Friends,
Consider fasting for the people of Yemen. Sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbAePs_7uikBwFIvwEdEI4cMWTmj5HO_02SewMpcQ9WGjNAA/viewform. Yemeni-American protestors Iman Saleh and her younger sister, Muna are on day 18 of their hunger-strike in Washington against US backed atrocities in Yemen. Some may consider fasting in public areas such as the Washington, D.C. hunger-strikers, who are camped out in front of the White House.
Kagiso,
Max
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CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -
Starving Yemen
By Charles
Pierson on April 16, 2021
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Yemen is starving
to death.
More accurately, Yemen is being
starved to death. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with the
United Arab Emirates and other Gulf States, has deliberately chosen to
weaponize starvation in its war against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi
rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has imposed a land, sea, and air blockade of Yemen which keeps desperately
needed food, fuel, and medicine from the 90% of Yemenis who are completely
reliant on humanitarian aid from the outside world.
The coalition claims that the blockade is
necessary in order to detect weapons being smuggled from Iran to the
Houthis. The coalition claims that UN
Security Council Resolution 2216 (Apr. 14, 2015), which imposed
an arms embargo on Yemen, furnishes the legal authority for the blockade.
By a happy coincidence, Saudi Arabia helped draft UNSCR 2216.
March 25 was the
sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. The coalition’s
objective is to restore Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi who the Houthis
ousted in January 2015.
The US has been a partner in the Saudi
coalition from the beginning. In March 2015, President Barack Obama
wanted to mollify the Gulf States who objected to his prospective nuclear deal with Iran. Obama decided to
support the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence sharing, targeting
assistance, arms sales, spare parts for coalition warplanes, and (until November
2018) in-flight refueling of coalition aircraft.
The war would not be possible without US
support. The Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel declares that if the US
and UK cut off logistic support the Royal Saudi Air Force would be “grounded.” Much of the Royal Saudi Navy’s
equipment and some of their ships are supplied by the US. Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi, a Yemeni-American activist
who teaches at Michigan State University, is scathing. “Saudi Arabia is
utterly and completely incompetent,” she says. Al-Adeimi says that the
Saudis cannot repair or maintain their own aircraft, and that the US even
trains Saudi pilots.
“There Is No Blockade”
President Joe Biden, formerly vice
president under Obama, came into office promising to end US assistance to the
Saudi-led coalition. On February 4, in his first major
foreign policy speech as president, Biden promised to end
US support for “offensive operations” in Yemen.
Biden’s speech was met with enthusiasm,
but also with questions. What forms of support, if any, has Biden cut off
to the Saudis and their partners? How does the Administration distinguish
between offensive and defensive operations? Biden did not even mention
the blockade. Does the blockade qualify as an “offensive
operation”? Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution
thinks it does. Riedel states unambiguously that “The blockade is an
offensive military operation that kills civilians.”
In his speech,
Biden recommitted to the defense of Saudi Arabia. Inasmuch as the Houthis
conduct cross-border drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, attacks on the Houthis
can be framed as defensive.
On April 6, 70 humanitarian organizations,
including the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Yemen Relief
and Reconstruction Foundation, and celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Amy
Schumer, sent a letter to Biden, which reads in part:
“We are deeply concerned that prior to the
CNN report,[1] no U.S. official in the new
administration had explicitly publicly acknowledged the six-year-old,
Saudi-imposed blockade—much less criticized it.”
The letter notes
with disapproval a claim made by US Special Envoy Tim Lenderking that “food continues
to flow through Hodeidah unimpeded.” No, it doesn’t. That’s a major
reason that Yemen is close to famine.
Lenderking’s statement must have pleased
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. During an April
5 interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson, Prince
Faisal, who looks all of 12 years old, said that there is “a continuing flow of
goods and services both through Hodeidah and four border crossings and as well
there are two other ports that are active. There is no blockade.”
Millions of
starving Yemenis disagree. Does it need to be said that a US diplomat
should not be spewing Saudi propaganda? Apparently, it does.
