Krieg im Jemen: Neue Artikel zum Nachlesen 28

Jemen Totalversagen des UN-Menschenrechtsrats und des Westens, die zugestimmt haben, dass die Saudis ihre eigenen Kriegsverbrechen untersuchen. Deutsche Medien berichten nichts

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Artikel von Catherine Zimmerman zum Jemen: http://www.criticalthreats.org/

2.10.2015 – Global Comment

Carnage in Yemen

As is the case in most wars there is little regard for the safety of the Yemeni people. In this case however the coalition air strikes have caused much more destruction and carnage than Houthis have since attempting to seize power. On the surface it seems that all the coalition has done since their operations against the Houthis began last March was simply blockade and bombard and hoped by doing those two things the Houthis would simply fall from, or relinquish, power. Instead what they have actually done is destroy the infrastructure, caused a humanitarian crisis of which even a poor country like Yemen hasn’t had to deal with for some time. Not only that, their bombing has seen to Islamists sympathetic to Islamic State (ISIS) capitalize on the chaos caused by the bombing to themselves target, through organized car bombing, the Houthis who they despise given the fact they come from a sect of Shia Islam, the branch of the monotheism they consider heretical.

While the majority of the air forces of the coalition carrying out these strikes are modern American-made jets, the damage that have caused in Yemen is not unlike that caused by the Syrian Air Force which has been indiscriminately bombing urban centers under the command of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and killing innocents for years now. Whole areas have been bombed to heaps of rubble and even the immensely valuable cultural heritage of Sanaa, which like Aleppo or Damascus are very old yet continuously-inhabited cities. The Old City of Sanaa is a UNESCO world heritage site which has now suffered irreparable damage as a result of the continued aerial bombardments. Those same buildings withstood the test of time and obstacles posed by thousands of years of history. But not this war.

While Yemen was in a poor and quite chaotic state before this air war began and has long been a very poor country anyway it’s clear that the damage caused by this bombing has done little more than push them closer to the edge if not over it already.

Such a dire humanitarian crisis is indicative of what the blockade coupled with the aerial bombardments has done to Yemen’s people, society and culture. Those yet to die as a result of undernourishment or lack of basic necessities will likely prove to be much higher, and much more difficult to account for.

In other words, the dying in Yemen is not likely to stop when the bombs finally cease falling and the blockade is finally lifted. But those two things will nevertheless have been major contributing factors to it on top of the wanton destruction that have already afflicted on that war weary people – by Feature Writer

http://globalcomment.com/carnage-in-yemen/#

30.9.2015 – Washington Diplomat

Compassion Fatigue Sets In As Yemen Spirals Out of Control

Aid agencies have called for unhindered access for humanitarian workers to reach millions of Yemenis and said more funds are urgently needed to help stave off an even greater disaster in the country.

But their pleas have been met with a resounding thud of nothing. Because sadly, it seems that Yemen makes only a tiny blip on the humanitarian radar screen of the international donor community.

Saudi Arabia has a long history of meddling in its southern neighbor, which controls the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key chokepoint for the global transit of oil. And while Iran has provided tacit backing to the Houthis, many experts doubt that the Houthis are taking direct orders from the mullahs in Tehran.

In fact, although it has become a proxy war for the Saudi-Iranian regional power struggle, Yemen is also home to a tangled patchwork of local tribes, militia movements, secessionists and Islamists whose shifting loyalties have fueled the fighting.

The Houthi takeover and subsequent Saudi intervention, however, have exacerbated underlying sectarian tensions and pushed the country into all-out civil war. After wresting the southern port city of Aden from Houthi control, Saudi Arabia, joined by troops from the United Arab Emirates and possibly Qatar, is reportedly planning a major ground offensive to take back Sanaa, which threatens to escalate the bloodshed.

In Houthi-controlled Sanaa, political analyst Hisham Al-Omeisy said that even if all of the world’s donor nations were to suddenly step up and write checks for the relief efforts in Yemen, it wouldn’t help at this point.

“You have to look at the roots of the problem — what’s the main problem causing the humanitarian crisis? One of the main things is the commercial blockade because Yemen imports 90 percent of its food,” he told The Washington Diplomat. “Lift the commercial blockade imposed by the Saudis and it will ease the squeeze on a lot of people.”

Omeisy accused the Saudi-led coalition not only of blockading seaports but also of targeting Yemenis’ more immediate sources of food by bombing markets and food trucks.

“Even though the United States and the U.K. are pushing for a humanitarian pause, for some sort of a political solution, the Saudis are still pushing for a military win,” he said, claiming that such a strategy would require “killing thousands upon thousands of people.”

Unlike Omeisy, however, [engineering student Nisma] Alozebi [from Aden] lays much of the blame for the current misery at the hands of the Houthis.

“The Houthi militia have done every bad thing — they’ve killed civilians and destroyed everything in their wake. For five months we’ve not been able to get food. Electricity was cut off for days because they cut the power lines. We had no internet. We were like an island where no one knows what’s going on,” she said.

Neither Alozebi nor Omeisy could explain why the international community has allowed Yemen to become “an island” of indifference.

But Susan Moeller, a University of Maryland professor of media and international affairs, said part of the fault lies with media outlets in the United States and Europe.

“They have never covered Yemen as they have other countries in the region. Yemen has only rarely been on the international news radar, and even on those occasions for a brief period of time and typically lumped in with an evaluation of other crises in the Middle East,” Moeller told us by email from France, where she is on sabbatical.

She also pointed to Washington’s relations with Saudi Arabia as having a blinker effect on American understanding of Riyadh’s role in perpetuating and worsening the crisis in Yemen.

“Many in the U.S. tend to view the Saudis as steady allies of our country, so that Americans’ understanding of culpability is very murky,” Moeller argued.

