The Malign Hand of British Foreign Policy in Yemen

John Wight 

Britain's slavish support for the Saudi kleptocracy has long been a badge of shame, given Riyadh's contempt for anything approximating to human rights and democracy, and given the British establishment's assertion that the UK represents a redoubtable pillar of both. It is a relationship involving glaring hypocrisy of a kind perfected by those who wear the mantle of moral rectitude while engaging in the most immoral of acts. Its most damning evidence where London is concerned is the extent to which UK arms companies, with the connivance and support of Downing Street, are continuing to sell weapons to the Saudis that are being used to slaughter and maim civilians in Yemen.

Recently, the UN Human Rights Council — which by the way no one should forget is a body upon which Saudi Arabia sat as recently as 2016 at a time when its war against Yemen had been raging for over a year — verified that more 5000 civilians have been killed over the course of the conflict, which began in 2015, though most analysts consider the number to be significantly more. Even more egregious than the number of civilians killed, is the epidemic of cholera that has ensued, with 540,000 people thought to be suffering with the disease. This is further exacerbated by the alarming revelation that up to 7 million Yemeni civilians, out of a country with a population of 20 million, are currently under threat of famine.

Yet despite this dire catalogue of human suffering, the British government evinces no evidence — indeed not even a scintilla of evidence — of limiting, much less ending, its lucrative and deadly trade with the Saudis.

As these words are being written, the largest arms fair in the world is underway in London. Between 12-15 September at the city's Excel Arena, 1,600 ‘exhibitors' from 54 countries have been displaying their wares, comprising some of the most technologically advanced and lethal weaponry in the world today, to 36,000 visitors and delegates.

The organizers of the event in London, Defence and Security Equipment International(DSEI), claims on its website that it "brings together the global defense and security sector to innovate and share knowledge." It is of course highly unlikely that among the attractions on offer over the course of the event will be a film of the carnage and human suffering in Yemen courtesy of some of the weaponry on display.

Among those visiting this year's event was Britain Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, who found himself being accosted by a news reporter from the UK's ITV News channel. Appearing most uncomfortable at the news reporter's intrusion as he was walking through the event surrounded by a coterie of minders and flunkies, Mr Fox point blank refused to comment on the legality and morality of Britain's complicity in the abject suffering of Yemeni civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, in Yemen the Saudi Arabia-led coalition… supported by the United States and United Kingdom…has unlawfully attacked homes, markets, hospitals, schools, civilian businesses, and mosques." Yet in July of this year we learnedthat after a Saudi airstrike on a wedding in Yemen, in which scores of people were killed, including women and children, the British government approved a further £283 million in arms sales to its ally in Riyadh. Though Saudi Arabia is the UK arms industry's biggest customer, the US remains the largest supplier of arms to the Wahhabi theocracy. It is eminently significant that 16 years on from the terrorist atrocity of 9/11, Saudi Arabia remains Washington's closest Middle East ally outwith the State of Israel.

Though no evidence has emerged since 9/11 that directly implicates the Saudi government, there remain serious questions and suspicions. Indeed those suspicions and questions have prompted the families of 850 people killed in the 9/11 atrocity to file a lawsuit against the Saudis, alleging that they were actively involved in the terrorist attack.

By this point it is impossible for London and Washington to escape the stench of mendacity and hypocrisy over their relationship with Riyadh. The extreme and rigid interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, which underpins the country and its state institutions, is well nigh indistinguishable from that which fuels Daesh and other extremist Salafi-jihadi terror groups in the region. It takes us into the murky world of realpolitik in which the rapacious drive for profits on the part of UK and US arms companies, supported and provided with diplomatic protection by their respective governments, has only undermined the security of their citizens as the regularity with which terrorist attacks have occurred on the streets of British and American cities in recent years has increased.

When Nelson Mandela, a man who throughout this life knew what injustice looked and felt like, opined that "to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others," he described the precise opposite of British foreign policy. In this regard, the people of Yemen are only the latest in a long of people around the world to experience its malignant hand.