Yemen needs united nations, not the United Nations

In front of the UNHRC building in Geneva (MEE/Afrah Nasser)

GENEVA – When I told my friends and family in Yemen that I was going to attend the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) again, they scolded me.

Three years after our long war started – and my fourth trip to a UNHRC session – there is a growing sense of resentment and distrust among Yemenis towards the UN over its inaction in dealing with the crisis in our country.

The main cause of that distrust is the sense that the UN submits to whatever Saudi Arabia and its allies want to see - or not see - in Yemen.

While war crimes have been committed in Yemen by all warring sides, the HRC, under Saudi Arabia and its allies’ influence, has failed to establish an international independent inquiry commission into these incidents.

A brief recap: In October 2015, under intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and with insufficient support from the US and the UK, a Dutch-led draft resolution to create an independent commission was abandoned at the UNHRC, six months after the Saudi-led campaign in the country began.

Instead, the council passed another resolution allowing the creation of a national inquiry body led by Saudi Arabia and Riyadh-based Yemeni government which became the National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations.

Since then, while the committee is supposed to investigate and document human rights violations, it has yet to produce any significant reports and, from my perspective, is completely biased, focusing on Houthi human rights violations, not on those of the Saudi-led coalition.


In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s ally, Britain blocked another call to establish an independent international inquiry, reflecting just how heavily powerful UN member states and their allies influence the council.

Now the battle continues at the HRC’s 36th session which opened earlier this month. Member states will have an opportunity, yet again, to decide whether the UN should establish an independent inquiry.

Hustle and bustle

Following calls from 67 human rights organisations for the establishment of a UN inquiry mission into Yemen war crimes, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein also renewed his call for an international investigation.

“The minimal efforts made toward accountability over the past year are insufficient to respond to the gravity of the continuing and daily violations involved in this conflict,” Zeid said in a speech at the opening of the council’s session.

As the council got underway the bustling UNHRC hall, I talked to Mona Sabella, a UN advocacy officer with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, one of the organisations that signed the petition.

“This session is more crucial than previous years because the Netherlands has gotten more support from other members like Canada, Luxembourg, Ireland, Belgium,” she said.

Sabella said she expected two rival draft resolutions to vie for support: a Dutch-led resolution for an international inquiry body and a Saudi-Egyptian-led resolution for another national inquiry body.

“And we, along with other human rights advocacy groups are working really hard to convince state members for the Dutch-led resolution to be espoused this time,” Sabella added.

As I finish my interview with Sabella, I head to the other side of the hall to meet people from Yemen's National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations. Huda al-Sarai, a member of the group, suggests that, although some have criticised the committee for its lack of impartiality, that’s not the reason it has been ineffective.

“Our work is undermined by the deactivated justice system and I believe no international inquiry body could achieve any success as long as the war is raging and we lack rule of law," she said.

Nearby, Abdulrasheed al-Faqih, executive director with the Sanaa-based Mwatana Organisation for Human Rights, agrees with al-Sarai that Yemen is insecure and that the judicial system is frozen – but that’s exactly why, he says, an international inquiry is needed.

“Warring parties and armed groups in Yemen operate while not obliged with any legal considerations,” he said, “and this is why we need to uphold them accountable by international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Enforcing accountability won’t end the war in Yemen immediately, many of the people I talked to acknowledged, but it will stir the path to it.

An international inquiry, Kristine Beckerle, the Yemen and UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells me, will “ensure the global community has to reckon with what this war has meant for Yemenis across the country, and, ideally, inspire states to finally take the action needed to make sure these violations stop”.

Futile battle

I left Geneva with a sense of a tragic hope. I appreciate the efforts of the human rights groups, but justice for Yemen is threatened by Saudi Arabia’s hegemony at this council and other top UN bodies.

A series of previous events have demonstrated how the final say in establishing the UN Yemen inquiry is at the hands of the Saudis.

Even this time, at the beginning of the ongoing session, the Saudi representative to the council rejected calls for the inquiry, saying the time wasn’t right. Given the past attempts to establish an inquiry, this doesn’t bode well.

For me, it is a futile battle - human rights groups wanting to stand up for Yemeni civilians versus Saudi Arabia’s great power at the UNHRC.

The resolutions that have come out of the council are a reflection of how member states view human rights problems and, clearly, Saudi Arabia and its allies view war crimes in Yemen without much concern at all.

The way these countries wield power at the UNHRC, I can only wish the human rights groups the best of luck.

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*My dispatch to Middle East Eye from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, September 25th, 2017. 

Why the world ignores Yemen

Sanaa, Yemen [Photo: yeowatzup/Wikimedia]

I had this interview last January with Harvard School's journal of middle eastern politics and policy.

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It’s a devastating Middle Eastern war in which millions of people have been forced to flee their homes. Regional rivals are using the conflict to expand their own influence, while al-Qaeda and the Islamic State seek to take advantage of the chaos. Bombing raids strike civilian areas with impunity, and torture is common.

Everyone knows that all this is happening in Syria. Yet many laymen are unaware that the same things are taking place in Yemen, too. So why have most people heard so little about the Yemeni war in comparison? What are the challenges journalists face in covering the conflict? JMEPP spoke with award-winning Yemeni journalist and blogger Afrah Nasser about media coverage of the war, and what lies ahead for her country.


Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy: How well would you say the Western media has covered the war in Yemen? What about Arab media outlets’ coverage?

Afrah Nasser: Comparing to other tragedies, like natural disasters or terrorist attacks or even the war in Syria, the western media coverage of the war in Yemen has been so little; and whenever there is, it is unfortunately often in the form of parachute journalism.

This is largely because it’s been hard to access Yemen, as Saudi Arabia has enforced a blockade on Yemen, and if you want to go you as a journalist (Arab or non-Arab) or as a foreigner, you have to have permission from the Saudis and the rebels, the Houthis. It has been like hell to enter or leave Yemen even for ordinary Yemenis themselves; a trip that usually would take you few hours might take days or weeks. I met my mother earlier this month in Ethiopia after she went from Sana’a to Aden, then to Cairo, then to Addis Ababa. She also had to take the same long and expensive journey back to Sana’a.

That’s being said, it’s costly and risky for journalists to access Yemen. And if you do enter Yemen, some western and Arabic media outlets might not buy your story because they are careful of annoying the Saudis. At the same time, inside Yemen, the Houthis have caused a major crackdown on all journalists. Houthis are ranked the second-leading abductors of journalists in the world after the Islamic State, according to the latest report by Reporters without Borders.

JMEPP: Would you say that the war in Syria is the main reason that the Yemeni war has received comparatively little attention, or are there other important factors at play?

Nasser: The war in Syria is partially a reason for the little attention Yemen has received: that is, the Syrian refugees pouring into the European coast helped Syrians get great attention and empathy. But Yemenis are trapped between the Gulf countries – who are bombing them – and the sea neighbouring other poor countries, i.e. Somalia and Djibouti.

Moreover, unlike the war in Syria, the Saudis are a direct actor in the Yemen war and this tremendously impacts the lack of reporting or the non-reporting on the Yemen war. As the war began in Yemen in early 2015, WikiLeaks released thousands of diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry, which included documents showing how Saudi Arabia is buying media silence, Arabic media in specific. Understandably, the oil-rich country, one of the world’s top economic powers, Saudi Arabia has cash that can buy anything and anyone. The problem is, Saudi Arabia is at war with not any country but the poorest Arab country, Yemen – which gives you an idea about the unequal power in this war.

Also, from my observations and the frequently asked questions I receive about the war in Yemen, there seems to be a misconception that the war in Yemen is based on sectarian lines, as some reporters speak of Iran’s role in the Yemen war and how the war in Yemen is a proxy war, and all that. Then, one reduces the bloodshed in Yemen to mere Sunnis-killing-Shi’ites rhetoric.

That’s an inaccurate assessment. Sectarianism is not the key driver of the Yemen war. A super-complicated political and economic power struggle is what drove this war to break out from the very beginning. There are many different internal and external actors in the Yemen war with many different political agendas – some actors can find a cross-match point where sectarian and political motives meet. I may provide one example, and that’s understanding the role that the ousted Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has had in the course of the many political transitions Yemen has gone through since the beginning of his rule in 1978 and his survival politics.

JMEPP: You’ve written that in Yemen, “journalists are discarding journalism and turning into armed fighters at frontlines, each motivated by his political affiliation to this or that armed group.” Are there any exceptions to this – news outlets or individual journalists who you think have done an admirably even-handed job at covering the conflict?

Nasser: Few news outlets have done diligent journalism work, despite all the hardship. In my view, Al Masdar has done a great job in covering Yemen, and even during the war they expanded to report in English. They are funded by the Islah political party, which makes their reporting not perfectly objective.

Other individuals who I believe have done amazing work under extremely tough circumstances: Yemeni artist Murad Subaye in Sana’a, Yemeni artist and theatre director Amr Gamal in Aden, and the Basement Cultural House in Sana’a. These people cleverly overcame the huge restrictions on free expression and press during the war, and used literature and art to tell stories that matter to Yemenis and that speak about Yemenis’ suffering.

JMEPP: According to a report by Jeremy Scahill, in 2011 Obama personally intervened with Ali Abdullah Saleh to request that Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye not be released from prison, arguing that Shaye – who’d interviewed al-Qaeda members and reported on a US cruise missile strike at al-Majala – was affiliated with AQAP. To the best of your knowledge, are there other recent instances in which foreign countries have attempted to stifle journalism within Yemen? The Houthis have been frequently accused of detaining journalists, but how has the Saudi-led coalition acted in areas under its control with regard to press freedoms?

Nasser: As I mentioned earlier, the air and naval blockade enforced on the north part of Yemen, starting from closing Sana’a airport, has a direct impact on the stifling of journalists. It’s a tactic Saudi Arabia used since the beginning of the war on all parts of Yemen, and later allowing traveling from Aden after it was taken back from the Houthis and Saleh’s forces. Still, the blockade greatly contributed in the little, if not zero, mobility Yemeni journalists and activists would have to travel and attend conferences or media programs on Yemen.

For instance, respected human rights organisations like Mwatana have had a difficult time to join international stages to voice out the violations of human rights in Yemen. Don’t forget also what I mentioned earlier about Saudi Arabia and WikiLeaks. There is a great effort by the Saudi administration to silence any narrative against Saudis’ involvement in Yemen war. Moreover, Saudi Arabia works sophisticatedly in dominating the media, imposing a good image of its human rights record by hiring PR companies.

All these illustrate the work [Saudi Arabia] is doing to restrict coverage on Yemen and the conflict. However, it’s also important to stress that the Houthis are also not angels. The crackdown the Houthis showed on the press in Yemen is unprecedented. Last month, Yemen’s top investigative journalist, Mohammed al-Absi, was assassinated after he reportedly was poisoned to death. The details of his murder is still investigated, and it remains to be seen if the Houthis were behind his death.

JMEPP: What do you think are the most important developments happening in Yemen that haven’t been widely reported on outside the country?

Nasser: Everything. Yemen’s politics, economics, culture, and all Yemenis’ tragedy are under-reported. The country is in very painful transition on all these levels, and only a tiny bit of it is told about in the media.

JMEPP: When the war in Yemen is over, what conditions do you think need to be in place for independent journalism to flourish?

Nasser: I think it’s going to be a rocky and long road until the war is over. For the time being and for the post-war period, it’s crucial to support civil society organisations in Yemen, and local media groups and individuals, because that’s where all my hopes lay. Support the civil society in all possible ways: financially, logistically, morally, emotionally. Yemen’s civil society … needs the world’s solidarity.

Yemen War: Between Internal and External Interests

2015 - Saudi-led coalition’s airstrike hits Yemeni Capital, Sana’a. Courtesy: Reuters.

*The war in Yemen is often described as a forgotten war and when/if it is remembered, it is not seen with a holistic lens recognising the full picture of the conflict – and this automatically leads to flawed conclusions. Great focus is often paid to the geopolitics of the war in Yemen, i.e how Yemen has become the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, while a lesser focus is paid to the domestic politics. The internal eco-political dynamics between the different local political and tribal actors is to a great extent the fundamental driving force of the war in Yemen. That is, the local political landscape is dominated by survival politics and checks and balances which influence the geopolitical relation between Yemen and countries involved in the conflict. More importantly, not giving a complete consideration to Yemen’s domestic politics by the international community hinders reaching any peace process for Yemen’s 2-years-long war.

Hopeful Uprising

A good starting point could be in understanding that there have been three stages to the ongoing conflict in Yemen. In the wake of Yemen’s 2011 uprising, it was a conflict between ousted Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents – particularly those who helped topple him. By mid-2014 it was a conflict between an alliance formed by Saleh and the rebels, the Houthis against Saleh’s successor, Yemen’s transitional president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and his government. Then, in March 2015, Saudi Arabia declared a war against the Houthis.

2011 - Yemen’s 2011 uprising marked its sixth anniversary this month. Photo Courtesy: Afrah Nasser.

To understand the origin of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, it is essential to go back to 2011 when Yemeni youth joined the wave of revolutions happening across the Middle East and North of Africa (MENA). I vividly remember seeing how youth gradually took the streets in 2011 starting gradually from the front gate of my university, Sana’a University, which later was dubbed Taghyeer (change) square. The demand was the overthrow of ousted Yemeni president, Saleh, despite that overthrowing Saleh’s 32-years old regime was a dream my generation and I would have never imagined would come true. We understood, though, that this was the first step in fragmenting the great grip Saleh used to have.


Following a couple of months of protest, Saleh’s opponents, like one of Yemen’s most influential politicians, Hamid al-Ahmar and some allies, like one of Yemen’s top army-men and actually Saleh’s half-brother, Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar – opponents and allies alike joined the uprising and worked also hard to end Saleh’s rule. The greatest blow against Saleh was when several influential tribal and political leaders switched sides in the aim of weakening Saleh’s power. Perhaps, Saleh was more upset of his allies turning tables, than the real revolution against him by his people.


As the protests grew, Saleh started to go into public speeches warning about a coup or a civil war. In March 2011, Saleh warned, “those who want to climb up to power through coups should know that this is out of the question. The homeland will not be stable, there will be a civil war, a bloody war. They should carefully consider this.”


Change without Justice
Consequently, Saleh’s forces intensified its crackdown on the protesters and killing has become the norm. To cease the bloodshed, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiated a power-transfer plan in April 2011. After many long negotiations, Saleh accepted to step down. And that was the point when the unspoken countdown for the civil war which Saleh warned of began.


The GCC plan guaranteed an immunity for Saleh and hundreds of his clan. What we revolutionaries saw was the biggest failure of the uprising. How can a dictatorship step down with guarantees? How do you achieve a post-uprising democratic political process, while justice was never served? In this context, Yemen had to endure a political transition without a transitional justice. The only explanation for this is that it’s absolutely impossible for the GCC to support a real democracy in Yemen, as that will be a threat to the monarchies GCC.

Weddings Bombing
Nevertheless, the GCC power transfer plan included the creation of a national assembly, what’s known as the “National Dialogue Conference” (NDC) (2013-2014) as a forum to settle key political problems in the country.

Towards the end of the NDC, disputes appeared over the outcomes of NDC, mainly from the rebels, the Houthis. Houthis opposed the new proposed ruling system (Federalism) and they also aspired to realise their religious political vision in restoring a religious imamate in the country. In parallel, Saleh had to retaliate. Both had a mutual interest in hampering the political process and that was the seed of their coming alliance. Even though they had different motivations, the Houthis-Saleh alliance was quick in its military escalation against both Saleh’s oppositional forces and the already achieved political process. By mid-2014, Houthis descended to Sana’a, militarily took over the capital and stormed into Hadi’s presidential palace. To seek support for restoring legitimacy in Yemen, Hadi escaped to Saudi Arabia and sought an intervention. By March 2015, Saudi Arabia created a coalition consisted of 11 Arab countries and began its airstrikes campaign.

Oct, 2016 - About 1,000 people were killed and injured after a double-tap airstrike hit a funeral hall in Yemeni capital, Sana’a by the Saudi-led coalition. Photo courtesy: Osamah Abdulrhman/AFP.

All these stages of the conflict have brought about one of the biggest severe humanitarian crisis in the world, with 86 percent of the population in need of humanitarian assistance. At least 10,000 people have been killed, in which one in three Saudi air raids hit civilian sites; such as, hospitals, schools and weddings. The human cost of the war also means that Yemen is facing a lost generation as one child dies every 10 minutes suffering from acute severe malnutrition and lack of medical assistance.


The sound of the empty roaring stomachs should be the loudest in the war in Yemen; instead, it’s the sound of guns and air-strikes. The war has been having multi-fronts: the fighting on the ground, especially in Taiz and Marib between the Saleh-Houthis’ forces and different armed factions, the fighting between the southern independence movement and Saleh-Houthis’ forces, the fighting between the Houthis’ forces and the extremist groups, i.e. AQAP and Salafists and the fighting between the Saudi forces and the Houthis at the border and the sea. Not to mention, the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and the American drone strikes. Seemingly, Yemen is under fire on many levels.


As the war gets complicated, salvation seems impossible to reach. Warring parties have failed to reach an agreement during several past peace talks. One reason is that, bearing in mind how the cycle of revolutions go, the counter-revolution (Saleh-Houthis’ alliance) Yemen is going through has no easy quick fix. More importantly, in light of the war, Yemen has become a great market for weapons deals and mercenaries trade. Countries like the UK, US, Germany and others are some of the major suppliers to Saudi Arabia with weapons which include drones, bombs, torpedoes, rockets and missiles. Moreover, soldiers from several countries such as Colombia and Sudan have been recruited by some of the members of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen war. Seemingly, the continuation of the war is of a great interest as many are benefiting from the war.


Next week marks the sixth anniversary of Yemen’s 2011 uprising. Many will take the opportunity to reflect on the merits and the failures of the uprising, and that will inevitably will be through an eye tainted by the ongoing war. For me, I reflect and try to understand how did we get here today. German political theorist, Hannah Arendt once said, “revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning”, and that is what the uprising anniversary should do – confront us with the problem of beginning.


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*This essay was originally written for and published in German newspaper woz.ch on 9th of Feb. 2017. 

Sign and share! Syrian Statement in Solidarity with the People of Yemen

Yemeni children play in the rubble of a house destroyed by a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen on Sept. 8, 2015 (Credit: AP/Hani Mohammed).

I don't know how, despite all the trauma and pain, some Syrian activists took the initiative to pull this together. So noble, so brave, so solidaristic. I signed and this is a call to sign/share here. 

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SYRIAN STATEMENT IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF YEMEN

While we bond first and foremost over our pursuit of justice, our shared, painful reality also brings us together. Civilians in both Syria and Yemen have borne the brunt of the violence, our schools, hospitals and markets bombed by Assad, Russian, Saudi and American aircraft; our communities withering under siege, dying a slow and painful death; and the delivery of our humanitarian aid politicized by international actors. For almost two years, Yemen has suffered under a naval, air, and water blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, restricting the flow of food, medicine, and, importantly, information to and from the country. Our demands for the Assad regime to lift its sieges on Madaya, Daraya, Al-Waer, and countless other towns and neighborhoods ring hollow unless we make the same demands of Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah (hereafter referred to as Houthis). End the sieges, now.

We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the people of Yemen and their aspiration for freedom, democracy and social justice. Like other communities and cities in the region, thousands of Yemeni protesters took the streets in mid-January 2011 to protest peacefully the corruption and authoritarianism of the governments and Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule. As Syrian revolutionaries, we fully support the Yemeni people’s struggle for freedom, social justice, safety, health and dignity.

We as Syrians who seek democratic and genuine secular change in Syria see how regional power dynamics between Iran and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) have had catastrophic consequences on both Yemen and Syria. Without drawing false analogies between the Yemeni state and the Assad regime, the Houthis and the armed Syrian opposition, it does not escape us how the power struggles for Syria and Yemen includes the same regional actors and a mounting civilian death toll.

Specifically, KSA commits war crimes in the name of supporting the state in Yemen while Iran is responsible for large scale destruction in Syria through its support of the Assad regime. Furthermore, both KSA and Iran are responsible for supporting armed non-state actors (certain armed opposition groups in Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen respectively) without a strategy for de-escalating violence, ensuring accountability measures, and protecting civilians and their basic human rights. It is clear to us as Syrian revolutionaries, who took the streets peacefully -- not as Muslims or Christians, Sunnis or Alawites, Kurds or Arabs, but as people attempting to claim their citizenry as Syrians -- that these countries’ interference does not stem from their support of the people’s demands for social change, but rather from the exploitation of the people’s struggle, and the consumption of local human capital and natural resources to exercise control, maintain power, and build power.

Like in Syria, the international community’s inaction has failed Yemen. The UN has become a mechanism to uphold systematic violence, and the rising military presence of regional and international powers has contributed to prolonging the conflict and hindering the process of finding just and sustainable solutions.

Political Points

Foreign intervention in both countries has caused the people more sorrow than justice. We fiercely condemn KSA’s use of internationally banned weapons, use of cluster bombs, targeting of schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals among many other civilian inhabited neighborhoods. On this point, It should be clearly stated that KSA’s relationship with the U.S. has also been fueling war crimes in Yemen. Likewise in Syria but on a different level, the KSA and other Gulf countries’ support to some undemocratic groups and warlords in Syria, like Jaish Al-Islam in Ghouta, enhances counter-revolutionary forces that have been accused of kidnapping and assassinating activists in besieged Ghouta by several families, activists and writers. In addition, the Iranian-backed Houthis have been disrupting the political transition process and went against the popular Yemeni wish to remove Ali Abdullah Saleh. We equally condemn their mass atrocity crimes against civilian and minority communities in Yemen.

We echo the demands of Yemeni civil society activists to implement UNSC Resolution 2216, which calls on an end to violence by all parties in Yemen, Saudis and Houthis alike. The cessation of hostilities in Yemen is the first step to peace in the country; it will allow space for Yemeni to Yemeni negotiations.

So too do we stand with the people of Yemen in their quest for accountability and justice, a necessary step on the path to reconciliation and stability. Yemeni civil society and international human rights groups have repeatedly made calls for an independent investigation into war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict. This is a critical first step toward accountability. Saudi Arabia last year successfully blocked a UN Human Rights Council resolution to establish an international commission of inquiry, which would have undoubtedly primarily incriminated the Gulf state. Syrians are no stranger to the politics of such demands --although the Human Rights Council established a commission to investigate war crimes allegations in Syria dating back to the start of the revolution in March 2011, Russian and Chinese UN Security Council vetoes have blocked meaningful action in the form of a referral to the International Criminal Court. All state and non-state actors in Yemen and Syria should be held accountable according to
the dictates of international law. No exceptions.


Signatures:

Shiyam Galyon
Maryam Saleh
Razan Ghazzawi
Rula Asad
Yasser Munif
Mohja Kahf
Ramah Kudaimi
Tariq Samman
Lilah Khoja
Suzan Boulad
Leila Shami
Robin Yassin Kasab
Ali Kaakarli
Sumayya Saleh
Hiba Shaban
Mohamad Abou Ghazala
Salma Kahale
Faress Jouejati
Rand Sabbagh
Yazan Al-Saadi
Afrah Nasser
Laila Alodaat
Khuloud Saba
Rua Al Taweel
Joseph Daher
Safi Ghazal
Malak Chabkoun
Osama Salloum
Mohamad Alshlash
Dima Nashawi
Yazan Badran
Rowida Kanaan
Mansor Iesa
Suliman ِAli
Safi Ghazal, activist
Rima Majed
Mansor Iesa
Suliman ِAli
عبدالعزيز العائدي
Dirar Khattab
Bassam Al Ahmad (A Syrian Human Rights Defender)
Ruben Lagattolla
ahmad mohamad
Grégoire Bali
Nader Atassi
Wejdan Nassif
Mais Atassi
Andrew Berman, Veterans for Peace
Afra Jalabi
Adnan Al Mhamied
انا متضامن مع الشعب اليمني
Mahmoud Sisouno
Tasneem Sannah
Budour Hassan
Joey Ayoub
fouad roueiha
آرمانج أمي
آرمانج أمين
Noura Mansour
كل التضامن مع الشعب اليمني
Mohammed Alsaud
Lina Smoudi
Mohammed Alsaud
Muhammad alhaj
Sonia Pecoraro
Farouk Nashar
Hayat Zarzour
نعم
لانا البحرة
Shiyar khaleal
Bilquis allahabi
Musaab Balchi
أحمد دراوشة
Nisreen Mobayed
Alicia Fernández Gómez
Rama Alhoussaini
Banah Ghadbian
مغير الهندي
Denisse Alanis
Omar Abbas
Walid Daou
Yasmeen Mobayed
علا صالح
Aghyan Alzuabi
Pierre
Fouad Roueiha
Rouba Choufi
Noor alkhatib
Aram Khoury
Khalid kalthum
Mohammad Abu Hajar
Assem Hamsho
دالي عقيل
أمل محمد
Hani sayed
Aman bezreh
Ameenah A. Sawwan
Dellair Youssef
Razan Saffour
Hana alamine
Manar Shabouk
Shuruq Abdullah
Sammy Hamdi
Adi Hussein Yassin
مها العمري
Marah Alsafadi
Iris Aulbach

Organizations:

Dawlaty
Socialist Forum-Lebanon.
Souryana Al Amal
Najda now international
Intellectuals for Building Syria Gathering | تجمع مثقفون لبناء سوريا
شبكة المرأة السورية
The Working Group For Syrian Detainees
Comitato Khaled Bakrawi - Italia

Sweden Has A Role In Yemenis’ Suffering And Must Suspend Its Weapon Sales To Saudi

Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven met Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs,
Nizar bin Obaid Madani in Riyadh, Saudi. October 2016. Photo courtesy: Aftonbladet.

*Swedish media tends to criticize the Swedish-Saudi relation denouncing Sweden’s desire to be an ally to Saudi and pointing out that it is a dictatorship that lacks any free political life and a country that commits massive human rights violations. But it is time to update that perspective: Saudis’ record in human rights violations have exceeded its borders.

Swedes must also condemn Saudi’s war crimes record in Yemen; this most importantly entails Swedes questioning Sweden-made weapon sold to Saudi used in possible war crimes.

Top Swedish arms dealer Marcus Wallenberg "accompanies" Swedish PM  Löfven to Saudi this weekend despite revelations that Saudi armed ISIS.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 21, 2016

 

Ahead Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s visit to Saudi at the end of last month, Wikileaks tweeted that top Swedish arms dealer Marcus Wallenberg “accompanied” Swedish PM Löfven to Saudi. This is plausible as Saudi is one of the top clients of Sweden’s weaponry industry. In its 2016 report, Control Arms Coalition named Sweden as one of the countries having reported licenses and sales to Saudi Arabia in 2015. Saudi won’t obtain all these weaponry unless there is a flourishing market. Saudi is the world’s third-largest spender in military expenditure index. Despite that Sweden has announced last year its military cooperation with Saudi was not renewed, Saab remains able to continue selling arms to Gulf countries - which are active actors in the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition intervention in impoverished Yemen that began in March 2015 was only possible because of the high level of arms imports made to the coalition 10 Arab state members, headed by oil-rich Saudi. In 2011-15 Saudi Arabia’s arms imports increased by 275 percent compared with 2006-10. In the course of Yemen war, at least 10,000 people have been killed and the UN reported that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for most civilian casualties. Human rights groups which include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both documented dozens of unlawful coalition airstrikes, some of which may amount to war crimes. Schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals among many other civilian targets were not exempted from the coalition airstrikes.

In parallel, calls for countries to stop selling weapons to Saudi are raised. The calls include Sweden who had little or nothing to state in condemning the atrocities in Yemen. I became well-aware of Sweden’s indifference when Sana’a funeral attack happened in which 140 people were killed and over 500 were injured by a double-tap airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition earlier this month. Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallström showed no condemnation statement, whatsoever, while she usually rushes to condemn terrorist attacks elsewhere. Seemingly, Sweden’s silence over the Saudis’ war in Yemen is relevant to Sweden’s arms sales to the kingdom.

Last year, Sweden had a strong stance against Saudi over its terrible human rights violations record, then why the silence today? What has changed now? Why the silence over Saudi’s role in the suffering in Yemen? Sweden’s revival of the Saudi-Swedish ties comes as a step into Swedish preparation for its seat on the UN Security Council in the beginning of next year and with that Sweden seems to be willing to compromise & ally itself with the Saudis. Sweden had to re-establish its good relation to the Saudis and gain Saudis’ support in the council.

In that seat, Sweden actually is becoming increasingly relevant to peace in Yemen - it must honor the international laws and exert efforts to ensure peace; which both Saudi is violating in the war in Yemen. However, Sweden’s indifference over the potential use of its weapons in causing the suffering in Yemen undermines Sweden’s future role in ensuring peace. If Sweden doesn’t condemn Saudi war crimes now, then when will it do so?

It is time to refresh our view on the problem with Sweden allying Saudi considering Saudi’s war crimes record in Yemen war and therefore call upon that Sweden suspend any of its arms sales to Saudi- unless, Sweden would like to be on the wrong side of history.

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*This piece was originally published in Swedish in Swedish magazine, Omvarlden on the 1st of November, 2016.

Interview with Afrah Nasser, Yemeni Journalist and Blogger

I was interviewed by RT tv, a couple of weeks ago, following the withdrew of Saudi name from the UN blacklist report on the most children rights abusers.

Saudi executions put ball of regional tension in Iran's court

"Tehran might also decide to retaliate by stepping up military support for Houthi Shia rebels in Yemen, who are fighting a Saudi-led alliance. Coincidentally or not, Riyadh announced on Saturday it was ending a partial ceasefire in Yemen that began last month. Hostilities are expected to intensify despite a new round of peace talks..." –The Guardian. 

UK Government breaking the law supplying arms to Saudi

"The UK Government is acting in breach of its obligations arising under the UK’s Consolidated Criteria on arms exports, the EU Common Position on Arms Exports and the Arms Trade Treaty by continuing to authorise transfers of weapons and related items to Saudi Arabia within the scope of those instruments, capable of being used in Yemen," via -SaferWorld.com

Realignment of Yemen's Identity Politics

Yemen in Sam Kalda's illustration

*As a blogger on Human Rights issues in Yemen for the past six years, I am stunned by the growing polarisation in the country; to take an even-handed stance for human rights is either viewed as treasonous act, or as a sectarian bias. If you criticise both the Saudi-led Arab coalition air strikes and the Houthi-Saleh alliance forces, the supporters of both camps accuse you of supporting one side over the other. It’s us or them, both sides maintain; no middle ground.

Throughout my activism, it was easy for me to remain in that middle ground due to my mixed Ethiopian-Yemeni background which influenced my strong faith in fundamental human rights for all people, regardless of their color of skin, ethnicity, gender, religious belief, etc. Having myself lived some of the ugly consequences of the abuse of human rights, in my case, that is racism, I developed a great sensibility of Yemen’s identity politics. Today, I perceive how people's definition of their identities in Yemen - whether in line with tribal, sectarian or class-based affinities - is realigning itself along with the new political order.

***

Growing up in Yemen, a country with a strict hierarchical class system was not an easy thing, especially for someone like myself with mixed-ethnic identity. My story, like the story of many multi-ethnic Yemenis, goes back to the time when my two Yemeni grandfathers, frustrated by the economic and political situation, had a leap of faith and left Yemen to find a better life elsewhere.

Yemeni ports served as a conduit for migration. Due geographic proximity, the African horn was the destination for many migration waves coming from Yemen. Going east was also a popular destination for southeastern Yemenis. For my northern grandfathers Ethiopia was the choice of destination. They settled and married two Ethiopian ladies (my grandmothers) and had children (among them are my later-to-be my parents). It is estimated that there were 300,000 - 400,000 Yemenis in Ethiopia at that time. Following the revolution of 1962 in north of Yemen, the revolution of 1963 in its South and the dictatorship of Mengistu in their host country, many Yemeni migrants, including my grandparents, decided to go back to their home country in the 1970s. Some were forced to go back to Yemen by the emergence of communism in Ethiopia and its nationalisation policies that ripped them off the little wealth they worked hard to create, yet some were lured by the political change that had taken place at home. With a revolutionary perspective, Yemen’s former president, the late Ibrahim Al Hamdi was a key figure in calling on Yemenis abroad to return as he embarked on the road of nation building. Thus, my Yemeni-Ethiopian parents migrated back to Yemen.

by Sam Kalda

In Yemen’s class system, unlike the “Akhdam”, a degrading term used to describe a dark-skinned minority who are believed to be the descendants of Ethiopian invaders from the sixth century and who has been enduring a history of discrimination, I found myself located at the “Muwaladeen” categorisation, a term used to describe Yemenis born to foreign parents; the term was meant to racify the “half-Yemeni”, thus I struggled with both an identity crisis and racism. The most problematic issue though was the interplay between racism and classism. Growing up in Sana’a where at school I had my first encounter with Yemen’s multiplex social structure, my classmates bragged about their different classes; such as, Qadi and Hashemite class. As a kid, I was most intrigued and struck by the latter.

Hashemite class claims direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and many Hashemites see the superiority of their class above all outside their clan, and there has been a widespread concern among Yemenis that members of the Hashemite class, alongside with the Houthi movement, are fostering visions of restoring a religious imamite and resuming hierarchical supremacy. Families belonging to this lineage composes a form of nobility in Yemen, with many of them marrying only within their class. North-Yemen, once ruled by zaidi hashemite dynasties from the very same north where Houthis come from, was freed from their reign by a coup d’etat in 1962 against the last Imam, Mohammed Al Badr Bin Hamidaddin, establishing the Yemen Arab Republic. This resulted in a civil war between the royalists and the republicans which lasted until the end of the sixties.


In today’s context, it’s crucial to remember that the Imam used to be the supreme representative of the Shia Zaidi Hashemite class, ruling north of Yemen in their name; much like how the Houthi movement is currently claiming to represent the Shia Zaidis. The main concern now is whether the reign of the Houthis would reproduce the old hierarchical class system, from which Yemen has not been fully liberated in its fifty years of the republic.


Being part of two cultures, two settings and two forms of being problematised Yemen’s identity politics for me and my hybridity forced a rift between me and home. Nonetheless, it provided me with a critical outlook of political and social issues. Even more intensely today, as I live abroad, the vision I have towards Yemen is a vision of plurality. Thus, my Human Rights activism as a blogger since 2011 has been modeled by my belief in a Yemen that guarantees its citizens a social structure where they can live in with their cultural complexities and diverse identities & ethnicities that have been historically shaped by the decisions Yemenis have made.

***

Yemen in Sam Kalda's illustration

Although Yemen's complex political, social and cultural structures have managed to function as a fluid equilibrium on the surface, there have always been chronic identity tensions.

Until Yemen's 2011 uprising, these identity tensions were influenced by two major factors: the unification in 1990 and the aftermath of the civil war in 1994, resulting in major rifts between north and south. Some contend that one of the causes of the tensions was former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's forced seizure of the lands in the south, leading to discontent among southerners over his rule.

Another likely cause was when southerners realised that the new oil finds in the south that formed more than 40 percent of Yemen's reserves back then would have supported South Yemen's smaller population if they had not been seized by the north. Furthermore, during my personal observations in the country, there was a feeling in South Yemen, particularly among "de-tribalised" people, who felt that they should (re-)define themselves as tribes to be taken seriously by the new ruling system in the north.

Saleh's approach to leadership further complicated identity relations. His leadership was based on divide and rule and his tactics on prioritising the survival and benefit of his own family and tribe, deepening the rift between disparate groups and undermining the idea of a Yemeni national identity. For instance, prior to 2004, Saleh used to support the Islah party against the Houthis and vice versa. Even during Yemen's 2011 uprising, Saleh endeavoured to fragment the anti-government protesters by arguing that the mixing of male and female protesters was un-Islamic.


In today's context, as the country engages in one of its bloodiest civil wars, there is a realignment taking place simultaneously on two levels: a reconfiguration of power and identities. Firstly, it is fuelled by the new reality where yesterday's adversaries are today's allies. After enduring six wars between 2004 and 2010 that led to the death of their founder-leader at the hands of Yemeni security forces under Saleh's rule, Houthis have formed an alliance with their old oppressor, Saleh.

Considering that Saleh used to be Saudis' ally in the fight against Houthis' revivalist movement for Zaydism through those six wars, today he is turning the tables, siding with Houthis not only to fight the Saudi-led coalition, but also to crush those who helped oust him in 2011. The reconfiguration of identity relations is perhaps the most troubling one - it shows itself as the violence on the ground has been mobilised based not on simple binary distinctions, but rather, on a complex and ambiguous process.

by Sam Kalda

While Yemen's biggest richness in diversity is its people and needs to be celebrated, in the light of the civil war, it has become the base of multifaceted local cleavages. For instance, in Houthi-owned media, there were reports on Houthi-Saleh militiamen calling the southerners "The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) supporters" to strip them of their "Yemeniness" in order to justify killing them. This has caused a great polarisation where southerners in Aden and Taiz mainly cheer for the Saudi-led air strikes against the Houthi forces, whereas people in Sanaa feel political allegiances based on ideological and class agenda.

Since Sanaa has become the headquarters of Houthi rule, locals point out that the capital city tends to exhibit animosity against the Saudi-led coalition and the south - not only because it's moving in line with Houthis' stance, but also because of the historical tensions between the north and the south.

The rise of the Houthi movement represents a major reconfiguration of identity politics in the country. As people are pushing themselves into a new formalised identity group, viewing what's at risk for them in the violence, they find it difficult to identify with others who used to be of like-minded groups. And yet, they engage - consciously and subconsciously - in a continuous process of negotiating differences and antagonisms at the social and political level. Thus, the concept of a "Yemeni nation" is being redefined. While the prospect of witnessing a comeback of two Yemen(s) is debatable, it's certain that the country's north will look completely different.

The longer the war drags on, the greater the polarisation.

One can argue that this has been the case since 2007, with the emergence of the secessionist movement - which by itself showed that no civil nationalist identity exists in Yemen. Still, I would argue that it's been the case since the unification in 1990, when a combination of nation-building and the integration of the north and the south has been nothing but a failure.The current realignment is more significant than the revolution itself in 2011, which only proposed a new desultory reality.
Yemen is being transformed through a drastic change, where Yemen's agencies in the private and political spheres are under transformation as well.


For my “Muwaledeen” family members across Yemen, they are still surviving and few of them had to flee back to Ethiopia, to the old home. “History repeats itself” tells me my cousin from Addis Ababa.

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*A brief version of this essay was originally published on Al Jazeera English. 

Yemen at War: Worthy vs. Unworthy Victims

A guard on Monday, June 15, walks past a home destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in San’a, Yemen. Pic/KHALED ABDULLAH/REUTERS

*Four months on and the war in Yemen still raging fiercely. Across the country, there have been over 19,000 casualties - people killed and injured - as a result of the increased violence, and the number of displaced has grown to over 1.2 million. These numbers continue to rise alarmingly as I write. Yemen, this devastated place, torn by the violence has victims unfairly perceived and treated as unworthy by all warring sides. No place in the world should allow victims to be unworthy.

Looked in more details, different sides in the conflicts have different worthy and unworthy victims.

This is not to underestimate the aggression coming from other sides whatsoever, but rather for the sake of chronicling the violent episodes in Yemen’s ongoing conflict, the Houthis’ aggression comes first. Citizens in the southern part of Yemen in particular have been treated as unworthy victims by the Houthi movement’s militias and its ally, the ousted former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s forces since they started bombarding president, Abdurabu Mansour Hadi’s house and Aden airport on the 19th of March in Aden (before what we all know today as the start of the Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen). After Hadi fled the country, Houthi/Saleh’s forces started targeting people in the south systematically on the pretext that they are takiris and al Qaeda in the south of Yemen, then they shifted their propaganda to state they were fighting ISIS (Da’ash). All these slogans have ripped off southerners’ worthiness in the eyes of the Houthi/Saleh’s forces. At the same time, Houthis mastered stressing on local and international media alike how the Saudi-led coalition is murdering its own citizens in northern Yemen while overlooking their atrocities in the south. For Houthis, the victims of the Saudi-led airstrikes are the only worthy respect and attention victims. On the other side, southern resistance fighters perceive and treat Houthi victims as nothing but unworthy, why? because the antagonism has reached irreversible point. It’s astonishing how these stances are remote from any moral principle.

More importantly, despite its fragile status, the state, the Yemeni republic of the people has been the greatest unworthy victim by Houthis attempted coup d'etat against president, Hadi in September, last year. Houthis have been cracking down on its dissidence, which includes Hadi himself, ever since their expansion from Sa’adah to Sana’a in July last year. Specifically, since September, 2014, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of civic activists, journalists, human rights defenders across Yemen who got harassed, abducted and tortured - some to death - by the Houthi militias in their own bloody purge.

Yemeni fighters of the southern separatist movement and firefighters attempt to extinguish a flame at an oil refinery in the port city of Aden on June 27, 2015, following shelling by Houthi rebels. Fire erupted at Aden's oil refinery when rebels shelled the nearby port to prevent a Qatari ship carrying aid for Yemen's devastated second city from docking. Pic/Saleh Al-Obeidi / AFP / Getty

Without giving any justification to the Saudi-led airstrikes campaign, which was initiated with the blessing of Yemen’s president Hadi himself, the airstrikes came as a reaction to Houthis’ already existing violence. On the 26th of March, the Saudi-led coalition, consisted of 11 Arab countries decided to bomb Yemen, while the other 11 Arab countries stood and watched in silence. The coalition’s aim was to restore president Hadi’s legitimacy, viewing Hadi as its only worthy victim and who deserved to remain safe in the palm of comfort in Riyadh in KSA. Are the strikes effective way to solve problems? of course not and more importantly they have led to a situation that is nothing but disastrous. As the Saudi-led coalition keep on claiming firing its airstrikes only against military points, the strikes’ horrifying collateral damage say one thing that Yemeni citizens are unworthy victims of these strikes, in the name of restoring a president’s legitimacy. 

For those who escaped the violence and became refugees at the shores of Somalia, Djibouti and elsewhere, they have been treated as unworthy victims in so many levels. Dozens of accounts by Yemeni refugees show how they were ill-treated and disrespected. Young Yemeni men are piling up at the gates of the Saudi borders facing extreme and random conditions to allow them entry. A relative I have was sent back to Yemen after she miraculously managed to escape to Sudan. Another relative I have was stuck in a refugee camp in Sudan for days while being mistreated, witnessing loads of violations against the human rights of these refugees. Miraculously, my relative made it to Ethiopia. For all Yemenis fleeing the violence, what the future holds for them is totally uncertain. It must be clear though, for a country to shut its doors against humans escaping death is another form of violence.

All these victims’ sufferings represent an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. In Yemen, millions are facing the threat of famine because food assistance is not reaching them. People on the ground have been reporting how Houthi/Saleh forces in Aden are using food and medicine as a weapon of war, ‘I watched them turning back truck loads of flour trying to enter the city,’ describes journalist, Iona Craig.

Even worse, while more than 15 million are in need of basic health care, countless wounded are dying because hospitals are closing down due to lack of fuel. As a result of the total disruption by the war of all basic services an estimated 20.4 million people in Yemen are in need of potable water. Diarrhea’s prevalence – as well as risks of cholera, malaria and worm infestations – have all skyrocketed. The World Health Organisation said last month that more than 3,000 Dengue cases have been reported in Yemen since March, adding that the actual figure could be far higher.

While the suffering of Yemenis continue, there has been a humble global solidarity action that is trying to challenge the Saudi hegemony of media narrative about the situation in Yemen. Even though the momentum is not huge, it is the only matter that makes Yemenis still believe in our shared sense of humanity. Nonetheless, I urge everyone showing sympathy to Yemenis suffering to not only condemn the atrocities committed by the Saudi-led coalition but also to condemn the atrocities committed by the Saleh and Houthis’ forces. Don’t prioritise atrocities coming from one side over the other; violence exhibited from all sides should be condemned. For those who are in solidarity with the people in Yemen, make it clear that all victims in Yemen are worthy of peace and stability.


Yemen appreciates all the global solidarity actions but what Yemen is desperately in need of is the action of those in the international community with influence on the parties in the conflicts. Since the beginning of the war, the international community’s silence has been the loudest sound Yemenis hear. It’s time to break the silence about the violence in Yemen affecting all sides’ victims.

In the meantime, all parties allowing Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe to deepen longer are committing inhuman acts that may reach crimes against humanity.

*This piece was originally published in YourMiddleEast.com

Is This The Beginning of The End For Saleh?

As surreal as it gets. Former, ousted president, Saleh personally reports from in front his bombarded house. #yemen pic.twitter.com/SrdX0pqoyr

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) May 10, 2015

Surreal. Totally bizarre. Astonishing. Beyond comprehension.

These might be few adjectives that can do this scene justice: ousted, ex-president, Ali Abduallah Saleh swiftly reaches back to one of his houses first thing in the morning after the house was shelled at the dawn by a Saudi airstrike. Miraculously, he was not targeted as he was not at home, but one was killed and dozens who live in the area were injured (including women and children) following the shelling.

Saleh does not only make sure to check the damage, but he also drags his own TV channel staff, places someone to interview him right there, in front of the destruction, snatches the mic and addresses the viewers, firing words against everyone against "the Yemeni nation" (which includes him) and against Yemen.

Each detail compromising this scene is so surreal that not even any movie senario would have depicted it in this way. Many found resemblness between Saleh's position with Gaddafi's during the beginning of the Libyan revolution. This leads to a serious question: is this the beginning of the end for Saleh? don't forget that he survived an assassination attempt in June, 2011. He seems to be unkillable. No body knows what will happen next, but one thing is certain: expect the unimaginable!