She also noted that Yemenis “have been less vociferous on social media than they have from other Middle East crisis locations, so there are relatively fewer vetted images and eyewitness reports from the region than from other hotspots.” That could be due to the fact that there’s no internet access much of the time in Yemen. And it’s hard to remember to post on Facebook when you’re being bombed or dealing with severe hunger – by Karin Zeitvogel

http://washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=12495:compassion-fatigue-sets-in-as-yemen-spirals-out-of-control&Itemid=559

Kriegsereignisse

1.10.2015 – Der Standard

Regierungsnahe Truppen erobern Meerenge an Südspitze des Jemen

Im jemenitischen Bürgerkrieg haben Unterstützer des Präsidenten Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi den Zugang zu einer strategisch wichtigen Meerenge von den schiitischen Houthi-Rebellen zurückerobert. Wie am Donnerstag aus Armeekreisen verlautete, gab es bei den Kämpfen um Bab al-Mandab auf beiden Seiten Tote und Verletzte. Die genaue Zahl war zunächst unklar.

Die Hadi-Truppen wurden den Angaben nach von der von Saudi-Arabien geführten Koalition sunnitischer Staaten unterstützt, die regelmäßig Luftangriffe auf Stellungen der Rebellen fliegt. Vonseiten der Houthis gab es zunächst keine Angaben zu den Kämpfen.

Die Meerenge Bab al-Mandab an der Südspitze Jemens kontrolliert den Zugang zum Roten Meer und damit zum Suezkanal, der auf einer der wichtigsten Schifffahrtsrouten der Welt liegt.

http://derstandard.at/2000023100507/Regierungsnahe-Truppen-erobern-Meerenge-an-Suedspitze-Jemens

1.10.2015 – Washington Post from AP

Yemen officials say rebels trading fire with coalition ships

Yemeni military officials close to the country’s Shiite Houthi rebels said Thursday that the rebels are trading fire with warships from the Saudi-led military coalition near the Bab al-Mandab straight, the strategic southern entrance to the Red Sea and the gateway to the Suez Canal.

The development comes amid land clashes Thursday near the straight between units loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and rebel forces.

The pro-Hadi units were backed by air support from the Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing Houthi positions and has sent reinforcements from the nearby southern port city of Aden, according to security and military officials, who have remained neutral in the conflict that has splintered the country.

The Houthis have been in control of the strategic area for several months and still control the vast majority of the area near Bab al-Mandab, according to the officials – by Ali Al-Haj

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/fighting-rages-in-yemen-near-strategic-red-sea-strait/2015/10/01/42adc808-6859-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html

1.10.2015 – Aljazeera

Hadi loyalists claim capture of key Yemen strait

Forces loyal to exiled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi backed by the Arab coalition say they have recaptured the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait from Houthi fighters.

There was no confirmation of the loss by the Houthis of the waterway, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the rest of the Indian Ocean.

"In a large-scale military operation launched today, Yemeni government, resistance and coalition forces liberated the Bab al-Mandeb strait and Mayoun island with the goal of safeguarding this key sea route," Rajeh Badi told Reuters by telephone from the southern port city of Aden.

Reuters news agency quoted local residents on Thursday as reporting air strikes and shelling by warships in support of a ground push towards the area.

However, they could not immediately confirm that the strait had fallen.

A Yemeni military official who spoke to DPA news agency on Thursday said there were casualties on both sides in the battle.

Bab al-Mandeb forms part of the world's busiest shipping routes, with much of the Middle East's oil exports passing through the body of water.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/hadi-loyalists-claim-capture-key-yemen-strait-151001131134976.html

UNO

2.10.2015 – Short News

Saudis verhindern Untersuchung des Kriegs im Jemen

In einer 180°-Wende haben westliche Regierungen beim UN Menschenrechtsrat ihre Pläne für eine internationale Untersuchung von Menschenrechtsverletzungen, durch alle am Krieg im Jemen Beteiligten, fallen gelassen.

Tausende Zivilisten sind bisher den erbarmungslosen Luftangriffen der Saudis und dem wahllosen Bombardement der Huthi zum Opfer gefallen. Nun sollten Hilfsorganisationen zugelassen und das Notwendigste für die Arbeit von Krankenhäusern in das Gebiet geliefert werden.

Doch sind jetzt westliche Regierungen vor der strikten Verweigerung der Saudis und ihrer Partner eingeknickt. Stattdessen akzeptierten sie eine saudische Resolution, die allein technische Hilfe erlaubt. "Ein ungeheuerlicher Sieg für die Saudis und ihre Kriegsverbrechen", so ein UN-Mitarbeiter.

http://www.shortnews.de/id/1173369/saudis-verhindern-untersuchung-des-kriegs-im-jemen

Kommentar: Die deutschsprachige Presse schweigt zu diesem Skandal und zu dieser moralischen Bankrotterklärung der Uno vollständig. Short News ist eine private Nachrichtenseite. Sonst beim Googeln von Jemen? Fehlanzeige.

2.10.2015 – Reuters

Saudi Arabia deters bid for U.N. human rights probe in Yemen

Human Rights Watch said the United States and Britain, both allies of Saudi Arabia, had given only tentative backing to the Dutch resolution.

“By failing to set up a serious U.N. inquiry on war-torn Yemen, the Human Rights Council squandered an important chance to deter further abuses,” Philippe Dam, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Geneva, said in a statement.

But Yemen's Human Rights Minister Ezzeldin Al-Asbahi called the resolution for a national inquiry a "balanced text".

He described it as "a very good starting point for an independent national institution that would seriously investigate all violations of human rights all over Yemen."

"They will not disregard any violation of human rights in my country," Al-Asbahi told the Human Rights Council, shortly before its 47 members gave the resolution unanimous backing.

U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper said it would be vital for the U.N. human rights office to help the Yemeni commission do its work "in a swift, credible and comprehensive way" to ensure that human rights abuses were properly investigated, monitored and reported to the international community.

