Amnesty
Inbternational bracht deze maand een rapport uit over de situatie in
Jemen, getiteld ‘God Knows If He’s Alive’. Hierin aandacht voor de
vreselijke martelingen, moorden en verdwijningen onder verantwoording van de Saoedische coalitie, die door dik en dun gesteund wordt door
de VS (die ook de regie voert over de bombardementen en veel van de
gevechten op de grond…) en Groot-Brittannië (verantwoordelijk voor: militair advies, leveringen van wapens, munitie en militaire hardware als vliegend en rollend oorlogstuig…..)
Mensen
zijn wanhopig op zoek naar familieleden die gevangen werden genomen
door de barbaarse Saoedische coalitie, waar de Verenigde Arabische
Emiraten, ofwel VAE (in Engels: UAE >>United Arab Emirates),
veel van de geheime gevangenissen in Jemen controleren…… Er is een netwerk van geheim gevangenissen in de door de Saoedische coalitie gecontroleerd gebied, waar mensen worden gemarteld en vermoord en van waaruit ze
‘verdwijnen….’* (‘tijd voor het koningspaar, Rutte en Blok om een
bezoek te brengen aan deze reli-fascistische gewelddadige koninklijke dictatuur staatjes….’)
Lees
de verschrikkingen waarmee de sjiieten in Jemen te maken hebben,
alsof het land nog niet genoeg lijdt onder het enorme aantal oorlogsmisdaden begaan door de moorddadige Saoedische
coalitie, die zoals gezegd bezig is met de uitvoering van een genocide in Jemen…… Laat je nooit meer wijsmaken
dat Iran vecht in Jemen, dan wel wapens levert aan dat land, een
vervloekte leugen, die de zogenaamde onafhankelijke media in het
westen, plus een groot deel van de westerse politici, minstens 1 keer per dag herhalen……….
Published
on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 by Common
Dreams
‘God
Only Knows’: The Tortured, Killed, or Forcibly Disappeared People of
Yemen
US
citizens bear responsibility for the US government’s support of
these crimes
By Kathy
Kelly
“If
they would just confirm to us that my brother is alive, if they would
just let us see him, that’s all we want. But we can’t get anyone
to give us any confirmation. My mother dies a hundred times every
day. They don’t know what that is like.”
In
July of 2018, an Amnesty
International report
entitled “God
Knows If He’s Alive,”documented
the plight of dozens of families in southern Yemen whose loved ones
have been tortured, killed, or forcibly disappeared by Yemeni
security forces reporting to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The
UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that, with vital US support,
has been bombarding and blockading famine and disease-ravaged Yemen
for three brutal years. The disappearances, and torture, can sadly be
laid at the doorstep of the United States.
One
testimonial after another echoes the sentiments of a woman whose
husband has been held incommunicado for more than two years.
“Shouldn’t they be given a trial?” she asked. “Why else are
there courts? They shouldn’t be disappeared this way – not only
are we unable to visit them, we don’t even know if they are dead or
alive.”
The
report describes bureaucratic farces in which families beg for
information about their loved ones’ whereabouts from Yemeni
prosecutors and prison officials, but the families’ pleas for
information are routinely met with silence or intimidation.
The
families are appealing to an unelected Yemeni exile government whose
president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, (when “elected” president in
2012, he was the only candidate) generally resides in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia. The UAE has, so far, supported Hadi’s claim to govern
Yemen. However, the Prosecutor General of Hadi’s government, as
well as other officials, told Amnesty International the government of
Yemen has no control over operations “spearheaded by the UAE and
implemented by the Yemeni forces it backs.”
When
months and years pass and families of people who are missing still
have no news about their loved ones, some try to communicate
unofficially with prison guards or with former detainees who have
been released from various detention sites. They repeatedly hear
stories about torture of detainees and rumors about prisoners who
died in custody.
The
Amnesty report implicates UAE-backed local forces in Yemen, as well
as the UAE military, in the crimes of torture and other ill-treatment
of detainees. Of seven former or current detainees interviewed by
Amnesty, five said they were subjected to these abuses. “All seven
witnessed other detainees being tortured,” the report adds,
“including one who said he saw a detainee held in a cell next to
him being carried away in a body bag after he had been repeatedly
tortured.”
In
June 2017, Human
Rights Watch and
the Associated Press exposed a network of clandestine prisons
operated by the UAE in Yemen. Their reports described ghastly torture
inflicted on prisoners and noted that senior US military leaders knew
about torture allegations. Yet, a year later, there has been no
investigation of these allegations by the Yemeni government, by the
UAE, or by the UAE’s most powerful ally in the Yemen war, the
United States.
“It is shocking, to say the least,”
the Amnesty report states, “that one year after a network of secret
prisons operated by the UAE and the Yemeni forces it backs was
exposed, these facilities continue to operate and that there has not
been a serious investigation undertaken into credibly documented
violations, including systemic torture in custody.” The Amnesty
report calls on the US to “facilitate independent oversight,
including by the US Congress, over US military or intelligence
cooperation with Yemeni and UAE forces involved in detention
activities in Yemen.” It further calls for investigating any
involvement of US military or intelligence personnel in
detention-related abuses in Yemen.
To
date, the US continues selling weapons to the UAE and to its
coalition partner, Saudi Arabia, despite several Congressional
debates and a few increasingly close votes demanding a full or
partial end to US weapons sales considering the terrible practices
being carried out as part of the Yemen war.
