AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The bloody Saudi-led war on the already impoverished Yemeni nation is gradually growing one year older. Over the past months and as the voices in the Western countries rose against Western governments’ backing to Riyadh-led coalition, optimism grew about the Arab kingdom being forced to end the six-year war. However, as a result of the Western flexibility shown to Riyadh, especially that shown by the new White House administration, it is now clear to all that all of the criticism by Western capitals were media gestures to deceive the public opinion and that behind the scenes the support to the air and ground campaigns against Yemen is ongoing.
Although the Saudis and Emiratis have failed to advance their goals in the war against the Yemeni army and popular committees, and have nothing to say on the ground in the face of the courage and sacrifice of Sana’a’s military forces, they have resorted to inhumane bombardment of the cities and civilian infrastructure to bring Ansarullah, the key force in Sana’a, to its knees. This is coming while in recent years due to the war and the successive droughts, the economic and health infrastructure of Yemen have totally collapsed and there has been an unprecedented famine in the country, to an extent that now a large part of the people's needs, like medicine and food, should reach the Yemenis through foreign aids.
Meanwhile, six years of experience show that all the Saudi claims of respect to the international laws and humanitarian principles in the war and also readiness to end the campaign have been for show and to buy time and fool the international community to ease the growing pressure against continuation of the war. For Riyadh, eased pressures and foreign support for war are of extraordinary importance.
Basically, Saudi Arabia has been highly vulnerable during the war, despite massive arms purchases, and unable to advance the war independently. Without the political, military and intelligence support of the Western countries, the Saudis would have long raised the white flag and retreated from their positions and goals in confrontation of ironclad resistance of the Yemeni people.
Still, while the rights organizations issue reports and warns about the Saudi atrocities and abuses and call for pressures on the kingdom to lift the all-out blockade, in a surprise move the Human Rights Council voted to not extend the mission of its inspectors in Yemen in a big blow to the anti-war and pro-diplomacy efforts to end the plight of the people and their critical living conditions.
End of UN rights inspection mission a failure to anti-war efforts
On Thursday, the UN Human Rights Council rejected a draft resolution submitted by a group of European countries, led by the Netherlands, which called for an extension of the mandate of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts monitoring human rights violations in Yemen.
Certainly, the decision of the council in addition to being a stain on its record of defense of the human rights and damaging its credibility among the public opinion will spur the Saudis to continue war and massacre the civilians and of course compound the already complicated war conditions. The aggression countries whose hands are stained with blood of thousands of Yemenis have welcomed the ruling and celebrated it as a green light to go ahead with their crimes without the fear of their crimes being prosecuted.
The Arab bloc had lobbied extensively to see the mission aborted, promising economic benefits to small countries that had the right to vote. To the surprise of all, some countries with totally black record of human rights abuses and crimes had the voting right in the council.
Given the obvious influence of the Arab lobbies and their criminal Israeli patrons on the UN decisions, international organizations like Organization of Islamic Cooperation, rights group, and independent media should seriously work on disclosing the crimes in Yemen by the aggression coalition to force stop the war and preclude deterioration of conditions in the future.
/129