Saudi Arabia's Ambassador Faisal Bin Hassan Trad said Yemen was "going through very difficult and complicated circumstances" and international assistance would ensure its government could uphold all its human rights obligations – by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/02/us-yemen-rights-idUSKCN0RW1ES20151002

Kommentar: Lachhaft. Präsident Hadi hat den Saudis für die Luftangriffe gedankt, und die haben nie etwas anderes erklärt, als dass es keine zivilen Opfer ihrer Luftangriffe gäbe. So wird das “They will not disregard any violation of human rights in my country” aussehen. Jeder weiß das, die Vertreter des Westens wie Harper reden wie sediert.

2.10.2015 – Vice News

As Saudis Block a Human Rights Inquiry in Yemen, America Stays Quiet

A Dutch-led effort to create a human rights mission for Yemen was abandoned Wednesday amid intense Saudi opposition at the UN, but human rights experts are laying blame in part at the feet of the United States, which failed to vigorously back the Netherlands — and may have worked behind the scenes to head off the independent investigation.

In September, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for an independent, international inquiry into crimes committed in Yemen in the preceding year. Shortly after, the Netherlands, supported by several European countries, presented a draft resolution to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Among other elements, it called for a human rights mission, commissioned by Zeid, to be sent to Yemen, and for that team to be allowed access to all areas of the country.

Multiple sources familiar with negotiations in Geneva, where the HRC is located, said the Dutch initially encountered objections from the Yemeni government, as well as from the Saudis, Qataris, and Emiratis — all three of whom currently sit on the council.

The Saudis and other Arab members of the council then introduced an alternative text, which called for the UN to only assist an existing national inquiry in Yemen, established by the government in exile in Riyadh, which supports the Saudi-led intervention. Human rights and civil society groups considered it unacceptable, both due to its content and because it was introduced by a belligerent in Yemen's war. They offered public support to the Dutch.

Largely quiet on the matter was the United States. After multiple requests for comment on whether the American government supported an international, independent human rights inquiry for Yemen, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power released an ambiguously worded statement on September 24.

"We're following the ongoing discussions in Geneva closely," Power said. "We do believe the Human Rights Council and OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights] have an important role to play regarding the humanitarian situation, and look forward to working with our colleagues in Geneva."

Power went on to call for increased humanitarian access in Yemen, but refrained from answering the question posed to her by several reporters: whether or not the US supported an investigation of the sort that Zeid called for.

Four days later, on September 28, the US ambassador to the HRC Keith Harper told the Associated Press in a text message that he supported Dutch efforts.

While not explicitly calling for a human rights investigation, Harper told AP that though he supported the Dutch, he felt "that the council speaks most powerfully when unified, so we are working with all parties to find a consensus solution."

The next day, a spokesperson for the US mission in Geneva, once more refraining from endorsing either what Zeid requested or the Netherland's resolution, told VICE News, "Yes, we support the Dutch position."

But observers in Geneva and New York say that instead of pushing for the Dutch resolution or one of its later drafts to be passed, the US simply let it die.

By calling for consensus, said Nicolas Agostini, Geneva representative for the International Federation For Human Rights, the Americans were in essence pushing for the Saudi text.

"It was terrible, the US was silent for a very long time," Agostini said. "The Dutch should have had public support from the key partners including the US throughout the process. By the second week of negotiations, it became clear they wouldn't get that kind of support. [America's] very late public expression of support for the Dutch text, and emphasis on the need to reach consensus, de facto benefited the Saudis."

Despite being left alone, and under intense pressure from the Saudis, the Netherlands still could have left their resolution tabled ahead of a vote on Friday. This week, in an effort to compromise, the Dutch delegation presented a new draft with different language. But it still called for a team of experts and support staff to collect human rights information, have access to "all relevant parties," and "establish the facts and circumstances of serious violations and abuses committed by all parties."

The Saudis responded with a new resolution of their own that appeared to further water down a text that human rights groups had already deemed insufficient. It called for no international human rights team, and instead requested only that OHCHR provide an update on "implementation of the program of technical assistance and capacity building in the field of human rights."

Faced with total opposition from the Saudis and their allies, and de-facto instructions from the US to compromise, the Dutch announced on Wednesday that they had withdrawn their text entirely, likely ending efforts to get an international inquiry.

The Arab text, meanwhile, was tabled as an item 10 resolution, a move that generally sees a consensus outcome and the consent of the host country. In the case of Yemen, however, both the government and those introducing the text were belligerents in the war, and thus far have proven resistant to any kind of independent accounting of the conflict. By Thursday, only their resolution remained.

The Dutch mission to the UN told VICE News that US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders on the sidelines of a counter-terrorism summit held at the UN on Tuesday, the day before the Dutch withdrew their resolution. A spokesperson for Koenders had not yet responded to VICE News' request for comment about the content of that discussion – by Samuel Oakford

https://news.vice.com/article/as-saudis-block-a-human-rights-inquiry-in-yemen-the-us-stays-quiet siehe auch https://www.rt.com/news/317353-saudis-sink-yemen-probe/ = http://www.mintpressnews.com/how-america-helped-saudi-arabia-block-a-human-rights-inquiry-in-yemen/210049/

Kommentar: Gute knappe Schilderung auch der Hintergründe, soweit man sie erkennen kann. Wie Menschenrechte zur Farce werden

2.10.2015 – Oxfam

Oxfam reaction to Human Rights Council Resolution on Yemen

In reaction to the Human Rights Council's adoption of the resolution on Yemen in Geneva today, Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, Oxfam Country Director in Yemen said:

"Since the beginning of the conflict in Yemen, all parties have been accused of committing serious violations of human rights and the laws of war. It is shameful that members of the Human Rights Council prioritized perceived geo-strategic interests above the need for accountability and failed today to establish an international independent mechanism to investigate breaches of these laws. The approved proposal does not guarantee that all sides in the current conflict will be held to account. This is a missed opportunity to send a clear message to all parties in Yemen that they should respect their legal obligations to protect civilians, and that future violations will not be tolerated.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/reactions/oxfam-reaction-human-rights-council-resolution-yemen

2.10.2015 – dpa

Saudi Arabia avoids UN scrutiny of Yemen air attacks

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday called on the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels in Yemen to spare civilians in a Saudi-drafted resolution that omitted a Western plan for a UN-led war crimes probe.

