what's the worst thing that the British government is doing right now well
believe it or not isn't austerity and it isn't brexit a putting aside the failure
to do with climate change which is so bad it belongs in a separate category
all together the worst thing that the British government is doing today is
supporting the saudi-led intervention in Yemen's Civil War now here Britain's
giving crucial material supports of a bombing campaign that indiscriminately
killed thousands of civilians and is now triggered a manatorian catastrophe that
threatens the lives of millions of people it should be a national scandal
but at the moment isn't in an election issue I just completed a PhD on
Britain's relationship with Saudi Arabia in the smaller Gulf states and next few
minutes I'm going to try and explain what's happening in Yemen and how our
government is directly compressor so in March 2015 a coalition of Arab states
led by Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's Civil War to restore the former
president hardly hardly had been overthrown by rebels known as the
Houthis who were acting an alliance with forces loyal to the former president
Saleh at a coup against hardy was a legitimate
but leading scholars on Yemen warmed when the sound is intervened that this
would only escalate the conflict and have a devastating humanitarian impact
the last two years have proven them 100 percent right well over 10,000 people
have been killed since the Saudis intervenes and this includes a bare
minimum of 4,600 civilians 60% of those civilians have been killed in Saudi
bombing and those bombs of his schools of hospitals double-tap drugs have been
reported in the DoubleTap strike is where a second bomb clubs renew
emergency services arrive a panel of experts reporting to the UN Security
Council accused a coalition of the quote widespread and systematic use of
indiscriminate air strikes and quote of targeting civilians and civilian objects
and that reflects a consensus amongst all the humanitarian and human rights
NGOs reporting from Yemen on how the sound is behaving now the humanitarian
situation in Yemen was very bad even before the war began but it's now become
perhaps the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world including Syria
both sides are accused of preventing aid getting too
people who need it but given that Yemen is massively import dependent
it's the sale DS Ariel in naval blockade that's having a really bad effect 17
million of 27 million Yemenis are food insecure fourteen point four million
people don't have access to safe drinking water and sanitation nearly
half a million children under the age of five are severely malnourished and
almost 7 million people now reportedly teetering on the brink of famine
notwithstanding the underlying problems that Yemen has this is fundamentally as
Oxfam have said a man-made catastrophe now often when authoritarian regimes in
the Middle East bomb civilians indiscriminately trigger humanitarian
catastrophes and fuel the kind of chaos on which jihadi groups flourish and
there are calls for the West to intervene and in the way the British and
Americans have intervenes by providing crucial material support to the Saudi
campaign British arms sales to the Saudis would dramatically increase since
the war began with the government licensing 3.3 billion pounds worth of
arms transfers in the last 18 months compared to 147 million over the
preceding period and we're talking here about a replenishment of Saudi stocks of
bombs of missiles and other supplies for their air force and all this is part of
two of the biggest arms deals in history signed by the Toigo many eighties and
labor in the 2000s under which Britain has not only equipped the sound is
reflected tornado and typhoon military jets but has also committed to provide
maintenance training components ammunition on an ongoing basis as a
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond of influence actually Philip Hammond said
at the start of the intervention we have a significant infrastructure supporting
the Saudi Air Force and will support the Saudis and every practical way short of
engaging in combat now US support for the Saudi coalition
under Obama and under Trump has been highly important as well but make no
mistake the British well here is non-trivial
if the considerable assistance that our government is providing to the Saudis
would be removed it would seriously impede the Saudi war effort and that's
why endlessly international human rights watch Oxfam Save the Children one
leading NGO after another as call for the British government to stop
arming the Saudis and I've been completely ignored that David Cameron's
government but resumes government the Labour leadership that joined these
calls for Britain to stop arming Saturday but when the shadow foreign
secretary emily form very brought emotion to the House of Commons - that
affects a large number of her own back benches are abstained or stayed away The
Guardian reported at the time and I quote it is understood some Labour MPs
who opposed the motion orchestrating deliberate abstentions and discussions
with some conservatives about the chances of defeating it so what can be
done about all of this one thing you can do is support the many NGOs at that so
they've tried a both the alarm about this issue amnesty Oxfam Human Rights
Watch Save the Children and the grid that I'm involved with campaign against
arms trades a campaign against arms trade believes that the arms sales are
not only immoral they were also illegal and that's why we bought a judicial
review against the government's decision to continue arming Saudi Arabia in that
court case was heard in the High Court in February and we were awaiting the
verdict according to emails of disclosed as part of the court case even the
government senior civil servant in charge of arms export controls told
ministers that knees arm sell should not be going ahead while the conflict was
going on in Yemen but we can't wait for the court to reach its verdict and
because this isn't just a narrow legal issue it's a Moorish here and there's a
political issue we're in the middle of an election campaign there's no better
time to put pressure on politicians of all parties ask them what their stance
is on Britain's role in the bombing of Yemen ask them what they've done about
it in Parliament Bank say platitudes for an answer and
ask newspapers and broadcast news channels while they haven't given this
story to prominence that it clearly deserves given the severity of the
situation in the country and given our governments well importantly it's like
encouragement from this 62% of people in this country according to one recent
poll think arming Saudi Arabia is unacceptable 71% finger arming promoting
arms sales to any state was violating international military law is
unacceptable the problem there that only 49% of the British public have even
heard of the conflicts in Yemen as opposed to 84%
upgrade with regards to Syria and that number drops of 37 percent when we're
talking about people aged 18 to 24 so the real issue is raising awareness as I
say with the exception of the failure to do with climate change this is the worst
thing that the British government is doing today measuring the cost of human
life and a Yemeni life is worth no less than a British life this should be a
national scandal at the moment it's not even an election issue but we can make
it one
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