Since
March of 2015, a coalition of nine countries led by Saudi Arabia and
the UAE and relying on crucial U.S. logistical aid, has bombarded
Yemen while blockading its major port, despite Yemen’s status as
one of the poorest countries in the world. Targeting transportation,
electrical plants, sewage and sanitation facilities, schools,
mosques, weddings and funerals, the vicious bombing has led to
starvation, displacement, and the spread of disease
including cholera.
On
the same day that the Amnesty report was released, Saudi
Arabia’s King
Salman (Salman al-Saoed) pardoned
“all military men, who have taken part in the Operation Restoring
Hope of their respective military and disciplinary penalties, in
regard of some rules and disciplines.” It seems likely that the
Amnesty report precipitated this royal decree**.
Along
with three countries in North Africa’s “Sahel” desert region,
Yemen has been cited as part of the worst famine crisis in the
70-year history of the UN. In the past three years of aerial and
naval attacks, Yemen’s key port of Hodeidah has remained partially
or fully closed despite the country’s vital need for relief
supplies. And, while Yemenis suffer the chaos and despair
characteristic of war, the Saudis and UAE refer to the war as
“Operation Restoring Hope.”
Many
thousands of Yemenis, subjected to consistent bombing and threats of
starvation and famine, have fled their homes. Many seek refuge out of
Yemen. For instance, close to 500 Yemenis have traveled nearly 500
miles to reach a visa-free port on South Korea’s Jeju Island. On
July 21, during an international
phone call hosted
by young friends in Afghanistan, listeners heard Kaia, a resident of
Jeju Island, describe the “Hope School.” She explained how she
and several other young people are trying to help welcome Yemenis now
living in their village of Gangjeong.
The young people are already committed to peacefully resisting U.S.
and South Korean military destruction of their shoreline and
ecosystem. Now, they have started an informal school so Yemeni and
South Korean residents can learn from one another. Small groups
gather for conversational exchanges translated from Arabic to English
to Korean. Many South Koreans can recall, in their own familial
history, that seven million Koreans fled Japanese occupation of their
land. Their Korean forebears relied on hospitality from people in
other lands.
The Catholic Bishop of the Jeju diocese, Monsignor
Kang Woo-il,
called on Koreans to embrace Yemeni refugees, labeling it a crime
against human morality to shut the door on refugees and migrants. Kaia’s
account of the newly launched school describes an effort that
truthfully involves restoring hope. The cynical designation of Saudi
and UAE led war in Yemen as “Operation Restoring Hope” creates an
ugly smokescreen that distracts from the crucial need to investigate
war crimes committed in Yemen today.
US
citizens bear responsibility for the US government’s support of
these crimes.
The
Yemenis mean us no harm and have committed no crime against us.
Congressional votes have come quite close, with bipartisan support,
to ending US participation in and support for the Saudi and Emirati
led Coalition war against Yemen. Ending arms sales to the UAE and
Saudi monarchies, supported by both sides of the aisle, will signal
to the UAE and Saudi Arabia the US will no longer assist their
efforts to prolong war and siege in Yemen. On cue from the
initiative and energy shown by young South Koreans, people in the US
can and should organize campaigns to educate their communities,
educational institutions, and media outlets about the plight of
people in Yemen. Conscious of the nightmare faced by Yemenis whose
husbands, brothers, fathers and sons have been disappeared or
detained by shadowy military enforcers, US people can work toward
implementing each recommendation in Amnesty’s devastating report.
This
work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
============================
* Je hoeft er niet van op te kijken als een aantal van deze gevangenen is afgevoerd naar de illegale VS gevangenis in Guantanamo Bay, een gevangenis waar het gevangen houden van mensen die niet eens zijn aangeklaagd, al een heel smerige vorm van marteling is, dit nog naast het martelen van gevangenen, wat nog steeds zou gebeuren in dat VS concentratiekamp (want dat is het)……….
** Zie: ‘Saoedi-Arabië geeft toe in Jemen gruwelijke oorlogsmisdaden te hebben begaan…. ‘ (en daarmee is ten overvloede nog eens duidelijk gemaakt dat ook de VS meewerkt aan oorlogsmisdaden en een genocide in Jemen…..)
Zie ook:
‘Genocide Jemen: ‘eindelijk ontdekt’ door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU‘
‘Saoedische aanval op schoolbus in Jemen: 43 kinderen vermoord……‘
‘Bom waarmee schoolbus in Jemen werd getroffen is van VS makelij‘
‘Genocide Jemen: ‘eindelijk ontdekt’ door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU‘
‘8 miljoen Jemenieten, inclusief een groot aantal kinderen, dreigen te sterven van de honger……..‘
‘Door VS geregisseerd bombardement op ziekenhuis Hodeida >> 50 doden……‘
‘Jemen: de vergeten genocide en haar kinderslachtoffers………‘
‘Congres VS geeft akkoord voor verdere steun aan de Saoedische genocide in Jemen……‘
‘VS vecht in Jemen, Pentagon loog weer eens >> Congres eindelijk ‘wakker’‘
‘Saoedi-Arabië vermoordde minstens 20 bruiloftsgangers in Jemen‘
‘VS doet planning van de Saoedische genocide in Jemen…..‘
‘Jemen: BBC propaganda voor genocide door Saoedische coalitie……..‘
‘Mike Pompeo (ex-CIA, VS min. van BuZa en ‘christen’) liegt openlijk over genocide in Jemen‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)