Let Them Eat Bombs
Will Donald Trump Escalate the Devastating War
and Hunger in Yemen?
By
Medea Benjamin
March
30, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- This week marks the beginning of year three
of the Saudi-led military intervention in the
civil war in Yemen, an intervention that has
resulted in an epic tragedy of destruction and
starvation. Tens of thousands of Yemenis marked
the occasion by pouring into the streets of the
capital, Sanna, to call for an end to the Saudi
airstrikes that have been supported by the US
military. But instead of pushing to jumpstart
stalemated negotiations to end the conflict, the
Trump administration seems anxious to get more
deeply involved in the war by supporting an
attack on the key port of Hodeidah and resuming
halted weapons sales.
Greater US support for the Saudis, who
intervened in Yemen to try to stop the
Iran-friendly Houthis from coming to power, is
part of Trump's "get tough" policy on Iran. But
further escalation of the war in Yemen,
particularly an offensive to seize Hodeidah from
the Houthi rebels, will mean even more death and
hunger for the Yemeni people.
Jeremy Konyndyk, who
was the director of foreign disaster assistance
at US AID under Obama, said a serious disruption
of the Hodeidah port could well "tip the country
into famine."
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has requested for
US support for the Hodeidah attack, a request
that will reportedly come
before Trump's national security advisors this
week. The Obama administration, which had been
helping the Saudi bombing campaign from the
beginning with weapons and logistics, did not
support this particular attack because they
thought it would exacerbate the humanitarian
crisis since Hodeideh has been the main port of
entry for humanitarian supplies.
On March 23, a bipartisan group of ten senators,
including Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Marco
Rubio (R-FL), urged
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to
launch an urgent diplomatic effort to help avert
a pending famine in Yemen and three other
nations, and included a specific call to keep
the Hodeidah port open to humanitarian aid.
Yemen
imports 90 percent of its food, and the war,
including a Saudi naval blockade and a previous
bombing of cranes at the Hodeidah port where all
the large grain silos are located, has made it
difficult to import sufficient food and
humanitarian supplies. Food shipments into
Hodeidah have already fallen precipitously, with
only a few ships arriving each week, compared to
dozens before the war, and more shipping lines
are pulling out due to the growing risks.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
says speed is of the essence to prevent a
tragedy of massive proportions. "Words cannot
capture the extent of the suffering of the
Yemeni people," said
ICRC Middle East director Robert Mardini.
"Their resilience has reached a breaking point."
Twenty people are dying every day, many of
curable diseases because only 45 percent of the
health facilities are functioning."
A UNICEF
report shows
over 400,000 Yemeni children suffering from
severe acute malnutrition, and a child dying
every 10 minutes from malnutrition, diarrhea and
respiratory-tract infections.
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Jamie McGoldrick, Humanitarian Coordinator for
Yemen put
the tragedy in human terms.
"Fisherman can't fish, farmers can't farm, civil
servants don't get paid…people having to make
life and death decisions: Do you feed your
children or do you pay for medical treatment for
your child? And that's a daily call for many
families."
UN and private relief organizations have been
mobilizing to respond to the crisis. In
February, the UN launched a humanitarian appeal
calling for $2.1 billion. As of March, however,
only 7 percent of the appeal had been funded and
the UN Refugee Agency has received less
than half the funds it
needs.
While
the wealthy nations must open their wallets to
feed starving Yemenis, the only way to end the
humanitarian crisis is to end the conflict. This
would mean a ceasefire, a push for negotiations
and in the case of the US, an end to weapons
sales to the Saudis.
President Obama supported the Saudis with
massive weapons sales during his eight years in
office. But just before leaving office in
December 2016, when faced with increased
pressure from human rights groups and lawmakers
after a Saudi strike on a Yemeni funeral killed
at least 140 people, President Obama put a halt
of the sale of precision-guided munitions to the
Saudis.
Trump's State Department already gave notice to
Congress that they have approved a resumption of
these sales. If there is no objection from
Congress and President Trump signs off on the
deal, the deal will go through. Amnesty
International urged
Trump not to
sign off on the sales, saying that new US arms
could be used to devastate civilian lives in
Yemen and could "implicate your administration
in war crimes."
This is
not the time to escalate the war. Unless an
urgent effort is made to find a political
solution and get massive food aid into the
country, almost 7 million people in this
war-torn nation will face starvation. Stopping
on attack on Hodeidah and making sure the port
is secure for food shipments is a critical first
step.
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK,
is author of Kingdom
of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
Donald
Trump's Shift On Yemen Risks Plunging The
Country Into Famine:
President Donald Trump may be on the brink of
sparking a full-blown famine in Yemen ? all
because of a subtle shift in messaging that
risks effectively cutting off humanitarian
relief to the war-torn nation.
CENTCOM chief: 'Vital US interests at
stake' in Yemen;
The
White House is reportedly weighing deeper
military involvement in the Yemeni slaughter
alongside Middle Eastern allies
