By Fra Hughes – Jan 26, 2022
A beautiful historic country of poetry and art, of ancient buildings and centuries-old culture, has been devastated, destroyed, and bankrupted by fierce aggression led by imperialist forces.
As the death toll rises and nearly 20 million civilians face starvation… When will the international community intervene to end this suffering? Needless slaughters, bombs, regional politicking, airstrikes, the imposed siege, weapons of mass starvation targeting the infrastructure, including hospitals, prisons, and the fabric of civil society that holds a nation together in Yemen.
As I sit here in my warm home in Belfast Ireland looking forward to the spring evenings, as the days grow longer and the temperatures increase, how blessed I am to see the horrors of the civil conflict that I lived through for 30 years, come to an end. Relative peace, prosperity and stability have now lasted over two decades.
Oh, how I wish to see the same in West Asia.
What we witnessed and went through in Ireland in the latter part of the 21st century is nothing compared to the unimaginable horror of the war that has engulfed Yemen.
A beautiful historic country of poetry and art, of ancient buildings and centuries-old culture, has been devastated, destroyed, and bankrupted by fierce aggression led by imperialist forces.
On one hand, we have the Ansar Allah who fought against the established government versus the remnants of the failed unpopular government of Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi installed in 2012 who was forced to flee to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, when his government fell to a popular uprising and was no longer welcomed by the Yemeni people.
A power vacuum now filled with violence has ensued.
In reality, if it were not for Saudi monies, American and British bombs, and mercenaries paid for by the United Arab Emirates, the conflict would have already ended: Ansar Allah, alongside the Yemen army, would be in control, the order would be restored, the war ended, humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts supported by the international community would be already underway and the imminent threat of starvation facing 20 million people would no longer be a concern.
While the aggression continues, there will be no international support, no aid reaching those most desperately in need, and no end to the cycle of violence.
Starvation is being used as a weapon of war by the Saudi-led coalition of forces who are trying to reinstall an unpopular government that will in all probability never return to power in Sanaa.
Their only contribution to Yemen is to prolong the death, destruction and de-evolvement of the country, as the bombs take their toll, as the violence ebbs and flows, and as the siege which is creating this man-made famine takes further grip of the country only more misery can be the outcome.
The facts remain that Yemen is in the grip of a revolution that wishes to see an end to the corrupt government of Hadi which is supported by other corrupt regional and global players.
His only friends are the imperialists and the capitalist who wish to reinstall him. From Riyadh to Washington via “Tel Aviv” and London, the dark forces of western imperialism are at work. Like the orcs of Tolkien’s fantasy books, they pillage and rampage throughout the land. They have no concern for human life nor the pain and suffering they inflict.
As the Ansar Allah and the Yemini army recapture more and more land from the Saudi led coalition – the unholy, supported and rearmed by the west – the desperation of the Saudi ruling dictatorship becomes even more violent, even less humane and even more sadistic, as his bombs kill more civilians, as he tightens the siege and as he unleashes Islamic fundamental terrorists onto the helpless people of Yemen.
While the Ansar Allah and Yemeni army develop drone and ballistic technology to counteract and repay Saudi led belligerence, the toll inflicted on the Yemeni civilian population has become insufferable.
While the West is selling weapons of mass destruction to Saudi Arabia, the Yemini population is paying the price.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE must cease their military adventurism in Yemen.
The US, Britain, and “Israel” must stop interfering in the Yemen civil conflict.
The people of Yemen must be allowed to address their problems and if the people want an Ansar Allah and Yemen government, then let that be the case.
Murdering tens of thousands of people, displacing 3 million more and forcing 20 million to the brink of starvation is not ethical, moral or even politically acceptable.
Murder by proxy is still murder.
The blood of the innocents is not only on the hands of Saudi and Emirati Crown Princes Mohammad Bin Salman and Mohamed Bin Zayed, it is also on the hands of the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson who continues to allow multibillion-dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Donald Trump defeated a motion by the American Senate in 2019 to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The supply line of death from America continues, now euphemistically termed lethal aid.
“Israel” is also complicit in these crimes as the normalization process between the Gulf States and the Zionist apartheid regime continues, and “Israel” supports this war.
The Yemen army recently attacked oil installations in the UAE, to try and deter further massacres perpetrated against the civilian population of Yemen by Mohamed Bin Zayed.
The response from the UAE was to further bomb Yemeni civilians and to ask “Israel” for its assistance.
While the ragtag coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia and its western sponsors tries to defeat the Yemeni people and reinstall a puppet regime aligned to Washington, “Tel Aviv” and London continue to flounder; the death toll on the civilian population of Yemen will continue to rise.
While some Arab gulf journalists blame the Ansar Allah for the Cholera epidemic that is sweeping the country, the reality is rather this: The ongoing airstrikes, focusing on civil infrastructure, are hindering any real chance for the provisional government in Yemen to get adequate freshwater supplies to the people, to repair the damaged sewage pipelines, and remove the refuse and rubbish from the streets which are exacerbating the hygienic situation.
People and animals are drinking contaminated water from the same sources, with both becoming ill.
Any entry of food, medicine, water, and aid is being denied under the barbaric Gaza-like siege imposed on Yemen.
My fear for the future is that when the Ansar Allah and the Yemeni army successfully regain all of the national territories of Yemen from these foreign-backed mercenaries and gulf stream conscripts, Yemen may well become Gaza MK 2.
There could be a continued international illegal siege forced upon the country, American and European financial sanctions, and the Saudi Arabia, the UAE and possibly “Israel” could use multi-million dollar bombs and sophisticated drones and ballistic missiles technology to simply bomb Yemen back into the Stone Age.
We must tell the truth.
While western governments continue their unipolar world hegemony over West Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, utilizing proxy friendly governments it installed under previous colonial occupations such as the Gulf undemocratic monarchies, there will be no peace in the world.
Collectively, we the people of the world must begin to understand the reality of why these wars are raging in West Asia and Africa.
While the usual suspects of Britain and America together with France and “Israel” continue to finance coups, regime change color revolutions, support dictators and monarchies in repressing their people, we will not have justice, peace or cooperation between nations.
Imperialist politics is the politics of the gun and the bomb, from gunboat diplomacy to air supremacy of the skies.
We as citizens must rise and demand an end to wars for profit, an end to regime change operations, that enable western corporations to control the national natural resources of other countries and we must dismantle the apparatus that allows the elite to continue to rule over us through a compliant media and partial media that exists merely to control the flow of information and to help create a consensus for the narrative of war.
Balhaf: The Oil Port Where UAE Loots Yemen and Imprisons and Tortures Yemenis
Let us be honest, the media has blood not ink on its hands, and those in the industry who glorify war, advocate war and cheerlead war, are just as guilty as the politician for profit who start the wars, the soldiers and airmen who fight those wars when bombing children and old women, alongside the general public who support these wars when they slavishly believe what a corrupt media informs them to be morally acceptable.
We witnessed Saudi Arabian democracy with the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, butchered and dismembered in Istanbul in the Saudi embassy.
We are continuing to watch the brutal extradition of Julian Assange by Boris Johnson the British PM, demanded by US President Joe Biden, to face life imprisonment, slowly driven insane in isolation deep inside the US penal system.
Real journalists are being killed and tortured while western mainstream media fabricates the justification for these continuing wars.
While Yemen stands against foreign aggression, we must all call for an end to western imperialist interference in any sovereign nation, anywhere in the world.
Featured image: File photo.
Fra Hughes
Fra Hughes is an Irish political activist, commentator, and author. His most recent books are My Walk with Palestine: an Activist's Taleand Voices from Donbass.
