Yemen Remains on the Verge of a Large-Scale Famine
A Yemeni soldier stands guard in Mukalla, Yemen. (Jon Gambrell / AP)
On December 14, Martin Griffiths-the UN Special Envoy for Yemen-briefed the
UN Security Council about the talks that had just concluded in Sweden the
previous day. Griffiths, sitting before a large UN logo from Jordan, spoke
by video to a Council that had not been able to move an effective agenda to
end the brutal war on this impoverished country.
Griffiths, who worked on each failed UN effort on Syria over the past
decade, had been appointed to this post only in February, just after
Mauritania's Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed opted out of the impossible job that
he had held from April 2015 to February 2018. No amount of talk had been
able to bring the parties together. No amount of dialogue had convinced
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to stop the harsh bombardment of
the country. And, no amount of pressure had moved the United States and the
United Kingdom to stop providing logistical and military assistance to the
Saudis and the Emiratis.
There was no real agreement in Sweden. Inside Yemen, there is bewilderment
about what is going on. Haykal Bafana, a lawyer who lives in Sanaa-Yemen's
capital-told me, "It remains unclear to me what the actual terms of the
ceasefire agreement are, or even whether an agreement was mutually agreed."
Griffiths told the Security Council much the same, but with language that
indicated hope. The agreement does not end the fighting, he said. It is a
"humanitarian stopgap to save lives and turn the tide of war towards peace."
One piece of evidence for the "humanitarian stopgap" is that all sides agree
to allow humanitarian aid through Yemen's lifeline-the Hudaydah port. "The
ghastly prospect of famine," Griffiths said, "has made solving Hudaydah
urgent and necessary."
Ghastly Prospect of Famine
The idea of Yemen as a "terrible tragedy" was expanded upon for the members
of the Security Council by Mark Lowcock, who runs humanitarian affairs for
the United Nations. A new study shows the "terrible tragedy" in its full
scale: 67 percent of Yemen's population needs "urgent action to save lives
and livelihoods." That means that 20 million Yemenis are vulnerable to
death. A quarter of a million of these Yemenis are "on the brink of
starvation."
The study points out that "armed conflict remains the main driver of food
insecurity in Yemen." That's an obvious point, but it needs to be made. The
war on Yemen has to end to prevent the near-death of the Yemeni people.
The deal in Sweden was signed on Friday. By Saturday night and into Sunday,
the crucial port of Hudaydah was hit by airstrikes by Saudi and Emirati
jets. Gunfire ran across the city. Not even 24 hours would go by to preserve
the peace. A senior UN official told me that such accords do not come into
place immediately. They take time to settle in. The official date for the
start of the ceasefire is Tuesday-December 18. But Yemen does not have the
time. Near-famine is as bad as famine. Annihilation of Yemen remains in the
cards.
Hisham al-Omeisy, the prominent Yemen-based political analyst, told me that
both Saudi Arabia and the UAE "are trigger-happy at this point, but neither
wants to be blamed for foiling agreements that came through immense
international pressure." There is a massive "global wave of public
discontent," al-Omeisy said. "Hudaydah will be the real litmus test for
success of the process."
United States Senate Weighs In
The day before the talks in Sweden ended, the United States Senate voted to
end U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia and its allies (including the United
Arab Emirates) in their war on Yemen. The bill was sponsored by Bernie
Sanders, the socialist from Vermont. Thanks to pressure from the U.S. peace
movement-including Code Pink-and the Yemeni diaspora-such as Professor
Shireen Al-Adeimi-56 senators agreed that the United States must not support
this war. This is a very important statement to the capitals in the Gulf. It
is to be seen if the United Kingdom will also make such a statement.
But-and there is always a but involved here-how will the U.S. specifically
make sure its vast military assistance to Saudi Arabia is not diverted to
the war on Yemen? Between 2013 and 2017, Saudi Arabia bought $9 billion
worth of U.S. weapons-substantial parts of it now used in Yemen.
