THE MUSLIM WORLD
Fallen Apart: Can Yemen be Saved? Yet another seemingly impossible task BY HAROON IMTIAZ
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ow approaching its seventh year, the merciless war in Yemen continues to generate humanitarian conditions that are among the world’s worst. All parties are guilty of human rights abuses, the arms trade has enabled widespread atrocities, diplomatic efforts have failed and the country is terribly fractured. Ever since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition has been locked in a destructive conflict with the Houthis, a rebel group that captured Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, from the Republic of Yemen government in 2014. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and a number of other Middle Eastern, African, and Western states have backed the Saudi-led effort, in order to curtail Houthi influence and prevent Iran from securing a geopolitical ally at the Peninsula’s base. This effort has failed and also implicated
Saudi Arabia and the UAE in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have documented numerous coalition attacks on “homes, schools, hospitals, markets, mosques, weddings and funerals” (www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/ [Updated: March 24. 2020]). The Saudis’ punishing blockade has restricted critical imports of food, fuel and medicine — a type of collective punishment that may be considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (www.rescue-uk. org/press-release/yemen-collective-punishment-must-end-now). The UAE, a major ally in the coalition, has been implicated in running a torture network (www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/12/ report-mass-torture-in-network-of-uaerun-prisons-in-south-yemen), and both it
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and Saudi Arabia have transferred weaponry bought from the U.S. to extremist groups on the ground (www.learnexportcompliance. com/cnn-exclusive-report-sold-to-an-allylost-to-an-enemy/, March 28, 2019). The Houthis have also grossly violated international law by, for example, deliberately targeting and killing civilians and deploying antipersonnel mines — declared illegal under the Mine Ban Treaty — that have killed and injured hundreds (www. state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-onhuman-rights-practices/yemen/). They have arbitrarily arrested and tortured journalists, enlisted thousands of child soldiers, tortured and raped detainees, as well as obstructed the free flow of humanitarian aid (Ibid.). And while all of the parties directly involved are guilty of human rights abuses, the involvement of foreign countries has been undeniable. For example, the Saudi-led coalition has depended on weaponry, intelligence and logistical support mainly from the U.S., the U.K. and France. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has documented Saudi Arabia’s dependency, in particular, on U.S. and British arms from 2015 to 2019: “A total of 73 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports came from the USA and 13 percent from the UK (www.sipri.org/ media/press-release/2020/usa-and-francedramatically-increase-major-arms-exportssaudi-arabia-largest-arms-importer-says).” UN investigators also concluded in 2020 that numerous countries had failed “to ensure respect for international humanitarian law,” by knowingly transferring weapons to warring parties with previous patterns of abuse (reliefweb.int/report/yemen/situation-human-rights-yemen-including-violations-and-abuses-september-2014-detailed, Sept. 29, 2020). Some states, they argued, had likely violated their international obligations contained in the Arms Trade Treaty of 2013 (Ibid.). However, under public pressure and scrutiny, some countries have begun to change course. Germany, for instance, extended its ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia until December 2021 (www.middleeastmonitor.