The Netherlands had initially proposed that the UN Human Rights Office collect evidence of serious human rights violations on the ground, after the office reported killings of civilians by all sides in the conflict, as well as recruitment of child soldiers.

According to UN rights investigators, nearly two thirds of the civilian deaths until June allegedly resulted from coalition attacks.

However, Arab countries and Yemen's government, which is in exile in the Saudi capital Riyadh, did not support the Dutch plan and introduced their own resolution at the Geneva-based rights council.

This resolution only asks the UN rights office in Geneva to assist Yemen in developing its capacity to protect human rights, and in its domestic process for probing past abuses.

All 47 countries represented on the UN rights council, including Western countries, adopted the Saudi text on Thursday.

"There was a feeling that a larger consensus was more important than a sharper resolution," a Western diplomat told dpa.

However, the United States' Geneva envoy Keith Harper warned that "should the situation on human rights in Yemen fail to improve, we call upon this council to take further action."

http://www.dpa-international.com/news/international/131-killed-as-saudi-led-alliance-bombs-yemen-wedding-party-a-46787037.html

1.10.2015 – Common Dreams

Saudi Impunity Continues as UN Ditches Probe Into Yemen War Crimes

Proposal would have mandated a probe into human rights violations committed on all sides of Yemen's conflic

aving to stiff opposition from Saudi Arabia, western countries on Wednesday abandoned their proposal for a United Nations inquiry into human rights violations committed during the six-month-old military assault on Yemen—which is led by the powerful Gulf monarchy and backed by the U.S.

The Netherlands tossed out its draft resolution, which had gained backing from other governments, following a vigorous diplomatic campaign from Saudi Arabia. The proposal would have mandated the UN High Commissioner to dispatch a team to investigate human rights violations on all sides of Yemen's ongoing war. It would have also required all parties to allow humanitarian aid to reach people in need.

The development was met with immediate rebuke from rights campaigners.

"The western decision to block the investigation is a disgrace to everything they stand for—from democracy to human rights," Rooj Alwazir, a Yemeni activist currently based in the U.S., told Common Dreams.

"How much more destruction do they need to see for an independent investigation to happen? How much longer are we going to watch entire communities be terrorized and wiped out? By blocking the investigation they are standing with the Saudis and are complicit in the war crimes," added Alwazir, who is a co-founder of Support Yemen Media

The Dutch proposal was the product of rising urgency—including the call, earlier this month, by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein for an "international, independent, and impartial" investigation into human rights violations. Numerous human rights groups, including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, the Gulf Center for Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch, have escalated their demand to end Saudi impunity.

Instead, western governments are throwing their weight behind a Saudi-supported resolution that omits any mention of an independent inquiry – – by Sarah Lazare

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/01/saudi-impunity-continues-un-ditches-probe-yemen-war-crimes

1.10.2015 – AP at Evening Sun

UN human rights body passes Saudi proposal on Yemen

A leading human rights advocacy group on Friday accused the top U.N. human rights body of failing to improve scrutiny of abuses in war-torn Yemen by approving a resolution presented by Saudi Arabia — a major participant in the conflict.

The Human Rights Council vote by consensus calls for Yemen to receive "technical assistance" on improving human rights. The U.N. estimates that more than 2,300 civilians have died since fighting escalated in the poor Arab Peninsula country in March, notably involving air power from a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition.

The measure that passed Friday came after Dutch diplomats this week abandoned a separate proposal calling for an international fact-finding mission in Yemen.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement, called the Saudi-led resolution "deeply flawed" and said the Dutch backed down only after "intense pressure from Saudi Arabia."

"By failing to set up a serious U.N. inquiry on war-torn Yemen, the Human Rights Council squandered an important chance to deter further abuses," said Philippe Dam, its Geneva deputy director.

The Saudi-led proposal calls on Yemen's government to take measures to protect civilians, and calls on armed militia groups to release political prisoners. It asks the U.N. human rights chief to report next year on the situation — though no debate on the matter is so far planned – by Jamey Keaten

http://www.eveningsun.com/nation-world/ci_28911245/un-human-rights-body-passes-saudi-proposal-yemen

1.10.2015 – Antiwar

UN to Let Saudis Investigate Themselves on Yemen War Crimes

Saudi Objections Kill Resolution Calling for International Probe

On Sunday, Saudi helicopters attacked a north Yemeni village, killing 30 civilians. The next day they attacked a wedding party in the southwest, killing another 131 civilians. Two such high-profile incidents amid the UN General Assembly meeting seemed to ensure that UN Human Rights Council calls for an inquiry into civilian deaths in Yemen would get through. Incredibly, they didn’t.

Instead, Saudi Arabia started complaining about the idea, and the UN let the matter drop, with the US and several other Western nations that initially signaled support for a resolution on an inquiry, proposed by the Netherlands, jumping ship and backing a competing Saudi text.

The Saudi text calls for an investigation, but empowers the Saudi-led coalition to conduct that investigation, only calling on the UN to offer support to them with “technical assistance,” and then only to the extent they request it.

Essentially this means the Saudis, and their allies in the Yemeni “government-in-exile,” will be investigating themselves on the question of war crimes, meaning that all those official claims that huge, well-documented incidents “didn’t happen” will become the official international narrative – by Amal Al-Jasiri

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/10/01/un-to-let-saudis-investigate-themselves-on-yemen-war-crimes/

1.10.2015 – Middle East Eye

Call for UN human rights probe into Yemen violations dropped after Saudi pressure

After Dutch call for independent probe withdrawn, alternative Saudi draft resolution demands investigation by Yemeni government

The Netherlands dropped a call for an independent investigation into the human rights situation in Yemen on Wednesday, reportedly under intense pressure from Saudi Arabia.

