War on Yemen: It’s Now About Snatching Food Aid from the Starving

TEHRAN (FNA)- The outrageous Saudi-led war on Yemen is all about starving a nation and stealing its riches, where Western aid is eclipsed by the billions brought in through the bungling, deceitful sale of weapons to Saudis and their allies.

While the world celebrates the New Year, report after report reveal that amid famine and rampant disease, food aid pouring in from across the globe, meant to curb the world's worst humanitarian crisis, is in fact "being snatched from the starving" by armed forces allied with the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition.

The warmongers block food aid from going to the besieged areas, divert it to front-line combat units, or sell it for profit on the black market. The United Nations and observers on the ground attribute the near-famine conditions in much of the country to the Saudi blockade of ports.

The UN World Food Program says it has already documented food aid diversion "at a time when children are dying in Yemen because they haven't enough food to eat; that is an outrage." Save the Children also says some 85,000 children under age five have starved to death since the brutal war began.

This shouldn’t happen at a time when peace talks and a ceasefire agreement are still in place. The talks in Sweden have led to a reduction in fighting and this should ease the challenges of getting food aid into and out of Hodeida, the port city that is a gateway to the north. Donors should be able to get more food in. But here is the smell of blood still:

- The futile bombing campaign continues apace. The Saudis and their allied forces have been killing around a hundred civilians a week for more than three years now. The harshest criticism of the Saudi-led war has focused on the airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians at weddings, funerals and on school buses, aided by American-supplied bombs and intelligence. The war in Yemen has killed upwards of 57,000 people since March 2015, left 8.4 million people surviving on food aid and created a cholera epidemic.

- International aid experts and United Nations officials say a more insidious form of warfare is also being waged in Yemen, an economic war that is exacting a far greater toll on civilians and now risks tipping the country into a famine of catastrophic proportions.

- The punitive economic measures are allegedly aimed at undercutting the Ansarullah fighters who control vast parts of Yemen. Tight blockades, stringent import restrictions and withholding the salaries of about a million civil servants have landed on the backs of civilians, laying the economy to waste and driving millions deeper into poverty.

- Infrastructure destroyed, jobs lost, a weakening currency and soaring prices are the clear results. But in recent weeks the economic collapse has gathered pace at alarming speed, causing top United Nations officials to revise their predictions of famine.

- The US government has been the key supporter of the Saudi-led coalition, providing arms, intelligence, logistics, military training and diplomatic cover. This has made the Trump administration complicit in Saudi war crimes. More recently, an attempt to push through a UN resolution calling for an end to the war was stalled by the US, reportedly after a lobbying campaign by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

- The US government claims to have one of the most rigorous arms control regimes in the world, yet evidence of attacks on medical facilities and schoolchildren in Yemen is clear. War is the primary cause of death, injury, famine and disease in Yemen; and American arms are causing twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces fighting.

Sadly, the UN is yet to hold the Saudis and their American partners to account. They bear primary responsibility for Yemen’s humanitarian disaster. They are attacking civilians, aid and humanitarian actors, and attempts to disavow their responsibility for war crimes simply don’t stand up. The time has come for the UN and the international civil society to call for an embargo on Saudi Arabia and an end to Washington’s complicity and deceit.

Complicity: US Must Stop Supporting Saudi Narrative on Khashoggi Murder

TEHRAN (FNA)- Facing pressure to act against the Saudis over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but also clearly not wanting to imperil US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration has announced sanctions on 17 Saudis over the grisly murder.

It’s a way to keep everything in line with the oft-changing Saudi narratives, and their consistent theme that the crown prince MBS was wholly blameless.

Meaning, the US won’t sanction the despotic regime. Indeed, all 17 people they did sanction are people that the Saudis had already singled out as being targets of their own token investigation. The US used almost that entire Saudi investigation list, except for military generals, as their own list of sanctions targets.

Now US Treasury officials claim they did “achieve justice” for Khashoggi’s family, which is far from the truth. They just want to sell the idea that they did something, without doing anything at all that might risk juicy US arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Here, the rules of Global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which became International Law in 2014 are simple: If a country knows that the arms about to be sold will be used for genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes, then they must stop the transfer.

The ATT also means that every state that has signed up must obey strict rules on international arms transfers. This will at least help to stem the flow of weapons that fuel bloody conflicts, atrocities and state repression around its own citizens and the world, particularly in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, by ignoring the grisly murder of Khashoggi by the Saudi regime, the United States “knowingly” and “deliberately” has refused to adhere to the Arms Trade Treaty, reflect the rules of the treaty, or implement those laws as regards its Saudi vassals.

So far, the policy has had terrible results. The regime had had a free hand to murder its own citizens and critics almost everywhere, while thousands of people have also been killed, injured or forced to flee their homes because of the US-backed, Saudi-led violence and atrocities in places like Syria and Yemen. The majority of casualties are civilians, mainly women and children. What's more, US-made weapons such as missiles and bombs continue to destroy vital civilian infrastructure, pushing survivors into absolute poverty and despair.