The prince
continued: “There is a mechanism with the United Nations—agreed with the United
Nations to allow ships to enter Hodeidah and that mechanism is continuing to be
applied….”
Prince Faisal was
referring to the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM)
which began operating on May 5, 2016. UNVIM was meant to supplant
coalition control of shipping. Despite UNVIM, the coalition remains in
unchallenged control of naval traffic in the Red Sea. The coalition
intercepts and detains ships for periods as long as 100 days, including ships
which UNVIM has determined are free of weapons. This violates paragraph
15 of UNSCR 2216 which allows ships to be inspected only when there exist
“reasonable grounds” to believe arms are aboard. Prince Faisal
disingenuously makes it sound like UNVIM is functioning as intended.
*
* *
UNVIM’s
ineffectiveness was on view this year. Despite a desperate fuel shortage
in Yemen, the Royal Saudi Navy had prevented oil tankers from entering the
Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah for the first three months of 2021.
Finally, on March 25, the Saudis allowed the oil tanker Thuruya to dock.
The Thuruya was one of fourteen tankers the Saudis had detained in the Red
Sea. All fourteen tankers had been cleared by UNVIM.
Two of the fourteen ships, the Mt. Majnoon
and the Dynasty, got tired of waiting for Saudi permission to proceed to
Hodeidah and sailed for destinations outside of Yemen. According to
the Arabian Rights Watch Association, the Saudis had
detained the Mt. Majnoon for 344 days and the Dynasty for 220. Eight
tankers remaining in the Red Sea are still waiting for Saudi permission to dock.
CNN senior correspondent Nima
Elbagir reports seeing “hundreds” of trucks stranded
along the highway outside the port of Hodeidah, full of food which is spoiling
because there is no fuel for the trucks. There still isn’t. The
tankers which the Saudis allowed into Hodeidah at the end of March were not
carrying petrol which cars and trucks need.
It does not take months to search a ship
for weapons, particularly not ships which have already been cleared by
UNVIM. Something else is at work: a deliberate strategy of starving
Yemenis to death. Kamel
Jendoubi, Chair of the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen,
reported to the Security Council in December that “Civilians in Yemen are not
starving; they’re being starved by the parties to the conflict.”
Kiss of Death
The Houthis were less than impressed by
the UN-backed peace plan the Saudis unveiled on March
22. The Houthis have said that they will not agree to a ceasefire until the coalition blockade is
completely lifted. The Saudi plan would allow only some flights into
Sanaa airport and only partially lift the naval blockade. The Houthis
branded the Saudi plan “not serious and “nothing new.” They’re right.
Yemen doesn’t have time to wait for a
ceasefire. In Yemen, a child dies every 70 seconds. This year may
see 400,000 children under the age of 5 die of starvation. Biden must
pressure the Saudis to lift the blockade now, with or without a
ceasefire. Will he? There are reasons to doubt it. Biden
hasn’t even condemned the blockade. Biden might as well join Prince
Faisal in denying that the blockade exists.
One of these days,
Biden may get around to answering how he will end the war in Yemen. I am
very much afraid that Biden’s response will contain the word “holistic.”
That will be the Kiss of Death for Yemen. We will be told that the war in
Yemen needs a holistic rather than a piecemeal solution. That will mean
that the Administration has decided to allow the blockade to continue until
there’s a ceasefire while Yemenis continue to die.
If Biden takes
this tack, it will be necessary to force his hand by having Congress pass
another War Powers Resolution. But one way or another, the blockade has
to end now.
Notes.
[1] Nima Elbagir, A CNN Investigation Finds
the U.S.-Backed Saudi Blockade Is Leading to Deadly Fuel & Food Shortages
in Yemen, Where Hospitals Are Full of Starving Children, cnn.com, Mar. 10,
2021.
Article printed from CounterPunch.org: https://www.counterpunch.org
URL to article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/16/starving-yemen/
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has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
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