When It Comes to Criticizing Saudi War Crimes, Maybe PM May Should Skip It

Rasa - Despite fierce criticism from the British and global civil society, Prime Minister Theresa May has defended Britain’s alliance with Saudi Arabia in the ongoing war on Yemen.

News ID: 436806

Date: 10 March 2018 - 23:10

RNA - She did that on Wednesday, March 7, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Queen Elizabeth for lunch on a high-profile visit that drew protests over Riyadh’s human rights record. This was all expected, as Prince Mohammed’s diplomatic affection and May’s “bowing and scraping” to the crown prince, are aimed at widening long-standing military ties between the two countries, including buying more British arms and getting a more far-reaching military partnership in the ongoing human rights abuses and crimes committed against humanity in Yemen.

This includes launching a UK-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council and agreeing a 65 billion-pound ($90.29 billion) trade and investment target. Lest we forget, Britain is looking for more cash as it exits the European Union, and oil-rich Saudi Arabia needs to convince the Downing Street about the economic merits of continuing that awful military partnership in prolonging the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

For his part, Saudi Arabia’s ambitious heir wants to show that the war on Yemen has made Britain a better place to invest and a more tolerant society toward its funding extremism in the UK and human rights abuses domestically. He also wants to ensure arms deals with British defence group BAE Systems and European weapons maker MBDA continue apace.

In the prevailing environment, don’t be fooled when you hear Prime Minister May claiming “all arms sales are strictly regulated, that Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the conflict is backed by the UN Security Council, and her government supports it.” Together with the United States, Riyadh and London are responsible for putting millions at risk of starvation. They refuse to allow full and unfettered humanitarian and commercial access, including through the ports, to the besieged people of Yemen. They also seek no political solution to end the conflict and the humanitarian suffering.

Far from it, Prime Minister May rolled out the red carpet and provided the equivalent of a state visit to a dictatorial head of a medieval regime. Despite domestic and international criticism, she never bothered to demand the Saudis end the systematic bombing of civilian targets in Yemen, which the crown prince initiated. Instead, she offered Britain’s red carpet, bowing and scraping to the architect of the coalition airstrikes and blockade in Yemen, who funds terrorist groups in the Syria war, and ordered his guards to disrespect and lock up the prime minister of Lebanon, without shame or regret.

As is, the British prime minister ignores all that and more because it’s good for British arms business. Number 10 pretends to care about human rights and war crimes but when it comes to Saudi Arabia there is nothing but a shameful silence. To add insult to injury, the Downing Street even rolls out the red carpet for a ruler who without a shadow of doubt is breaching International Law and International Humanitarian Law.

Prime Minister May defends the red-carpet treatment for the crown prince, saying the close counter-extremism alliance with the Saudis has saved hundreds of lives in Britain. She even says UK pressure has led the Saudis to lift the blockade of the Yemeni port of Hodeida in December, and insists the Saudi intervention has been backed by UN resolutions. Referencing British collusion in the war, she even says “we have encouraged the Saudi government to ensure that when there are allegations that activity has taken place which is not in line with international humanitarian law they investigate that, they learn the lessons from it.”

That’s nonsense. The blowback from the American-Saudi-Israel war on Syria killed many people in Europe in the past few years. The UN Human Rights Council issued statement after statement criticizing Riyadh for refusing to lift the blockade on Yemen, and the UN resolutions never gave the go-ahead to the Saudis to worsen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN never said the Saudi-led coalition could bomb Yemeni schools, markets, and wedding parties indiscriminately, and get away with it. The world body holds the Saudis and their American-British partners to account and calls on them to end the unnecessary conflict, because there are legal grounds criticizing British-American involvements in Yemen war.

The insinuation that Prime Minister May unilaterally engaged the UK in military action to defend British people and interests is frivolous. If the British law means anything, it means that its Parliament should debate and vote on ending assistance for the Saudi-led coalition, complicity in Saudi war crimes, and involvement in Yemen’s war of deceit. The British prime minister and lawmakers know better than anyone else that this is not a proxy war for influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The world criticizes their reasoning, which relies heavily on the idea that the UK is actually helping fight Iranian-backed Houthis when in fact British planes are providing aerial refuelling to Saudi-led coalition planes bombing the defenceless people of Yemen in broad daylight and in contravention to International Humanitarian Law and the UN Charter. After three years of war, the Saudis and their allies the US and the UK owe the global community at least one single shred of evidence to corroborate their claims about Iran's ties with the popular movement in Yemen. What in the world could justify Britain's engagement in an internal conflict in a poor Arab state thousands of miles away.

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