A Dutch draft resolution submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council had proposed establishing an international, independent inquiry into violations committed by all sides in a six-month war that has left thousands of civilians dead.

However, the Netherlands withdrew its draft resolution on Wednesday – the move came as a result of pressure from Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, the New York Times reported.

An alternative draft resolution was prepared by Saudi Arabia, which is currently chairing the human rights council despite controversy over alleged vote-trading deals to ensure its place on the panel, rescinds a call for “an investigation into all cases of violations and abuses of human rights”.

Instead, the Saudi draft proposes that the government of Yemen, led by its ally President Hadi, establish its own commission of inquiry into alleged human rights abuses.

The United States, which has been providing tacit assistance to the Saudi-led military campaign, said last week that it “supports” calls for an investigation, but hoped to find “a consensus solution” agreed upon by all members of the human rights council.

The decision to cancel the planned inquiry comes just days after fighter planes thought to be part of the Saudi-led coalition bombed a wedding party in southern Yemen, killing more than 130 people.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/proposal-un-human-rights-probe-yemen-violations-dropped-after-saudi-pressure-1050822736

1.10.2015 – Carnegie Endowment

Saudi Arabia’s lack of clear goals in Yemen is worsening the security vacuum and potentially undermining the kingdom’s national security

Although the Yemen conflict looks more successful from a Saudi perspective than it did a few months ago, it is still a stalemate. A de facto southern entity had arguably been in existence since Yemeni unification in 1990, but the Saudi-led war in Yemen has deepened the dissolution of what remains of the Yemeni state and, in effect, created two capitals.

The current Saudi leadership has been more decisive regarding Yemen than other major foreign policy issues such as Syria and Iraq. Yet it is still not clear what the ultimate goal of the Saudi-led air war over its southern neighbor actually is. Over the six months since the Saudi-led coalition began its military campaign in March, even the official goals the Saudi military spokesman announces to the world’s media have changed. Saudi Arabia’s key stated aim is still to back Hadi as president and consolidate his control over the entire country—but it seems that the Kingdom now envisages a loose, albeit somehow unitary, state that accommodates but does not appease the Houthis or the secessionist Southerners with whom Riyadh has a temporary alignment.

The Saudi air force cannot even secure its primary goal, maintaining Hadi in power in either Aden or Sanaa. And if Saudi ground troop numbers in Yemen remain limited—likely given troops’ modest fighting experience and the domestic political backlash from casualties—this war could run on and on without defeating the Houthis, leaving them to pose a real danger to Saudi southern border security. Even if Emirati and Qatari troops, and possibly some Egyptian forces, join the limited numbers of Saudi troops, they will remain focused on defending Hadi and his allies rather than eliminating the Houthis as a military force.

Prior to the Arab Spring, Riyadh was close to the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islah Party. But in March 2014 King Abdullah declared the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Saudi Arabia’s public enemy number one, wherever they existed, seeming to portray the MB as an even greater threat than Iran. This helped solidify Saudi relations with the Egyptian military, which had forcibly taken over the reins of power from the Brotherhood. But applying a uniform anti-MB policy weakened Saudi Arabia’s weight in Yemen.

Salman’s short-sighted policies in Yemen are likely to persist. Riyadh will continue to “keep on keepin’ on”—both in this hot war in Yemen and with fighting several proxy conflicts at the same time. – by Neil Partrick

http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/?fa=61475

1.10.2015 – Human Rights Watch

Dispatches: Britain Backtracks on Justice for Yemen

The British government’s concern for the safety and well-being of the Yemeni people – already extremely feeble – reached a new low this week. In Geneva, Britain failed to actively promote a Dutch resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council that called for a credible international investigation into violations of international humanitarian law, the laws of war, by all sides to the Yemen conflict.

Yet three weeks ago, the British ambassador to the UN in Geneva was saying on Twitter: “The Dutch are going to run a Resolution on #Yemen in the UN Human Rights Council. We will support.” A week later, he reacted to UNICEF’s statement on the death of 466 children in Yemen since March by stating: “466 reasons why the Dutch resolution on #Yemen at #HRC30 is so important.” Britain’s positioning this week makes it pretty clear that ministers in London instructed diplomats in Geneva to back off.

In the absence of active support from Britain, but also from the United States and France, the Dutch draft was withdrawn, replaced by a deeply flawed Saudi/Arab Group text with no mention of an international investigation. The level of reporting will be similar to a year ago – ignoring the dramatic deterioration in the country. The conclusion is inescapable: high-level advocacy by the Saudis and others scuppered this very modest effort to start a process for justice and accountability for serious abuses in Yemen.

Britain has supported the Saudi-led coalition. This includes approving 37 export licenses for military goods for Saudi Arabia since March, alongside technical support and British liaison personnel in Saudi and coalition military headquarters.

Human Rights Watch and others have documented numerous coalition airstrikes that have caused indiscriminate or disproportionate civilian casualties in violation of the laws of war, some of which may amount to war crimes. But there is no evidence to suggest that Britain has meaningfully condemned or acted to prevent laws-of-war violations by coalition forces. In fact, British ministers and officials continue to assert – shamelessly and disingenuously – that they have no evidence of international humanitarian law violations.

Indeed, they go one step further. The Middle East minister, Tobias Ellwood, has said that “We have received assurances from the Saudis that they are complying with International Humanitarian Law and we continue to engage with them on those assurances.” In other words, the British government will uncritically accept claims that rights violations are not occurring from a government that routinely violates human rights.

A better response would surely be to champion a credible investigation of abuses by all sides to the conflict and hold perpetrators to account. The response of the British and other governments this week has denied justice and real accountability to the Yemeni victims of this war – by David Mepham, HRW UK Director

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/01/dispatches-britain-backtracks-justice-yemen

USA

1.10.2015 – The American Conservative

McCain’s Disgraceful Answers on Yemen

Lee Fang cornered some senators at the Washington Ideas Forum and pressed them to comment on Saudi war crimes in Yemen. The exchange with McCain is damning for the senator:

“They may be bombing civilians, which is actually not true,” McCain said, when asked about civilian casualties in Yemen.

“Civilians aren’t dying?” I asked.

No, they’re not [bold mine-DL],” the senator replied. “Oh, I’m sure civilians die in war. Not nearly as many as the Houthis have executed,” McCain continued, referring to the Shiite militia waging an insurgency against the Sunni government in Yemen.

Asked about the recent reports of Saudi forces bombing a wedding party in Yemen, McCain said, “I’m sure in wars terrible things happen and the Houthis however are an extremist group backed by the Iranians who are slaughtering Yemenis.”

As Fang correctly notes, U.N. officials have just this week stated that the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes are responsible for a large majority of the civilian deaths in Yemen. They have also called attention to the ruinous effects of the coalition’s blockade, which is bringing the country to the brink of famine. McCain’s dismissive comments about the thousands of civilians killed and wounded by Saudi-led, U.S.-backed bombing are appalling in both their ignorance and their contempt for innocent life. McCain is either completely uninformed about what is happening in Yemen and repeating the official Saudi line, or he is knowingly reciting dishonest pro-Saudi talking points. Either way, McCain has outdone himself here in denying coalition war crimes in Yemen.

Both sides in Yemen are guilty of war crimes, but it is simply a fact that the Saudi-led coalition has done significantly more harm to the country and caused more civilian deaths and more destruction than their enemies. One of the reasons that the Saudi-led war and its U.S. backing receive no scrutiny here in the U.S. is that so many of our political leaders are indifferent to or supportive of the campaign. McCain distinguishes himself as one of the most shameless and disgraceful supporters of the war on Yemen. I have had a pretty low opinion of McCain for a long time, but today it just sank a little lower.

McCain is a perfect example of the double standard that so-called “humanitarian” interventionists apply when it comes to military intervention and protecting the lives of civilians. If a hostile or pariah government commits human rights abuses, McCain is the first to demand that the U.S. “do something,” and if it is the U.S. or a client that does the same thing McCain will be first to make excuses and to shift the blame – by Daniel Larison

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/mccains-disgraceful-answers-on-yemen/

Kommentar: McCain redet wie die Saudis. Es gibt keine toten Zivilisten bei den saudischen Luftangriffen? Dann soll er sich die toten Huthi-Kämpfer einmal ansehen, etwa auf http://www.poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm. Erinnern Sie sich noch an die kriegshetzende Rolle, die dieser Mann auch in der Ukraine gespielt hat? Auch dort gab es jede Menge Tote durch den ständigen Beschuss durch die ukrainischen Truppen – wahrscheinlich sind diese Toten für McCain auch nicht existent.

1.10.2015 – Revolution Newspaper

Massacre in Yemen: Blessed by the U.S. Godfathers

On Tuesday, September 29, Obama chaired a United Nations meeting on “combating terrorism.” On September 28, key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia led a bombing attack that rained death on a wedding party in Yemen. By Tuesday afternoon, while Obama’s “anti-terrorism” conference was in full swing, a UN official reported that the gruesome toll of dead from the wedding bombing had reached 135.

The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly and ruthlessly murdered thousands of Yemeni civilians by bombing. (See “Mass Murder of Civilians in Yemen ‘Made in USA‘“). The U.S. has fully backed the Saudi-led onslaught and has sent over $90 billion in military equipment to the Islamic fundamentalist Saudi government in the last five years.

Saudi officials at first said the bombing of this wedding party was “a mistake”, within a few hours they were denying responsibility. But two things are certain. One is that the blood of thousands of dead Yemeni civilians is on the hands of Obama and other U.S. officials, who sponsor, advise, and supply the Saudi military and who provide diplomatic and political support to the thoroughly reactionary Saudi government. The horrific, ongoing massacres and devastation that have turned Yemen into a living hell are truly “made in the USA.” The other is that Michael Corleone and his family couldn’t hold a candle to the worldwide terror presided over by Barack Obama and other U.S. rulers, and to the crimes of the U.S. empire.

http://revcom.us/a/407/massacre-in-yemen-blessed-by-u-s-godfathers-en.html

Saudi-Arabien

2.10.2015 – New Europe

Al-Jubeir: Military intervention in Yemen requested from Yemeni government

As catastrophe in Yemen continues, Abdel Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia said at the United Nations General Assembly that the use of military force in Yemen by the oil-rich country and its allies was requested by the exiled Yemeni government.

Al-Jubeir said on 1st October that the use of military force by S. Arabia in Yemen had been “the last option” to fight the Shia rebels, known as Houthis, who overthrew the legal Yemeni government by force. The Foreign Minister said that his country conducted the intervention at the request of the Yemeni Government, following the seizure of the presidential palace by the Houthis in March.

Al-Jubeir said in his UN speech, that S. Arabia provides humanitarian support to Yemen. He also said that S.Arabia provides to Yemeni people employment in the oil-rich country as well as education and health care.

http://neurope.eu/article/al-jubeir-military-intervention-in-yemen-requested-from-yemeni-government/

Kommentar: Die übliche Propaganda, zum 647. mal wiedergekäut.

14.9.2015 – Huffington Post

Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, and Their Gift to Yale

The first thing you need to know about Saudi Arabia is that it is not a country but a financial and religious empire with a million poisonous tentacles stretching across both the West and the Muslim world. Its wealth is built upon the dirty oil under its sands, its legitimacy crafted upon an even dirtier political deal with a totalitarian religious cult known as Wahhabism.

The Saudi Royal Family treats the country as its private property. When the House of Saud conquered the territory known as Arabia, they named the country after themselves, hence the Saudi before the Arabia. It is more of a corporation than anything else, except The Family controls Islam's holiest cities and profits handsomely off them.

A Saudi billionaire also donated $10 million to Yale University and Yale Law School to establish a Center of Islamic Law and Civilization. The official announcement marked this as a great triumph. The establishment of such a center would have indeed been a victory worth celebrating had the money not originated from such a dubious source.

The Saudi billionaire-donor is named Abdullah Kamel. He is the CEO of the Dallah Albaraka Group, a Saudi conglomerate. Dallah Albaraka Group was a named defendant in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. Many of these suits were eventually dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but a suit against Dallah Avco, a subsidiary of Dallah Albaraka Group, is currently in the discovery stage. Dallah Avco is an aviation company with ties to the Saudi Air Force -- the same air force dropping bombs on Yemenis this very second, mutilating and killing thousands of them. Dallah Avco employed a man named Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi citizen who held a do-nothing job with the company while he was befriending and helping two of the 9/11 hijackers.

The Dallah AlBaraka Group and Abdullah Kamel undoubtedly operate with the blessings of the Saudi Royal Family, whose role in the 9/11 attacks is finally starting to be exposed.

But the Saudi-Yale deal is about more than Yale or 9/11, much more. It is about elite institutions constantly prostrating at the feet of the Saudi Royal Family. The Family has given Harvard and Georgetown $40 million. They have funded research at leading scientific institutions to maximize Saudi oil output. They have donated to leading foundations, including the Clinton Foundation. They have paid for fundamentalist imams in American prisons. From California to India, they have erected a mammoth infrastructure of Wahhabist madrassas which indoctrinate impressionable young men to the virtues of their cause.

In this last charge alone, the Saudi Royal Family's dollars are drenched in blood.

In more modern times, the Saudis have spent upwards of $100 billion building madrassas around the world. In Pakistan, once a relatively liberal country, the number of Saudi-funded fundamentalist madrassas went from 900 to 32,000 in over a decade. These madrassas did not produce engineers and doctors but religious fanatics. Some of the students in these madrassas became leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Simply put: You do not get today's Sunni-Shia war without the Saudi Royal Family exporting Wahhabism, an ideology with conflict and plunder inherent in its core.

The legacy of Saud and Wahhab continues, though now with a Las Vegas bent. Makkah--Islam's holiest city and the destination of the Hajj pilgrimage which attracts over 3 million Muslims annually--is surrounded by cranes and construction facilities building hotels and luxury shopping centers that loom over Islam's holiest sites. In recent years, the house of Khadijah, the Prophet's wife, was destroyed to build toilets. The house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, was razed to build a Hilton hotel. Over 98% of Arabia's religious heritage sites, and thus Islamic history, have been destroyed. If all of this sounds eerily like ISIS it is because ISIS and Saudi Arabia share the exact same ideology. The Saudis just happen to be our friends.

The man who gave Yale that $10 million check hails from the most totalitarian country on earth, second perhaps only to North Korea.

The thought-murdering ideology of Wahhabism criminalizes dissent before it can even germinate in individual consciences. The law is not supreme; the House of Saud is. The purpose of the law is not to serve and protect but to preserve the Family and destroy the minds and bodies of its enemies, beginning with the Shia.

The Yale gift makes a mockery of this rich history. Saudi money should not be funding any more programs in the United States or elsewhere because the money is stained with both blood and oil – by Omer Azis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omer-aziz/wahhabism-saudi-arabia-an_b_8131838.html

Großbritannien

1.10.2015 – British Government

Minister for the Middle East calls for political solution to Yemen conflict

Chairing a meeting at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) today, Tobias Ellwood said that all parties must get behind the UN political process to achieve lasting peace.

Speaking after the meeting, attended by representatives from Yemen, Bahrain, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, the US, the EU, GCC Secretariat, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen and OCHA, Mr Ellwood said:

“Yemen is at risk of suffering a prolonged conflict and descending into famine.

A political solution is the best way to achieve peace and stability. The international community fully supports UN efforts to bring all parties involved in this conflict together to negotiate a lasting ceasefire. All parties in the conflict must engage constructively and in good faith, and refrain from any action that would undermine attempts for a resolution through dialogue.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/minister-for-the-middle-east-calls-for-political-solution-to-yemen-conflict

Kommentar: Schwadronieren von einer politischen Lösung, weil man damit international wie national am besten aussieht und als „Guter“ erscheint, während man Waffen an die eine Kriegspartei liefert, das schlimmste Regime in den UN-Menschenrechtsrat schiebt und die Untersuchung von Kriegsverbrechen abblockt.

Terrorismus

30.9.2015 – National Yemen

Al Qaida hat einen Film veröffentlicht, der zeigt, wie völlig frei sie sich in Aden bewegen können

https://twitter.com/nationalyemen/status/649398818304200704

Sonstiges aus den USA

28.9.2015 – Consortium News

The Power of False Narrative

“Strategic communications” or Stratcom, a propaganda/psy-op technique that treats information as a “soft power” weapon to wield against adversaries, is a new catch phrase in an Official Washington obsessed with the clout that comes from spinning false narratives.

In this age of pervasive media, the primary method of social control is through the creation of narratives delivered to the public through newspapers, TV, radio, computers, cell phones and any other gadget that can convey information. This reality has given rise to an obsession among the power elite to control as much of this messaging as possible.

So, regarding U.S. relations toward the world, we see the State Department, the White House, Pentagon, NATO and other agencies pushing various narratives to sell the American people and other populations on how they should view U.S. policies, rivals and allies. The current hot phrase for this practice is “strategic communications” or Stratcom, which blends psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. into one mind-bending smoothie.

I have been following this process since the early 1980s when the Reagan administration sought to override “the Vietnam Syndrome,” a public aversion to foreign military interventions that followed the Vietnam War. To get Americans to “kick” this syndrome, Reagan’s team developed “themes” about overseas events that would push American “hot buttons.”

Tapping into the Central Intelligence Agency’s experience in psy-ops targeted at foreign audiences, President Ronald Reagan and CIA Director William J. Casey assembled a skilled team inside the White House led by CIA propaganda specialist Walter Raymond Jr.

