It’s the only way to ensure no more lives are lost in the blockaded country.

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.

Iran hosts international conference on Yemen amid Saudi war

The International Conference on Supporting the Oppressed and Resistant Yemenis has kicked off in the Iranian capital, with dozens of intellectuals and civil rights activists from 35 countries in attendance.

The event, which opened in Tehran on Thursday morning, is expected to highlight the sufferings of the Yemeni nation caused by a brutal Saudi-led war on the impoverished country.

The one-day conference will also feature speeches by Iranian officials and several representatives from resistance movements in the region.

Backed by the US and the UK, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of its vassal states unleashed the deadly military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the country’s former Riyadh-allied regime.

PressTV-‘85,000 Yemeni kids may have died of hunger amid Saudi war’

Save the Children says for every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death amid the brutal war and blockade led by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi-led offensive, coupled with a naval blockade, has destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and led to famine in the import-dependent state.

The military standoff has so far killed about 56,000 Yemeni people, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit conflict-research organization, said recently. According to latest calculations by Save the Children, nearly 85,000 Yemeni children may have also died of starvation.

Turning a deaf ear to international warnings, the Saudi-led military alliance has been engaged in a concerted push since June to seize Yemen’s port city of Hudaydah, a vital conduit and lifeline for aid delivery to Yemeni civilians.

PressTV-Yemen decries Saudi strikes on Hudyadah civilian targets

Yemen condemns fresh Saudi air raids on civilian structures such as grain silos in the port city of Hudaydah, a lifeline for millions of people.

Yemeni armed forces, led by the Houthi Ansarullah movement, have put of stiff resistance in the face of the Saudi-led campaign with the help of popular forces, preventing Riyadh and its allies to achieve their goals of war.

Iran stands by war-stricken Yemenis

Addressing the summit, the head of Iranian volunteer Basij forces said that Yemeni people’s resistance against the Saudi aggression will live on in history.

Brigadier-General Gholam-Hossein Gheibparvar Iran, as a nation that has itself suffered from US mischief economic blockade, and war, understands the ordeals of the Yemeni people.

Referring to the remarkable the Yemeni forces have been showing in Hudaydah, Gheibparvar said, “What is taking place in Yemen is a lesson of withstanding. All [enemies] have gathered in Hudaydah, but people have been standing against them with empty hands.”

“We have learned that where there is resistance, there is also victory,” said the military official. “The Saudi rulers have not achieved dignity, but have brought themselves eternal humiliation.”

‘US bent on destroying Muslim nations’

The second-in-command of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also delivered a speech to the event. He said the problems in the Muslim world are rooted in the interrelated policies of the US and Britain as well as the Zionist and Al Saud regimes.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami said that Washington “believes it cannot act as the world’s superpower without political and cultural dominance on the Muslim world.”

However, faced with a wave of Islamic awakening in the world, the US failed to make that “dangerous dream” come true, the commander added.

“The Americans are bent on destroying nations. They are after splitting Islamic nations,” Salami said, stressing that Muslim nations are today at the forefront of the resistance campaign against the US.

Salami rejected long-running US and Saudi claims that Iran was sending arms to Yemeni forces.

“US President (Donald Trump) said Iran was to blame for the situation in Yemen. We, however, say ‘you and the Saudis are blocking the entry of food and medicine in Yemen. How is it that you are allowing missile in there?”

“How do you put the blame [for missile shipment to Yemen] on Iran, while you have closed all the borders? Imagine that Iran provides the Yemenis with political and spiritual support. Could that serve as a good reason for to impose a siege on them and massacre them?” asked the senior general.

Salamai also warned the European nations against selling arms to the Saudi regime, saying those arms only lead to the deaths of civilians in Yemen.

“Yemen will turn into a quagmire for the Al Saud regime and the US,” the general emphasized. “The logic of resistance is growing and be sure that the Islamic Ummah stands united.”

Arno Develay: Saudis’ Scorched-Earth Policy Aimed at Depriving Resistance from Public Yemeni Support

TEHRAN (FNA)- Political analyst and Human Rights Lawyer Arno Develay says that Saudi Arabia aims to impose a scorched-earth policy in Yemen in order to deprive the Ansarallah resistance movement from any kind of support from the Yemeni public.

Mr. Develay, in an exclusive interview with FNA, said that Saudi Arabia seeks to reinstall the puppet regime of Manṣur Hadi in Sana’a to reassert its control over Yemen and its natural resources.

The human rights lawyer believes that the Saudi policy of deliberately targeting civilian population “constitutes a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and could be constitutive of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Arno Develay is an international Human Rights Lawyer and political analyst. He has also been interviewed by international news outlets such as Press TV for his expert commentary.

FNA has conducted an interview with Mr. Develay about the ongoing Saudi war on Yemen and possible motives behind the war imposed on the impoverished Arab country by Saudi Arabia and its western allies.

Below you will find the full text of the interview.

Q: What do you think of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen caused by the Saudi war and the blockade on the country?

