RNA - Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of terror that carries out mass executions of dissidents, beheads political activists, subjugates women, and supports extremist groups like ISIL and Al-Qaeda, was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council.
This is also the same autocratic regime that has launched an all-out war against Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, in alliance with the Persian Gulf oil monarchies, the United States and Britain. As a consequence, Yemen, after 19 months of savage bombardment of civil society, is facing a catastrophic crisis threatening mass starvation – all for the crime of wanting to determine its own fate.
Worse still, the warmongers are deliberately targeting and destroying Yemen’s ability to provide its own food in order to prop up a panicked, illegitimate ruler and starve the largely ignored Middle Eastern nation into submission in what constitutes one of the great war crimes of the 21st century. Any sound mind would now expect the UN to react to this human tragedy, to this US-armed Saudis’ barbarism. On the contrary.
The UN has acquitted the criminal hordes and even backed Saudi Arabia’s renewed membership on the Human Rights Council - yet another link to a chain of international protocols broken with impunity. The awful irony in these two disparate narratives – Saudi privilege vs. justice – is that the UN is still under the illusion that it has “done something good and right”. It reeks of hypocrisy. After 18 brutal months, shame UN, shame!
Never mind the bogus fear of “Iranians invading the Arabian Peninsula,” the people of Yemen have been living with very real fear of international terrorism and starvation for over 19 months now. Their original sin is that they said no to the interventionists, who are now using a “scorched earth strategy” in response, intentionally targeting food production and the agricultural sector in their indiscriminate bombing campaign.
Silly how the United Nations says Yemen could be facing an impending famine; characterises this as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world; accuses Saudi-led forces of numerous war crimes, documenting scores of coalition attacks on a wide array of civilian areas; but then goes ahead and rolls the red carpet for Riyadh on its Human Rights Council!
The stench of hypocrisy is overpowering. Although no one at the Council is prepared to justify the bombing of civilian targets, few are prepared to condemn Saudi Arabia and question its Western support with anything like the same burning zeal with which they lambast Iran and Russia for their support of Syria. The Council might be ‘shocked’ at the unfolding human tragedy in Yemen, but there is no plan at the moment to review its relations with Riyadh.
As is, the intentional destruction of civilian food supplies violates the Geneva Conventions, a major basis for international law. Saudi Arabia has not carried out these atrocities on its own either. London and Washington are leading the charge, even “double-tapping” funerals. They are morally compromised and complicit in the carnage. Their billions of dollars of weaponry, plus drone-fed logistical and intelligence support, including the aerial refueling of warplanes AND the illegal blockade, have further exacerbated this crisis.
This is not an aberration; it is par for the course: The desperate (emphasis here) warmongers are free to go out of their way to blow apart schools, destroy hospitals, and raze markets and factories to the ground. They can target food sources, including farms, animals, water infrastructure, agricultural banks, roads and trucks carrying food. They can even change the pattern of targeting from military to civilian and agricultural objects with horrific impact. But they are wrong to assume that surrender will result. The brave people of Yemen will never relinquish their right of self-determination and sovereignty. It is simply not an option.
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