The
last thing Saudi Arabia and its Western allies want is a
self-sustaining, economically viable, militarily strong, and
anti-imperialist Yemen at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula,
controlling the Red Sea and its strategic waterways. Yemen’s
geographic placement in regards to the flow of world capital cannot
be stressed enough.
by
Randi Nord
Part
4 - Controlling the media to humanize war crimes
World
powers in the coalition have directly facilitated countless war
crimes. Whether they’re bombing civilian homes, running torture
centers, restricting humanitarian aid, using internationally-banned
weapons, or flooding the country with Blackwater contract
mercenaries, every day brings a new tragedy the Yemeni people never
deserved.
Al-Houthi
explained that the United States, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab
Emirates dominate international discourse to “humanize” their
actions “as if they are defenders of humanity!” He
believes they are able to achieve this because the U.S. has power
through the media, politics, and economic standing to sway the
general narrative and actions of international organizations such as
the United Nations.
He
pointed to the recent incident when the U.S. ambassador to the UN,
Nikki Haley, displayed missile fragments, claiming the launch
targeting Riyadh had put civilians at risk. However, the UN reported
absolutely no civilian casualties for this event. Meanwhile, the
Saudi coalition targets civilian homes on nearly a daily basis.
“The
U.S. and the coalition countries against Yemen appear to be leading
the process of caring for civilians and humanitarian work while, in
fact, they destroy humanity and kill civilians. Thousands of daily
massacres have been committed against Yemeni civilians for three
years and they continue to this very moment.”
To back
this statement, al-Houthi cited the incident of Saudi Arabia
blackmailing the UN in order to remove their name from a list of
countries responsible for killing children and committing war crimes.
Riyadh threatened to withdraw “hundreds of millions” in aid money
and sever diplomatic ties with the UN, which forced the previous UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to remove Saudi Arabia from the list.
In
2014, Saudi Arabia donated $500 million to UN humanitarian relief
funds, making it the largest single donor.
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