And A National Disgrace

Michael Burleigh writes: 

Saudi Arabia’s barbaric murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident writer who was strangled then cut to pieces in their Turkish embassy, has quite rightly drawn opprobrium from around the world.

Yet the kingdom’s military actions in neighbouring Yemen attract all-too-little commentary despite the terrible death, destruction and starvation it has caused.

The scale of the disaster engulfing Yemen cannot be overstated. 

As many as 60,000 people have died in the pitiless fighting between government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the Houthi rebels, supported by Iran. 

Three million Yemenis have been internally displaced and three-quarters of what is a very young population depends on international aid.

If that aid does not reach them they will die, for the country’s rudimentary health care system has collapsed. Britain’s role in the conflagration is also significant.

We supply planes, bombs, military advisers and Special Forces troops on the side of Saudi Arabia – and this is something else we prefer to ignore.

The war in Yemen began thanks to the megalomania of one man – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS, the autocratic Saudi leader widely blamed for ordering the death of Mr Khashoggi. 

He is, of course, a prominent Western ally.

The kingdom’s military actions in neighbouring Yemen attract all-too-little commentary despite the terrible death, destruction and starvation it has caused.

Anxious to make his mark, MbS believed he could score a propaganda victory by crushing the Shia Houthis who had driven out his Yemeni ally, President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. 

There was no easy victory, however, even though Saudi Arabia controls the world’s fourth-largest defence budget at £62 billion.

In truth, the Saudis are useless at ground warfare, which is why they have brought in troops from Pakistan and Sudan, as well as mercenaries from Colombia and the US.

And it is why they have relied primarily on a ferocious campaign of bombing using Tornado, Typhoon and F-15 fighter-bombers supplied by the US and Britain.

The Tornados and Typhoons could not fly without our complicity.

British-based BAE Systems employs nearly 6,000 people in the kingdom, while the Americans refuel the Saudi warplanes in mid-air, receiving $331 million last year in return. 

The bombs those planes drop come from BAE, helping to generate an additional £3.8 billion of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia since the war began. 

Britain also provides more direct military advice. 

RAF liaison officers in a Joint Combined Planning Cell take their seats in Saudi Arabia’s Air Operations Centre, helping select suitable targets in Yemen. 

They claim that their expert presence helps prevent ‘collateral casualties’ – which is to say, civilian deaths.

But it did not on August 9, 2018, when a bomb hit a school bus in Dahyan’s crowded market, killing at least 40 children, many of whom were under the age of ten.

In a total of 18,500 air raids since the war began, the Saudi-led coalition, quietly backed by Britain and the US, has hit factories, hospitals and schools indiscriminately.

I am in no doubt that some of these raids are war crimes.

Foreign Secretaries Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have lamented the human catastrophe in Yemen and it is true that the UK has supplied about £200 million in emergency aid. 

Meanwhile, a British diplomat called Martin Griffiths is the lead United Nations envoy trying to broker a peace settlement between the warring parties.

However, the cold financial facts are these: two-thirds of the UK’s arms exports go to the Arab Middle East, with the lion’s share sold to Saudi Arabia. 

The sales are important to our economy – and that means turning a blind eye to the authoritarian Saudis and their counterparts in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Germany has done the right thing by banning arms sales to any of the Yemeni combatants but there is no sign of Britain following suit, even though two Commons Select Committees have urged the Government to impose an arms embargo.

The situation in Yemen is dire. As the poorest state in the Middle East, it is facing chronic drought. 

Its capital city, Sana’a, will run out of water in the next five years – the only capital in the world to face such an existential threat. 

News that British Special Forces are active in Yemen – along with their French and US counterparts – shows how deeply involved we truly are in this catastrophe, and it shames us as a country.

It is claimed that our Special Forces are there to secure safe drop zones for aid supplies, but this is just a fig leaf. 

Yemen is unsafe precisely because of the colossal weight of British-supplied bombs dropped by Saudi and Emirati pilots. 

The British Government’s policy towards Yemen is not just hypocritical, it is indefensible – and a national disgrace.