Peace Laureates Condemn Inaction on Rohingya Genocide – What About Yemen?

Rasa - Nobel Laureates Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, and Tawakkol Karman met with more than 100 women refugees in camps in the coastal Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh this week, as well as travelling to the “no man’s land” where thousands of Rohingya have been stranded between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

News ID: 436753

Date: 07 March 2018 - 23:57

RNA - They have all called for trials of the Myanmar leaders in the International Criminal Court for committing genocide. And now the question is if they also intend to seek justice when the world seems to be so divided over the US-backed, Saudi-led war on Yemen.

Surely, the American-Saudi leaders and their junior partners have also committed genocide and the international civil society, including the United Nations Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, and Amnesty International, have all been the witnesses for that. They speak of indiscriminate bombing of civilian objects, intentional spread of famine and hunger, and of course three years of illegal blockade, that have left millions of innocent women and children for dead.

In the prevailing environment, the Nobel Laureates should also play their roles to speak to envoys of as many countries as possible and to pursue this dialogue with the ambassadors and leaders of the governments. They should also contact the United Nations and the European Parliament until this war of deceit and aggression is taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Just like the Rohingya people, what has happened to the people of Yemen is a crime of genocide. In fact, the United Nations and numerous human rights organizations and aid agencies have all acknowledged that it is genocide. That is why the Nobel Laureates should take this case to the UN Security Council and international courts to raise their concerns, and urge them to use their rights to issue resolutions that could help end the protracted war on the poorest nation in the Arab world.

Sadly, this is yet to be the case. Perhaps, that’s because the Nobel Committee is not doing its job properly. Lest we forget, this is the same Committee that adopted double standards and gave the former US president Barack Obama its Nobel only to see him wage numerous wars in the Middle East later on – even in Europe where such double standard policy helped develop the political crisis in Ukraine.

The same double standard is now repeating itself in Yemen. Instead of sending them to Riyadh and Washington, the Nobel Committee has sent its Laureates as a decoy to Myanmar where they know there is little chance of any success to stop the unfolding genocide. This is while the Committee and its Laureates are all in the know that they have done absolutely nothing to stop the unfolding genocide in Yemen, where Human Rights Watch has on several occasions accused the Saudi-led coalition of deliberately committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

When will they ever talk about these deliberate and reckless air raids as well, that are causing indiscriminate loss of civilian lives in violation of the laws of war and the UN Charter? Surely, such attacks carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes. This underscores the need for the Nobel Committee to also call on the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition to stop their madness, and for the Human Rights Watch to immediately return the coalition to its annual 'list of shame' for violations against civilians, including women and children, in the armed conflict.

In the same mode, the Nobel Committee should call on the UN Security Council to launch an international investigation into the abuses at its upcoming sessions, which has already verified over 17,000 civilian deaths in the war on Yemen, mainly from air raids by the Saudi-led coalition. A peace organization like this should also call on the US and European governments to immediately cease selling arms to Saudi Arabia worth over $100 billion. By sending arms to Saudi Arabia, knowing that they are being used to kill civilians, the Western governments are also complicit in violations of International Law, including war crimes. Any doubters should ask Amnesty International.

This is what the international civil society similarly wants to see from the Nobel Committee and other international peace organizations. They should condemn the international inaction and make it clear – just like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – that Saudi Arabia, the United States, and their junior partners don’t seem concerned about human rights violations and civilian casualties in Yemen. By looking the other way, the Nobel Committee is basically telling the Saudi-led coalition to continue what it is doing.

The Nobel Committee might not seem to be concerned, but there has to be a major shift and appetite there as well in terms of the attention granted to Yemen, where there is no doubt Saudi Arabia, the United States, and their allies are war criminals. There is no other way to conclude that the Committee and its hyped-up Laureates are doing their jobs properly, much less moving in the right direction and forward.

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