A: Above all, one should note that ever since the attack on Yemen began in March 2015, the country has come under both a complete embargo and a maritime blockade that has prevented any kind of relief, be it foodstuff, medical supplies and equipment from being delivered in a way that would alleviate the hardships of the suffering population. As a result, sanitary conditions have deteriorated to the point that the worst cholera outbreak since 1949 is now plaguing every single governorate of the country, has affected over one million people and led to the death of over 2500 people. As things currently stand, this deliberate policy of targeting civilians constitutes a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and could be constitutive of war crimes, crimes against humanity if not outright genocide which is defined as the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

Q: What are the Saudis’ objectives in their war on Yemen?

A: In the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, which in Yemen led to the downfall of the late President Saleh, the Saudis endorsed the nomination of Abdrabbuh Manṣūr Hādi as interim President of a national reconciliation platform. As such, he not only was to have called for new elections within 90 days period following his nomination; his interim term was limited to 2 years. When the opposition sensed that these promises were not going to be kept, the political situation deteriorated rapidly and Hadi’s decision to raise fuel subsidies led to a violent backlash against his government which saw him first flee to Aden before taking refuge in Riyadh. The objective of the Saudis is therefore above all else to defeat the Houthi resistance movement in order to reassert its control over the country (and its vast natural resources) by reinstalling Hadi who, not unlike Saad Hariri, owes his political survival to the kingdom. A second consideration pertaining to Riyadh’s war on Yemen stems from the Saudi obsession in containing what it perceives as Iranian expansionism in the region. Ansarallah, the Yemenite resistance movement, never attempted to conceal its ideological kinship with the Resistance movements fighting against foreign meddling throughout the region, be it the Lebanese Hezbollah or its Iraqi counterpart (Hashd Al Shaabi). Riyadh thus considers Ansarallaha part of what it regularly refers as an “Iranian-backed militias” even though no proof has ever surfaced pertaining to military support coming from Tehran.

Q: It seems that the Saudis expected an easy-to-win combat when they first stepped into the war. What do you see as the reasons for Riyadh's continued failure in Yemen?

A: Riyadh has underestimated the resolve of the Resistance in Yemen as well as the latter’s aspiration for political emancipation from any kind of foreign tutelage. Riyadh has moreover assumed that it could contract out its military operations to foreign mercenaries financed by itself and other [Persian] Gulf States, notwithstanding the fact that these hired guns know nothing about the terrain. Last but not least, exactions committed against the civilian population by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and other terrorist groups have achieved to sway public opinion on the side of the Houthis and their allies. Ansarallah has in effect won over the proverbial “hearts and minds” of their constituents. This state of affair has further been reinforced by not-so-secret information pertaining to the Saudi’s subcontracting their use of indiscriminate bombing of Yemenite infrastructure to Israeli pilots.

Q: Why do the US and the UK continue to supply Saudi Arabia with arms despite international criticism with regard to civilian casualties?

A: First, Saudi Arabia is a major client state in terms of revenues by way of arm sales practiced by these countries. Since the Western corporate media derives its own revenues from announcers having strong ties to the military industrial complex in both the UK and the US, one easily understands how news editors would refrain from covering the conflict without risking losing their jobs and/or prospects for career advancement. Without any kind of sustained news coverage, the general public cannot be expected to grow aware of the disaster that is unfolding in Yemen; a country that most would not be able to pinpoint on a map.

Q: Why have the international organizations, particularly the UN, remained passive in the face of the ongoing Saudi atrocities?

A: Riyadh by holding a seat on the Human Right Council has managed to snuff out any kind of meaningful investigation using bribery and behind-the-scenes political wrangling to prevent powerful states such as Russia for instance from getting an elected representative who could put the Yemen issue on the Council’s agenda. Riyadh moreover contributes significantly to the UN budget therefore no UN official has any interest in taking the initiative to confront one of the organization’s main donors. It is a classic case of conflict of interest between the UN mandate to work at preventing conflict and maintain the peace on the one hand and the organization’s own pursuit of its survival on the other.

Q: The airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have mostly killed Yemeni civilians, including thousands of women and children. What do you think is Riyadh's incentive for targeting the civilian population?

A: By engaging in egregious violation of humanitarian law as they proceed to indiscriminately bomb non-military targets such as hospitals, mosques and cultural landmarks, the Saudis aim to impose a scorched-earth policy aimed at systematically deprive the Resistance from any kind of support from the Yemeni people. It is Riyadh’s hope that war fatigue will see Ansarallah sue for peace in order to preserve its political capital among the population.