On that basis, the US government is in breach of the Arms Trade Treaty for allowing the export of American-made missiles and military equipment to Saudi Arabia that have been used to kill civilians. The accusation comes from international lawyers, human rights groups and the United Nations as well. They are all expressing concerns about Saudi-led coalition attacks, accusing the US government of failing in its legal duty to take steps to prevent and suppress violations of International Law and International Humanitarian Law. They further accuse Saudi Arabia of hiding the evidence and perverting the course of justice over Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. 

By now it should readily be evident that it is American weapons and complicity that have been central to Saudi Arabia’s criminal behavior in the region. President Donald Trump  and his administration have been complicit in this criminality, by continuing to support the Saudis and endorse their fake investigation, despite international concerns as well as strong and increasing evidence that Khashoggi was killed under a direct order by Mohamed Bin Salman.

Under these circumstances, the US government will have to look elsewhere in legally justifying its arming of Saudi Arabia and its diplomatic support at the UN. Until that happens, as per the global Arms Trade Treaty, Washington must end its arms exports to the Saudis or further share responsibility for Saudi war crimes and the crime committed against Khashoggi.

Yemen War: Trial Time for Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia is fast approaching trial time on its illegal war on Yemen, as the international humanitarian community will soon have to respond against them. This includes the United Nations and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

While the United Nations and the international civil society insist they want a peaceful resolution to the worst humanitarian crisis in the 21st century, Riyadh dismisses the idea of diplomacy in the assessment, saying they wouldn’t be willing to bargain away their stated goal, which is regime change in Sana’a.

However, since many people are dying and the country is facing famine, there is no time in which the Saudis and their allies can threaten Yemen any further. Simply put, Yemen is dying and time is almost here. There is an increasing rate of civilian casualties. According to the UN aid agencies, the upsurge in fighting is of particular concern. Civilians are under fire, as Saudi-led forces carry out airstrikes and indiscriminate bombing, without taking care to spare the civilian population, much less respecting the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.

This is while any intentional, direct attack against civilians or civilian objects is considered a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law and the UN Charter. The warmongers refuse to take any feasible precautions to avoid, or in any event, minimise, the impact of violence on civilians. And that’s when it’s safe to conclude that the UN and the International Criminal Court in the Hague will have to step in to stop the protracted conflict and hold to account those who want this crisis to continue apace – one way or another:

– It is true that in the wake of unlawful US-backed, Saudi-led bombing, some Western governments have decided to suspend the sale of weapons worth tens of billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia. It is a recognition, a long time in coming, that the Saudi-led coalition’s military campaign in Yemen have devastated the country, killed thousands of civilians and brought it to the brink of famine. However, unlawful airstrikes still continue, which means the decision by some Western governments to suspend arms sales has sent no message to the Saudis. US President Donald Trump, in his first trip to Riyadh for instance, sent an alternative, deeply troublesome message. He sold American weapons to the Saudis worth $110 billion – nearly as much as President Obama authorized during his eight years in office.

– The deals include Raytheon bombs, Lockheed Martin missile defense systems and BAE combat vehicles, and some of the weapons whose sales had been suspended. Thanks to these weapons, the scars of unlawful airstrikes can be found across Yemen, where the Saudi-led coalition has carried out scores of attacks that hit homes, schools, markets, and hospitals since March 2015, when it began its military campaign against the Ansarullah resistance movement and forces loyal to the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

– Human Rights Watch has documented numerous unlawful coalition attacks over the last three years, many war crimes. In many of these cases, including the attacks on funeral halls and markets, the organization’s investigators were able to identify the US weapons that were used. These are the very same weapons that continue to drive Yemen, already the poorest nation in the Middle East, toward humanitarian catastrophe.

– Both the Saudi-led coalition and their American allies have blocked or restricted critical relief supplies from reaching civilians. Seven million people face starvation and cholera ravages parts of the country. The UN should be urging the Saudis to shift course by abiding by the laws of war and holding those responsible for past abuses to account.

– Without Washington’s much-needed support and consent this war can never continue. By going to Riyadh to sell the Saudis weapons worth over $110 billion, President Donald Trump effectively told them to continue as before and not to worry about any international backlash at the UN – the flow of US weapons would not stop. This makes the US government complicit in Saudi war crimes. Continued US arms sales to a country that has repeatedly violated the laws of war expose US officials to legal liability for aiding and abetting Saudi war crimes.

It is against this backdrop and others that the UN and The Hague should step in, introducing a resolution intended to end the US-backed, Saudi-led war on Yemen. The resolution should end US arms transfers to Saudi Arabia, as requiring the White House to certify that the Saudi-led coalition is taking all feasible precautions to minimize civilian casualties is not going to mean anything at all – let alone end the human suffering there.

The UN and the International Criminal Court in The Hague are in the know that the people of Yemen can take no more and that they need to react fast. Innocent people are suffering from unlawful airstrikes because the US supports the Saudi-led coalition and because US weapons have been used against civilian populations. This is an international legal problem the UN and the ICC should be paying more attention to. If they won’t try to curtail the ongoing Us-backed war crimes by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the coalition, no other world body would ever step in to make clear – by using its own power to end the war – that the lives of Yemeni civilian can no longer be disregarded.