From his new perch on the National Security Council staff, Raymond oversaw inter-agency task forces to sell interventionist policies in Central America and other trouble spots. The game, as Raymond explained it in numerous memos to his underlings, was to glue black hats on adversaries and white hats on allies, whatever the truth really was.

The fact that many of the U.S.-backed forces – from the Nicaraguan Contras to the Guatemalan military – were little more than corrupt death squads couldn’t be true, at least according to psy-ops doctrine. They had to be presented to the American public as wearing white hats. Thus, the Contras became the “moral equals of our Founding Fathers” and Guatemala’s murderous leader Efrain Rios Montt was getting a “bum rap” on human rights, according to the words scripted for President Reagan.

The scheme also required that anyone – say, a journalist, a human rights activist or a congressional investigator – who contradicted this white-hat mandate must be discredited, marginalized or destroyed, a routine of killing any honest messenger.

But it turned out that the most effective part of this propaganda strategy was to glue black hats on adversaries. Since nearly all foreign leaders have serious flaws, it proved much easier to demonize them – and work the American people into war frenzies – than it was to persuade the public that Washington’s favored foreign leaders were actually paragons of virtue.

Once the black hat was jammed on a foreign leader’s head, you could say whatever you wanted about him and disparage any American who questioned the extreme depiction as a “fill-in-the-blank apologist” or a “stooge” or some other ugly identifier that would either silence the dissenter or place him or her outside the bounds of acceptable debate .

The pattern that we have seen over and over is that once a propaganda point is scored against one of the neocon/liberal-hawk “enemies,” the failure to actually prove the allegation is not seen as suspicious, at least not inside the mainstream media, which usually just repeats the old narrative again and again, whether its casting blame on Putin for MH-17, or on Yanukovych for the sniper attack, or on Assad for the sarin gas attack.

Instead of skepticism, it’s always the same sort of “group think,” with nothing learned from the disaster of the Iraq War because there was virtually no accountability for those responsible.

Inside Official Washington, there appears to be little thought that the endless spinning, lying and ridiculing might dangerously corrode American democracy and erode any remaining trust the world’s public has in the word of the U.S. government. Instead, there seems to be great confidence that skilled propagandists can discredit anyone who dares note that the naked empire has wrapped itself in the sheerest of see-through deceptions– by Robert Parry

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/28/the-power-of-false-narrative/

11.2.2015 – Brave New Films (Film)

Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers

This is the story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.

1:57 Blackwater Security is the largest security firm in Iraq, with more than three hundred working and risk taking employees.

Meet Jerry Zovko, one of the four blackwater agents who died in an under armored and under guarded patrol vehicle in Falluja, one of the most dangerous cities in the region at the time.

7:49 Blackwater Security pulls at all its political strings in order to avoid retribution for the very much avoidable Felluja deaths. Preventing investigations, and changing opinions.

13:30 Private organizations in Iraq continue to abuse their power, hurting and destroying the lives of prisoners and citizens alike, but not without making a killing in profits.

21:16 Private organizations pay more than the US military, promising “minimal supervision”.

26:06 Corporate greed strikes again. TITAN Services, the lead provider of linguists for America’s Iraq operation hired untrained translators from unreliable backgrounds -making TITAN indirectly responsible for countless avoidable deaths.

28:47 United States turns a convenient blind eye to the continued abuse and killing of Iraqi civilians by US private contractors.

33:50 Private contractors are taking the work–and by extension experience– of trained soldiers. So why are they being denied the training and equipment they need to stay alive and safe?

42:00 Seven people were killed in an attack on a Halliburton fuel convoy. A convoy that had been cleared for transport across a no-drive zone. Is that how KBR values human life?

48:17 Halliburton continues to skimp on health requirements, supplying the it’s men and women with contaminated water, and snuffing out all the attempts that have been made to warn those at risk of infection.

52:22 Halliburton skimps on necessary safety and sanitation measures for its troops while massively overcharging them, and by extension the U.S Government.

55:02 How does Halliburton legally steal from the american government and american citizens? By wasting our money in huge amounts, burning expensive equipment, vehicles and even oil in front of Iraqi citizens.

1:01:48 It has been proven that Halliburton steals huge amounts of money from the U.S, so why haven’t we taken action?

1:06:15 Even today, 12 years after the withdrawal of troops and the end of the Iraq war, war profiteers still exist, and they will not go down without a fight. They have money, power and influence.
If we want change, it’s going to take more than just awareness, it’s going to take action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q8y-4nZP6o&list=PLQ9B-p5Q-YOPHEFZF9mVfQ8ay6rBhYcjq&index=1

9.8.2014 – People Power Television (Film)

Ray McGovern - The Real Agenda of the American Empire Part 1 and 2

Ray McGovern is a former CIA Analyst who worked for the Agency for 27 years, spanning the terms of seven presidencies. As an analyst on foreign policy, McGovern was in charge of the daily briefings for senior White House officials. McGovern has just returned this week from a visit to Edward Snowden in Russia, delivering to him the Sam Adams Corner-Brighteneer Candlestick Holder Award, in recognition of his courage in shining light on the NSA.

McGovern is well known for his attacks on what he sees as corruption in the CIA. He sees the damage done to the faith in intelligence work as profound, believing it will take years to correct. He hopes to see the CIA become again an entity independent from political administration. Since retiring, McGovern has become a constant presence on the national stage as an activist and renowned expert on the inner workings of American Empire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia_uggfaI4M and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORdVQIlI1t8

Neue Artikel zum Nachlesen 1-27:

https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose oder

http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm

Dieser Beitrag gibt die Meinung des Autors wieder, nicht notwendigerweise die der Redaktion des Freitag.
Geschrieben von

Dietrich Klose

Vielfältig interessiert am aktuellen Geschehen, zur Zeit besonders: Ukraine, Russland, Jemen, Rolle der USA, Neoliberalismus, Ausbeutung der 3. Welt

Dietrich Klose

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