- For more than six years, the US and Britain have been trying to demonstrate a neutral stand and eagerness for peace in Yemen, despite their constant efforts to falsify the facts. We can review the facts revealed by the British newspaper The Independent about the true role of the UK in the deadly war on Yemen. The newspaper relied on the report of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which indicated the following:
- Britain is a cause of all the destruction and killing in Yemen, its land and people. It has also contributed to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen, as described by the United Nations. It is an inevitable consequence of the ongoing war on Yemen and the imposition of a comprehensive blockade by closing ports and airports, foremost of which are Sana’a International Airport and the Port of Hodeidah.
- The report warned against Britain’s assistance to Saudi Arabia in committing crimes amounting to “war crimes” by selling weapons to the Saudi Kingdom which is fighting a war alongside the UAE in Yemen.
- The report confirmed that Britain and other countries providing weapons to Saudi Arabia are likely to help and support war crimes in Yemen.
- The report asserts that British government has ignored a court-ordered ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
- The newspaper indicates also that Hannah Cooper, Oxfam Humanitarian Policy Advisor in Yemen, stated that “Every day civilians die or are injured in this absurd conflict, while also facing hunger and disease, in what is considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” She adds, “Members of the international community, including the United Kingdom, must stop fueling conflict by selling weapons for use in war.”
- In a previous report published three years ago, the British Daily Mail revealed the UK’s role in the Saudi war on Yemen and described it as a “dirty war.” The main points of the report are as follows:
- The British Army is secretly training Saudi troops; and more than 50 British soldiers are training Saudi soldiers on the war skills to fight in this “dirty war,” as it describes it.
- Since 2015, the ongoing war on Yemen has so far resulted in thousands of deaths by aerial bombing raids, leaving almost one million Yemeni children at risk of famine and severe epidemics as a result of the war on Yemen.
- The British MP and former Minister for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, pointed out that the British Army’s involvement in this war is part of Britain’s “shameful complicity” in this suffering. He called for answers in the House of Commons about the UK’s role in the Saudi military operations in Yemen. He asserted that the United Kingdom was “shamefully complicit” in this war and in a manner that was in violation of the Geneva Conventions. “I have no doubt that Parliament will demand clarification on the training, given the concern about the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Yemen,” he added.
- The flow of weapons from the United States and European countries, including the UK, contributed to prolonging the war on Yemen, which has been going on for more than six years, causing massive destruction and thousands of civilian casualties. These practices have already been criticized in a report issued by the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Monitoring Human Rights Violations, pointing the parties that sell weapons to the forces of war on Yemen, particularly the US, the UK and France, and considering this step as a continuation of support for the War Coalition against Yemen.