Yemen's media blackout- the language of war

Since the Saudi-led coalition declared war on impoverished Yemen: March 26, 2015, foreign journalists and independent news organizations have been prevented from entering the country – de facto putting Yemen under a media blackout. If such infringements on freedom of the press are indeed criminal as they speak of a grand political cover-up, Yemen’s media blackout has reached too grand proportion, and compounded to such an abysmal betrayal of journalistic standards that silence must absolutely be broken. The danger here is not so much in this silence Saudi regime’s war coalition architected around Yemen, so that only its voice would reach the ears of public opinion, but that our well-thinking, well-to-do so called free press was hijacked to the agenda of a minority few to purposely mislead. Yemen’s media blackout has many layers … each of which screaming of an exercise in propaganda, misinformation, and more to the point manipulation. Yemen is merely a symptom of our media apparatus’ malady. One bolder may even elude to folly as without a free press we might as well surrender free thinking to fascism. Free press those days has become yet another euphemism for political indoctrination. If we can agree that absolute impartiality is indeed impossible since our prejudices and filters very much make us who we are as individuals, a line should be drawn at organized media dishonesty and in the case of journalism: make-belief. The under-lining issue surrounding Yemen’s media blackout is not necessarily access but rather the vacuum such lack of access has allowed. If Yemen needs of course to be open to the scrutiny of the press and by extension the public, mainstream ought to serve as an information medium and not as it is currently doing, turn itself into an asymmetrical of war. For three years Yemen has suffered one of the fiercest and most vengeful military campaigns ever unleashed against a sovereign nation since WW2. Only five months into the war (back in August 2015) the head of the Red Cross confirmed that Yemen’s conflict had “wrought destruction similar to that seen in Syria after five years.” Returning from a visit to the war-ravaged nation, Peter Maurer told the Associated Press that entrenched poverty, months of intensified warfare and limits on imports because of an international embargo have contributed to “catastrophic” conditions. “The images I have from Sanaa and Aden remind of what I have seen in Syria,” said Maurer. “So Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years.” That was three years ago. Since, Riyadh’s invasion and carnage against Yemen have reached dizzying heights … such in fact that the kingdom has deliberately, and systematically targets unarmed civilians to spend Yemenis’ will to resist and thus dismantle from within political opposition. A survey conducted by the Yemen Data Project revealed in September 2016 that over a third of the Saudi-led air raids on Yemen have hit civilian sites, such as school buildings, hospitals, markets, mosques and economic infrastructure. The independent and non-partisan survey, based on open-source data, including research on the ground, records more than 8,600 air attacks between March 2015, when the Saudi-led invasion began, and the end of August 2016. Of these, 3,577 were listed as having hit military sites and 3,158 struck non-military sites. Yemen is not at war with itself as mainstream claims. Yemen’s war came by way of a foreign invasion. Yemen’s war has been manned by foreign hands from Saudi tribal regime’s seat of power: Riyadh. More than any other war in our modern history, Yemen’s war has been labelled under grave misapprehension – decontextualized and politically vulgarized. Yemen was invaded and therefore was within its sovereign rights to defend itself. “An act of war is an action by one country against another with an intention to provoke a war or an action that occurs during a declared war or armed conflict between military forces of any origin.” Yemen is being torn apart, its borders have been breached, its skies darkened, its land set ablaze, its people wrecked by pestilence and famine while the so-called mainstream media has systematically deflected blame, mudding the waters so that the public would not demand accountability for the many lives lost. “Millions of lives are at risk in Yemen because food, fuel and medical supplies are being deliberately delayed on entry to the war-torn country by the Saudi-led coalition,” Amnesty International warned in a report released in late June 2018. The 22-page report, Stranglehold, shows how the Saudi-led coalition has imposed excessive restrictions on the entry of essential goods and aid – de facto holding an entire people hostage so that victory: political and military, could be claimed. War today has its own language and it reads like deceit. Under its ink, a person’s life – the value put on someone’s right to live free from harm and oppression has become contingent to geography, political beliefs, and religious affiliations. Yemen happens to sit beyond this invisible line where one’s fate matters, and one’s right to think independently is admissible in a court of public opinion. For well over a year Yemen’s death toll appears to have been frozen in time. Before the ravages of cholera, famine, hysteric bombing, raids, and other crazy acts we have been told that Yemen’s death count lies below the 20,000 mark … some media went as far as to claim 10,000 in their efforts to downplay genocide. This is how Bloomberg put it back in February (2018): “The death toll from fighting so far is estimated at about 10,000, relatively low compared to the 470,000 thought to have died in the seven years of civil war in Syria. Yet life in Yemen has become wretched and perilous, on a mass scale.” While we admit that getting information from Yemen is more than just challenging … the onus being on Saudi regime for making access almost impossible, war mathematics have revealed frightening numbers. In November 2017, Save the Children reported that 130 children were dying every day, with 50,000 children already believed to have died in 2017. In December 2016, UNICEF reported that a child dies every 10 minutes from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malnutrition and respiratory tract infections. And the UK-based NGO, Disasters and Emergencies Committee’s recent report put the number of deaths from preventable causes at 10,000. As for Yemen’s cholera epidemic – a direct result of Saudi regime’s aggression on Yemen WHO attested that by July 2017 at least 2,177 deaths had been registered. To famine … Famine is now threatening over half of Yemen’s total population, throwing millions more into food insecurity. In January 2017 The UN security chief said millions would die as a direct manmade result of the war. So much for 10, 000 or even 20,000. If those numbers are in themselves harrowing, they do not offer a real reflection of reality – quite simply because reality is being kept from us for a lack of access and fair reporting. The real number of the victims of the Saudi invasion and genocidal war should be several times more that the reported figures. (By Catherine Shakdam who is the Director of Programs of the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies)