Saudi Fascism 3

Ron heeft een nieuwe reactie op je bericht "Saudi Head of UN Human Rights Panel 2" achtergelaten: 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/yemen-and-the-scandal-of-uk-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia 

Yemen and the scandal of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia

 Smoke billows from a building in Yemen's capital Sana'a after a Saudi-led air strike on 12 September 2015. 'Since the conflict escalated in March the UK has issued 37 export licences for arms transfers to Saudi Arabia,' writes Penny Lawrence of Oxfam. Photograph: Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters

Letters

Thursday 17 September 2015 19.37 BSTLast modified on Friday 18 September 2015 00.01 BST

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Google+

Shares

2,646

 Save for later

Your leader on Yemen’s forgotten and brutal conflict is very welcome (Editorial, 14 September). You are right to highlight the scandal of “western complacency and silence”, but the reality is much worse. While generously giving aid on the one hand, the UK is fuelling this bitter conflict by selling arms and giving technical support to a Saudi Arabia-led coalition bombing campaign in Yemen in full knowledge of the risk of potential war crimes. Since the conflict escalated in March the UK has issued 37 arms export licences for arms transfers to Saudi Arabia. The government has declined to tell parliament the details of these deals. It justifies the continued fuelling of the crisis on the grounds it has assurances from the Saudi government that its bombing campaign is in accordance with international law.

In December, the government adopted in law the UN’s arms trade treaty, which binds governments to stop arms transfers if there is a risk of breaches of international humanitarian law or human rights law. There is ample and credible evidence that all sides – including the Houthis the Saudis are fighting – have failed to distinguish adequately between combatants and civilians. The UK boasts that it has “one of the most rigorous and transparent export control regimes in the world”. If this really is the case, the government needs to immediately suspend all arms transfers to the conflict and launch an investigation into how these weapons have been used.
Penny Lawrence
Deputy chief executive, Oxfam 

• You’re right to say that “there must be a preparedness to name, shame and restrain those who are conducting atrocities against civilians in Yemen”. These catastrophic onslaughts, which arguably employ starvation as a weapon, leave no doubt that efforts to impose restraint must be the priority. The suffering of civilians dictates that the US must stem its supplies of arms to Saudi Arabia, and in particular take any measures that will lead to a cessation of the Saudi bombing campaign, which is inflicting such terrible bloodshed on non-combatants.

The UK also appears to be complicit. Saudi Arabia is Britain’s biggest weapons exports customer. In July, defence minister Frederick Curzon said Britain had provided the country with technical support and precision-guided weapons, and confirmed the presence of British personnel at the Saudi and coalition air and maritime headquarters. At the same time, how cockeyed it is that, the UK having approved £4bn worth of weapons sales to Riyadh in the five years to May 2015, an unspecified number of Britons are based in Bahrain, according to a statement later in July by armed forces minister Penny Mordaunt, “to help ease the flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen”.
Patrick O’Brien
Aberystwyth