Further, journalist Samuel Oakford has documented the ways in which the U.S.
has-in relatively anonymous ways-supported the war effort. Recently, Oakford
and Ryan Goodman (a lawyer formerly for the U.S. Defense Department) found
that the Saudis and the Emiratis owed the United States $331 million for
refueling services toward their war on Yemen. Many more such services are
doubtless buried.
The U.S. Senate vote sends a strong message, but whether it will have an
impact on the entanglements between the U.S. armed forces and those of the
Saudis is to be seen. It will require considerable vigilance by the U.S.
Senate to make sure that collaboration is not ongoing. No such appetite is
available in the Trump administration, which is eager to continue to support
the Saudi regime regardless of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Peacekeepers
As part of the UN process, Griffiths announced to the Security Council that
a team of UN peacekeepers will arrive in Yemen this week. They will be led
by the retired Dutch Major General Patrick Cammaert, a man who has been on
several UN missions previously.
Recently, Cammaert led the team to investigate the failure of a UN
peacekeeping force to protect civilians in South Sudan. Cammaert's report
criticized the mission for its "chaotic and ineffective response" during
fighting in Juba, South Sudan, in July 2016. Based on the report, the UN
Secretary General fired the commander of the force.
When women were assaulted in plain sight in front of the UN troops, they did
nothing to intervene. Cammaert's report whitewashed this aspect of the
investigation. He is, as people in the UN say, fiercely loyal to the UN and
to UN peacekeeping in particular. It is hoped that his loyalty to the
institution does not blind the new mission from its broader goal-to make
sure that the deal on Hudaydah holds.
Haykal Bafana worries about the entry of the UN peacekeeping force.
"Composed of foreign troops," he told me, the force "will be a dangerous new
dynamic that may just start a completely new war in Yemen." There are so
many guns in Yemen, so much more mayhem possible.
Complications
Saudi Arabia and the UAE still have a lot of money. They have used this
money liberally through the UN system-helping fund this relief operation and
that. Even now, the UN Envoy Griffiths had to thank Saudi Arabia and the
UAE-bizarrely-for their injections of foreign currency to stabilize Yemen's
rial and their funds toward relief for Yemen. In March, the Saudis and
Emiratis gave nearly US$1 billion to the UN, with the architect of the
Saudi-Emirati war-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman-standing with UN
Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Geneva, smiling as the check was
handed over.
The Saudis and the Emiratis bomb Yemen and then they help to fund the
relief.
There is very little room for maneuver in the UN system to be critical of
Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
China and Yemen
China has long said that it wants the war to end. The war has interrupted
China's ambitions to move the One Belt, One Road project into the Gulf, with
Yemen's Bab el-Mandeb Strait as a central avenue for the movement of Chinese
goods and Gulf oil. China oscillates in its views on the conflict-on the one
side taking positions on the war and on the other saying that it merely
wants stability in Yemen. Early in the war, for instance, China pressured
Pakistan not to send troops into Yemen to fight for the Saudis. Then later,
China appeared to back the Saudis' proxy, former Yemeni president Abdrabbuh
Mansur Hadi. China has called for a "Yemen-led, Yemen-owned" peace deal. The
agreement in Sweden is the start of such a process, say Chinese officials.
China's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ma Zhaoxu, said that the
ceasefire must hold, and that Yemen must be prevented from further collapse.
A decade ago, the Chinese tried not to involve themselves in the political
entanglements of such crises. Even peacekeeping does not go well. There were
Chinese peacekeepers in Juba, when the UN did not act to protect civilians.
Now, China is much more eager to assert itself across West Asia-even in
Yemen. In Beijing, officials do not say more than that they will do all they
can to help protect the future of Yemen. China's foreign ministry
spokesperson Lu Kang said, "We are willing to continue to play a
constructive role to resolve the Yemen issue." Whether China can use its
considerable influence in Saudi Arabia to bring this war to a conclusion is
to be seen. Certainly, the Chinese-unlike the United States-have far more
reason to see the war end. They are not beholden to the Israelis or paranoid
about Iran. The Chinese view is simple: war is bad for business, and life.
That much is true.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent
Media Institute.
Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute
