A U.N. panel of experts found that Saudi Arabia is purposefully obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Yemen and called into question its public rationale for a blockade that could push millions into famine. In the assessment, made in a confidential brief and sent to diplomats on November 10, members of the Security Council-appointed panel said they had seen no evidence to support Saudi Arabia’s claims that short-range ballistic missiles have been transferred to Yemeni rebels in violation of Security Council resolutions.
“The Panel finds that imposition of access restrictions is another attempt by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to use paragraph 14 of resolution 2216 (2015) as justification for obstructing the delivery of commodities that are essentially civilian in nature,” the U.N. experts wrote. Resolution 2216 was passed in April 2015, a month after the Saudi-led international coalition began its intervention in Yemen’s civil war. Paragraph 14 calls for U.N. member states to take measures to prevent the supply, sale, or transfer of military goods to a rebel alliance led by a group called the Houthis, which is backed to an unclear degree by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran. The panel of experts was established by a previous 2014 resolution and expanded to five members by resolution 2216.
The Saudi-led coalition began enforcing a total blockade of Yemen after a ballistic missile was launched from Yemen at Saudi Arabia’s capital airport on November 4. The coalition, which has the backing of the U.S., said the ratcheted-up blockade was necessary to prevent weapons sent by Iran from reaching the Houthis and their allies, who are loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
After the blockade was put in place November 6, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that the restrictions on aid to Yemen would result in “a famine killing millions of people, the likes of which the world has not seen for many decades.” This week, Saudi Arabia played down the situation. “There is no embargo,” said Saudi Ambassador to the U.N. Abdallah al-Mouallimi. “There are many sources of supply to Yemen.” On Monday, the Saudi Coalition said they would reopen several ports that had been cut off within 24 hours — but only those in areas already under the coalition’s control. Ports in Houthi-controlled areas were not on the list; ports along the Red Sea at Hudaydah and Saleef, through which nearly 80 percent of imports travel into Yemen, including the bulk of humanitarian aid, were not slated to open.
The Saudis said that before access to all ports is reinstated, the U.N. cargo inspection mechanism known as the U.N. Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen, or UNVIM, would have to be augmented to include the monitoring of smaller boats. However, even large ships with aid cargos that are already inspected by UNVIM are being held up, while the smaller ships that Saudi Arabia says pose a threat will for now presumably be subject to the same scrutiny as before. On Thursday, the U.N. again called for an immediate end to the blockade — even in its reduced form — though it remains unclear how the impasse will be resolved.
According to the most recent U.N. figures, the embargo has blocked 29 ships — carrying roughly 300,000 metric tons of food and 192,000 metric tons of fuel — from reaching Yemen. The U.N. has repeatedly warned that some 7 million people in Yemen are now on the verge of starvation. Yemen is also in the throes of a cholera epidemic that has infected more than 900,000 people. Though the number of new cases has decreased for eight weeks running, U.N. officials say the epidemic will “flare up again” if the embargo is not lifted. A U.N. boat holding more than 1,300 metric tons of “health, wash, and nutritional supplies” is currently stopped short of docking at a port in Hudaydah.
The U.N. experts’ panel brief was delivered prior to the opening of Yemen’s southern ports, but its other notable conclusion was the explicit questioning of evidence presented by the Saudi-led coalition that the missile fired on November 4 was connected to Iran. This allegation was used to justify the ensuing blockade. The coalition, the panel noted, has cited a separate July 22 missile attack which it said used a Qiam-1 short-range ballistic missile of Iranian provenance.
“The supporting evidence provided in these briefings is far below that required to attribute this attack to a Qiam-1 SRBM,” wrote the panel. “The Saudi-Arabia led coalition has not yet though attributed the attempted attack against KKIA” — King Khalid International Airport, in the Saudi capital Riyadh — “to any particular type of SRBM.”
“The Panel has seen no evidence to support claims of SRBM having been transferred to the Houthi-Saleh alliance from external sources in violation of paragraph 14 of resolution 2216,” the brief went on. “Analysis of the supply route options by land, sea or air identifies that any shipments of the large containers used to ship and protect the missiles in transit would stand a very high chance of being interdicted in transit by the Saudi-Arabia-led [sic] coalition forces or the Combined Maritime Forces naval forces deployed in the region. No such interdictions have been reported to the Committee in accordance with the requirement to report arms or arms related material seizures in accordance with paragraph 17 of resolution 2216.”
The panel, however, only has access to evidence that members states are willing to share. In the report, it recommended that Saudi Arabia share additional technical data and asked that the council approach Riyadh for full access to “all SRBM fragments recovered.” On November 10, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, the top U.S. Air Force official in the Middle East, also claimed that the missile had “Iranian markings” but did not provide more evidence. A report in Reuters this August alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were employing a new route in the ocean between Kuwait and Iran to circumvent the arms embargo.
The Yemeni military, the panel added, retained existing stockpiles of SCUD-B and Hwasong-6 missiles that were not completely destroyed by earlier Saudi airstrikes. The panel cite a Houthi spokesperson who said missiles that had been damaged were subsequently repaired and modified. “The panel has not discounted though that Yemen based foreign missile specialists may be providing advice,” the brief cautioned. The panel raised the possibility that missiles may have been altered to extend their range to reach targets farther into Saudi Arabia. Panel members were investigating a shipment of “industrial process equipment, which almost certainly originated in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and may be related to the production of the oxidizer used in the liquid bi-propellants of SRBM rocket motors. Part of the shipment consisted of corrosion resistant storage tanks virtually identical to those used to support SCUD SRBM operations.”
The panel of experts also concluded that the Houthi missile attacks were as much to aid their own morale as to inflict losses on Saudi Arabia. “The primary purpose of the Houthi-Saleh missile force is not to cause substantive military damage to Saudi Arabia, but to directly support a sophisticated strategic media operations campaign,” they wrote.
Some U.N. and aid officials that spoke with The Intercept this week said it seemed Yemeni ports in places like Aden had only been closed — and then announced as reopened — as cover for the continued strangulation of what are actually Yemen’s most vital points of entry. The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs this week underscored the importance of these northern ports: “Approximately 71 percent of the people in need in Yemen, and 82 percent of all cholera cases (as of 31 October) are located in areas controlled by the authorities in the north part of the country and in close proximity to these ports,” the U.N. office wrote in an alert released Monday. The U.N. panel of experts has also documented the Houthis obstructing the flow of aid and profiting from the sale of fuel on the black market.
In a statement this week, the Saudi government said it would be “preparing proposals for the ongoing operation of Hodeida port and Sanaa airport,” Yemen’s primary airport. Since last summer, the airport has only been used for humanitarian flights, with commercial access cut off by the Saudi-led coalition. “The airport is critical to get supplies in,” said one Security Council diplomat, who asked for anonymity in order to discuss ongoing council matters. “There are a bunch of UNHAS air flights” — from the U.N.’s humanitarian air service — “that are standing packed waiting to fly in.” On Tuesday, the Saudis bombed the airport twice, damaging its communication equipment.
Five months into the Saudi-led campaign, coalition bombs rendered four cranes used to offload cargo at the Hudaydah port inoperable. The coalition then refused to let the U.N.’s World Food Program install temporary replacements, the acquisition of which had been financed by the U.S. up until this month, Hudaydah’s diminished capacity was already a major cause of shipping delays, in addition to those imposed by the coalition itself. This year, Human Rights Watch reported that in at least seven instances between May and September, the coalition “arbitrarily diverted or delayed fuel tankers headed for ports under Houthi-Saleh control.” One of the ships laden with fuel was held up for over five months.
In February 2016, Saudi officials dispatched letters to both the U.N. and humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen instructing them to leave areas not under the coalition’s control. This would have obstructed aid from reaching most Yemenis. Though Saudi Arabia later walked back the language, humanitarian officials said it had a chilling effect.
A month after the notes were sent, in March 2016, the Security Council began to consider drafting a new resolution focused on humanitarian access and protection of civilians in Yemen. With the idea of a new text under consideration, the Saudi ambassador, Mouallimi, held a press conference in which he bizarrely relayed that senior U.N. aid officials had said such intervention was necessary. Later, it emerged that members of the Gulf Cooperation Council held meetings around this time with officials from France, the U.K., and the U.S. — the permanent members of the Security Council hailing from Western countries. A resolution headlining humanitarian access never materialized. Last week, the Security Council saw the circulation of a statement about Yemen — drafted by the Saudis and circulated by Egypt, another member of the coalition — that made no reference to the humanitarian situation the Security Council had just been warned was of cataclysmic proportions.
