Politics

This post is a short version that contains parts copied-and-pasted from the research paper: (Un)Noticing Yemen: The Forgotten War in Yemen and Critical Genocide Studies.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2346405#d1e237

𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙍𝙊𝘿𝙐𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

What is happening in Yemen is not considered a genocide by genocide scholars. And it has received relatively scant attention from the media despite its hundreds of thousands of victims.

The humanitarian catastrophe, the responsibility of the Saudis and the decisive role played by the US are all typically ignored. Perhaps the most important way mainstream media reporting has prevented actual knowledge of the consequences of the war in Yemen (other than simply not reporting it) is the number of victims they have cited. The constant formula they used was “over 10,000,” which was a vast underestimate. It is quite astonishing that this number was still being cited as late as November 2018.

𝘽𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙔𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙞 𝘾𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙡 𝙒𝙖𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙪𝙥 𝙩𝙤 𝙎𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙞 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

The Houthi movement (also known as the Ansar Allah) began in the 1990s as a reaction to the marginalisation of the Zaydi (a Shi'a sect) and encroachment of Saudi Wahhabism in the northern Saada province. The Houthis identify as Zaydi Shias, descendents of the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam's family.

The Houthis radicalised, especially after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Since 2004, they staged uprisings in an effort to win greater autonomy for their heartland province of Saada in Northern Yemen.

They consolidated control of Saada governorate after winning a series of battles since the 2011 uprising and forced President Saleh to step down. And beginning in July 2014, they inflicted defeats on rival tribal and militia groups backed by the leading Sunni Islamist party, Islah, in neighbouring Amran province.

President Hadi decided to cut fuel subsidies by ninety per cent in August 2014, which hit the country's poor. This enraged the Houthis who overtook the capital city, Sana'a, and then kept advancing to the south and west, until a Saudi-led military coalition intervened against them in March 2015.

From August 2015, the Saudi coalition's war strategy changed and they began hitting civilian and economic targets including water, transport, food production and distribution, as well as hospitals. When the Houthis still refused to surrender, the coalition fully sealed off the entire country and waged and economic war. This was devastating since Yemen imports 70% of its food.

The UN Development Program estimated at the end of 2021, that 377,000 Yemenis had died due to effects of the war including 154,000 that died as direct result of combat violence while the rest the result of hunger and preventable diseases. Of the total deaths, 259,000 were children under the age of five. These numbers are an absolute minimum as many Yemenis have died in their houses and not been officially counted.

𝘼𝙧𝙜𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚^

The Saudis could have easily predicted the impacts of their intervention on civilians. In 2018, a UN Panel of Experts determined a report that the Saudi blockade is essentially using the threat of starvation as an instrument of war. Almost a third of all coalition airstrikes have been aimed at civilian targets, especially farms.

Another report explains....the coalition has repeatedly attacked farms, water facilities, fishing boats and equipment, food markets, food and water storage and production facilities..... this indicates an intent not only to destroy food and livestock but also any possibility of farming in the future.

It is inconceivable that the members of the Saudi-led coalition don't understand this. Therefore, they are deliberately continuing a war strategy that is killing hundreds of thousands, stunting the growth of an untold number of children and causing physical and mental harm to millions more.

𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙚𝙡 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚

Mass atrocities committed by the West, or by its allies with its support, receive relatively little attention and often are distorted in a way that minimizes the atrocities and especially the West’s critical complicity........ it is as if a Soviet commissar had instructed the media: ‘Concentrate on the victims of enemy powers and forget about the victims of friends’.
Yemen is not considered to be a genocide because liberals portray the mass killing of civilians as justified based on legitimate security concerns rather than on a racially/ethnically based intent to destroy a group, such as the extermination attempt of various ethnic groups perpetrated by the Nazis. In other words, because the Saudis have never announced their hatred of the Yemenis along ethnic/religious lines, their mass killing of Yemeni civilians remains outside the way how genocide is normally imagined by genocide scholars. Also, the way the Saudis have conducted their attacks appears to be disorganised, and there is little convincing evidence of a deliberate attempt of a wholesale destruction of Yemeni people and their culture. This essentially allows Saudi to cite the threat of Houthis, as Iranian proxies, to justify the unintended deaths of large numbers of civilians in an otherwise legitimate war.

Most victims have died of hunger and diseases rather than direct killing. This is a theme that critical genocide studies have long recognized: mass atrocities gain much more attention when the killings happen in a “spectacular,” direct way, rather than indirect ways.

Western support for the war has been extensive, whether in arms deals, supporting personnel and maintenance to the Saudi Armed Forces, or political support, particularly in the resolutions at the UN Security Council....those profiting from and committing hundreds of billions to a war on Yemenis would prefer that little to no attention be spent on its atrocities.

The fact is that the conduct of all parties has been brutal, and the Houthis, in particular, have committed various mass atrocities such as indiscriminate attacks in areas with civilian populations; using landmines across the country, which resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and many more injuries; deliberately destroying civilian houses, and among many other things, looting humanitarian aid and creating a police state.

Beyond this, the Houthis bear a primary responsibility for initiating the current civil war in Yemen, possibly with the goal of reinstating the Zaidi imamate, possibly across the entire country.

Therefore, the conflict in Yemen is not how genocides are typically conceived with one side being much stronger than the other, and thus scholars are reluctant to agree that it is genocide. Although the Saudis dominate the air and the sea, the Houthis are the ones who are territorially dominant, especially since it is the Houthis who have emerged victorious and have also committed atrocities. And there are issues with charging both Yemen and Saudi with genocide because this would conflict with the purpose of the Genocide Convention, which was to protect national minorities from crimes based on ethnic hatred, which is different from when perpetrators kill people, belonging to their own ethnic group, for different reasons. Therefore, the crimes of the Houthis can legally be described as war crimes and crimes against humanity but not genocide.

It could be argued that since Houthis claim to be Zaidi descendants of the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi wasallam's family that it makes them distinct enough ethnically and religiously from their Yemeni victims to warrant treating their actions in terms of genocide. However, stretching the concept of genocide to the point that every single atrocity becomes a genocide, will not only make the genocide convention meaningless, but it will also lead many countries to avoid making any commitments for effective genocide prevention.

𝙍𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙔𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙎𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙞 𝘼𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝘼𝙧𝙖𝙗 𝙀𝙢𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨 (𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙙 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙥𝙨) 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙨......a UN report in 2019 said that around eighty per cent of all Yemen's imports flow through two ports [Al-Hudaydah and Saleef] and about two-thirds of Yemen's population live in the areas directly served by the Sana'a airport,” the closures of which, by the Saudi coalition, significantly increases the risk of large-scale famine in Yemen.

Aleksandar Vucic Concedes defeat in SERBIA’S Parliamentary ELECTION, marking HISTORICAL Political Shift.

SERBIA’S YOUNG GENERATION JUST MADE HISTORY IN SERBIA 🇷🇸 👏

Wild scenes of celebration in Belgrade as Vučić concedes Serbian election – Europe live
Student List movement projected to have 138 seats in the new parliament, well clear of the 126 required for majority, to Vučić’s 104

The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat on Sunday in an election that pitted him and his Right-Wing Party against a DIVERSE STUDENT LED OPPOSITION MOVEMENT that spent two years protesting his government.

Aslamwalikum TO ALL

A Humble Request 🙏

ISRAEL ELECTIONS are on Tuesday 27 October

PLEASE PLEASE PRAY THAT SATANYAHU DOES NOT GET RE ELECTED 🙏🤲🤲🙏

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UdfckdXJQ2s&is=cYtsPx2Nr0vXwEer

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1125769299942878/?hpir=1

Who was behind the Turkey/Saudi/Pakistan coalition and why?

They know the cases against Imran Khan Sahib have no merit. 🤬
They know that if free and fair Elections were held, Khan Sb would win with an overwhelming majority.✊️💪
‎They know that if that happened, they would be held to account for their a
Anti-Pakistan Policies and Actions. 🤬🤬
And they know he will never make a deal, so they’re trying to make the nation forget Khan Sahib.🤬🤬
‎Not Going To Happen!✊️✊️

#PakistanUnderAsimLaw #EnoughIsEnoughFreeKhan
#ReleaseLeaderOfPakistan

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