“This will likely get worse, given the blockage of vaccines outside the country and potential increases in malnutrition as people struggle to feed their families. So we can confidently say that more children will likely die if this continues for much longer,” said Samir Elhawary, a senior U.N. humanitarian official based in Yemen. If U.N. partners that distribute nutritional assistance cannot resupply over the next month, he said, “80,000 children with severe acute malnutrition are at risk of losing their lives.”
On other occasions in the course of its war, the Saudi-led coalition has taken deliberate action that stymied the delivery of humanitarian aid. In August 2016 — a year after it bombed the cranes at the port — coalition jets repeatedly bombed the main bridge used to carry goods from Hudaydah to Sana’a, and across which 90 percent of U.N. World Food Program aid traveled. The bridge was destroyed despite its presence on a U.S.-provided no-strike list.
Top photo: Yemenis take part in a demonstration calling for the Saudi-led coalition’s blockade to be lifted, on Nov. 13, 2017, in the rebel-held capital Sana’a.
Situation in Yemen is much worse now. Recent actions of Saudi coalition is going to result in deaths of hundreds and thousands of children and poor people of Yemen. Yet Saudis are not being threatened with economic sanctions for committing crimes against humanity. The poor Yemeni people are living under tyrant regime of houthis who threaten anyone who opposes them and threaten local journalists who dare to expose their corruption. Many of the houthi leaders have become millionaires since they came into power. They are stealing everything, starting from the millions of dollars that were in the central bank. CBS must do a follow up story on corruption and crimes of houthis. Houthi rebels have taken the entire nation hostage and is also hampering humanitarian aid. Houthis are recruiting child soldiers which is a crime under all UN conventions, the so called authorities of houthis steal aid when they get a chance and threaten NGO and UN staff. The Houthi slogans Death to America and Death to Israel are posted on every wall in the territory controlled by houthis. They are completely influenced by ideology of iran revolution and have a very strong hatred for america which is funding over 60% of the entire humanitarian work in Yemen.
Situation in Yemen is much worse now. Recent actions of Saudi coalition is going to result in deaths of hundreds and thousands of children and poor people of Yemen. The poor Yemeni people are living under tyrant regime of houthis who threaten anyone who opposes them and threaten local journalists who dare to expose their corruption. Many of the houthi leaders have become millionaires since they came into power. They are stealing everything, starting from the millions of dollars that were in the central bank. There is an untold story on corruption and crimes of houthis inlcuding imprisoning journalists, confiscating properties of people. Houthi rebels have taken the entire nation hostage and is also hampering humanitarian aid. Houthis are recruiting child soldiers which is a crime under all UN conventions, the so called authorities of houthis steal aid when they get a chance and threaten NGO and UN staff. The Houthi slogans Death to America and Death to Israel are posted on every wall in the territory controlled by houthis. They are completely influenced by ideology of iran revolution and have a very strong hatred for america which is funding over 60% of the entire humanitarian work in Yemen.
Yemen has about 170 billion dollars worth of proven oil reserves and over 1 trillion dollars worth of proven natural gas reserves, they also have coal, gold, silver, copper and many other valuable minerals in the ground. Yemen has some valuable agricultural land, a population of less than 30 million people and is strategically placed. This is often lost in the discussion and it’s truly at the heart of the war there. When Yemen is described as “the poorest country in the middle east” it makes it seem like less of a prize than it actually is and it draws away from the fact that this is a war fought to control the resources of Yemen not to combat terror. Similar stories are playing out in Africa right now as well. The game is to destabalize a country in order to prevent the population from developing their resources then through a variety of means ensure the wealth from those resources ends up in the right bank accounts. Of course you need to do it under a just and noble banner like fighting terrorism or the people would never accept it, people need to perceive themselves as justified in their actions and so you have to spread fear of a terrible threat or exaggerate the crimes of people you would like to justify doing something terrible to, this is true of the aggressor in virtually every conflict in history.
I think that it IS possible to address the Yemen cholera epidemic and stop the intentional decimation of its population by disease. Bear in mind is that the medical industry is all about control — nominally as a matter of safety, mostly as a matter of profit. But the lesser control of doctor over patient yields to the greater control of blockade over medicine, bombings over clinics. What Yemen needs is a clandestine attack on cholera, waged in a way directly comparable to how you would launch a terrorist biological attack against a country, but in this case, for the purpose of saving the people rather than killing them.
Cholera can be treated by a live attenuated vaccine, and this live attenuated bacterium is CONTAGIOUS. See https://www.drugs.com/ppa/cholera-vaccine.html That means that if you treat a single infiltrator with Vaxchora who is able to get over the border, he should be able to dilute his own feces to produce a product repugnant in description, but immensely desirable in application: more cholera vaccine. It is conceptually possible to replicate the vaccine indefinitely this way, though each “generation” of recipient removed from the pure source strain increases the risk that a revertant mutation to ordinary cholera would arise.
Additionally, cholera severity can be reduced with 20 mg daily of zinc. Zinc is a common industrial metal – cooking an ordinary American penny in an oven and dissolving it with acid can convert it to an oxidized form that can be administered, for example. The Saudis can’t blockade it out of existence; it’s so common they can’t even bomb it all away, until they finish bombing everything.
We need to understand in our hearts that starvation, biological warfare, and the massacre of civilians are the true international law. It is up to individual terrorists of the healing arts to challenge that law with their creativity.
The US is complicit in the violations of human rights and international law which the Saudis are inflicting on Yemen. It was bad enough under the groveling of Obama, but it has gotten even worse under the regime of the idiot Trump. The clever Saudis gave Trump a shiny medal and a parade, and now he is in total thrall to Saudi Arabia, and anything they want to do is just fine with the US. This of course is also just fine with our corrupt Congress which long ago was bought off by the Saudi and Israel Lobbies. The US no longer has any moral standing to condemn any human rights violations.
You can steal from populations by murdering people and taking their land. This is not a GOOD thing to do and places a CURSE upon allowing and supporting population. In prior eons, God smoted these evil types to set an example of the differences between Good and Evil.
Greedy thieving persons subscribe to Evil.
Were I the editor of this article I would insert “with the full support of an Imperial grouping of powers which includes the US and Israel” after the first mention of Saudi Arabia otherwise a seriously deficient story is told. It should always be made clear that there is an Imperial force which acts with agreement among actors which operates well above any government or law.
This force could care less about the people of Yemen or England or anywhere else it is perfectly willing to engage in mass slaughter and in fact EVERY SINGLE DAY sense August 6, 1945 – over 72 years – the US acting in service of commercial interests – and under the policy of “Global full spectrum domination.” has slaughtered people in multiple locations around the globe let me just shout again SLAUGHTER NON STOP FOR OVER 72 YEARS.
Just look at the alignment of interests of the parties – the Imperial umbrella wants and must control central Asia to be a global power, Iran is a threat to that hegemony and control. The Saud family (there is no government in any real sense the “state” is the family – it is medieval feudalism nothing more, is interested in protecting its near monopoly power in oil protect its territory and be part of the “full spectrum” Israel wants to keep its enemies off guard and protect itself – by expanding its market monopolies over Iran and reestablishing hegemonic control of central Asia.
When you are playing for control of the world and 7+ billion people then 20 million starving is hardly even noticed.
The Saud family, the oligarchy of Zionist Jews, the US deep/imperial state, Germany and the EU under its thumb all come together with aligned interests “Global full spectrum domination.” and act entirely for their own narrow self interest without regard for human life or even nature itself.
A first-rate fact-based report that highlights yet another genocide in the name of Democratic reform! Starring the usual suspects and suspect institutions.
It is worth pointing out the contrasting approach of this fact-based reporting with the piece from Mr. Murtaza Husain regarding KSA and Iran.
if Hitler can exterminate all the jews…
if PolPot can exterminate all the educated…
if America can exterminate all the negroes and native persons…
if israel can exterminate all the Palestinians…
hey, why cannot Saudis exterminate all the Yemeneze?
seems to be the remedy for problems on planet earth.
The UN determines (knows) that Saudi Arabia is committing war crimes/crimes against humanity in Yemen with the aid, support & weapons provided by the US but they won’t do anything. What a wonderful organization they are. Does anyone know what their reason for being is (other than for overwhelming bureaucracy, bread & circus?).
The UN is a council of sovereign nations, not a world government. So long as powerful nations like the US wield both huge global influence and veto power in the security council, there’s little that UN officials or the general assembly can do.
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS . ..
http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/
The default position of the US mainstream media:
You can’t question what the Saudis or (God forbid) what the Americans do because they’re the good guys. Always. No matter what.
Well said. Agreed. Its beyond gross. The US of A, continues to play grab ass with our fake ally, Saudi Arabia.
The US should stay out of the middle east. Let them handle their own problems. We have plenty of problems at home to occupy our time and treasure.
2nd.
Seems legit. Anybody can sell arms to wealthy Saudi Arabia to do as they please, but their impoverished victims aren’t allowed to defend themselves.
Not sure why, exactly, it’s ‘confidential’, but reading through the various UNSC correspondence in this article (good job!) , that was my initial reaction too.
There is no question of “provenance” wrt Saudi weapons . .. and, more importantly, the scope and scale of their destruction.
Iirc, the (singular) BM, of questionable origins, launched over KSA recently resulted in no damage or loss of life.
In fact, absence clear evidence Iran is directly interfering in the Yemen civil war (to undermind the Saudis), the ‘legitimacy’ of UNSC resolutions authorizing Saudi intervention seems more . .. questionable.
Even if that is true, and it may or may not be, what’s the principle here? That a country can’t arm proxy forces / rebels? That would mean the US and its allies act illegally with impunity all the time, and the UN does nothing about it.
>”… absence clear evidence Iran is directly interfering in the Yemen civil war (to undermine the Saudis),”
I suppose, however tenuous the evidence, if it could be demonstrated Iran was engaged by proxy in Yemen as a basis to ‘attack’ KSA, an argument could be made for KSA military involvement in Yemen. That seems to be the position the UNSC has taken.
I don’t see it. The war in Yemen started as an internal matter. Saudi Arabia initiated hostilities without being attacked by anybody. I’m a non-interventionist, but the principle of non-intervention was violated by Saudi Arabia — an external actor. As a matter of principle, any country should have the right to assist the victims of aggression fight off the invaders. The UNSC, ideally, should be opposed to the aggressors, not the victims and those trying to help the victims.
And , of course, that means that France was in violation back in the 1770 and 80s when it aided those illegal rebels in the British colonies across the ocean in North America, rebelling against their lawful King.
Here is an interesting look at Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2017/11/saudi-arabias-military-capabilities.html
It is interesting to see how much of a role that the United States plays a significant role in the Saudi military buildup.
Saudi Arabia pays the western politicians good money so the Saudis’ expect the west to support them and their Al Qaida troops in Yemen
No doubt after witnessing how well such funding has worked for the Israelis. However, the Saudis still have a way to go before they can travel to America and confront Congress!!
It’s a fucking genocide, party to it a) Saudi Arabia and b) United States.
And thanks for this report. But here’s my question:
This is obviously a genocide, and hey, even if question is taken with that, obviously war crimes. So the question:
Five permanent UN Security Council seats: Russia, US, UK, France, China (I think?). Who has presented a UN resolution to intervene against the current Yemen genocide (even if against US/Saud) or at the even least, to bring it up at all?
And US is famously not an ICC signatory.
But again—kind of also fuck you Finland and UK and Ivory Coast (or others of momentary positions of a General UN Thingie) and etc. for not at least putting forth a resolution in the General Assembly, and/or otherwise not be craven fuck-cunts and instead maybe go like
“Hi! Finland here! Maybe US and Saudi could stop killing hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe Saudi Arabia could also not kidnap so many heads-of-state. Two? Okay. But three? Well my word. Oh, US media is silent? Well, do go on then.”
Anyway thanks Sam, and aside from a couple senators recently…
…uh. well I also at this time would like to note that I’m still pissed at Barack Obama for promising to admit that the Armenian Genocide was a genocide, yet year after year after year…never done. And even that due to some weird desire to adhere to utter awful Erdogan. Who is anathema to Turkey, it’s history. The one military coup, that would’ve been good to happen.
Anyway, thanks Sam!
It’s a fucking genocide, party to it a) Saudi Arabia and b) United States.
And thanks for this report. But here’s my question:
This is obviously a genocide, and hey, even if question is taken with that, obviously war crimes. So the question:
Five permanent UN Security Council seats: Russia, US, UK, France, China. Who has presented a UN resolution to intervene (even if against US/Saud) or at the even least, to bring it up at all?
And US is famously not an ICC signatory.
But again—kind of also fuck you Finland and UK and Ivory Coast and etc. for not at least putting forth a resolution in the General Assembly, and/or otherwise not be craven fuck-cunts and instead maybe go like “Hi! Finland here! Ma
Cannot be a genocide because SA is a respectable member of the UN council of Human Rights !