EU lawmaker: EU silent on ongoing Saudi-led 'genocide in Yemen
An independent member of the European Parliament (EP) from Ireland says Saudi Arabia and its allies continue their genocide in Yemen without a word of protest from the European Union or the so-called human rights defenders.
Addressing an open session of the EP on Wednesday, Mick Wallace said Saudi Arabia launched its war on the Yemeni people at a time when the Ansarullah movement was trying to get the country out of an economic crisis caused by the former Yemeni government’s subservience to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Wallace said, "Foreign powers have been trying to carve up, exploit, and pauperize Yemen and its people" for years, adding that former Saudi-backed Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, "dutifully followed the IMF and World Bank reform programs for two decades until the people of Yemen had enough.”
Saleh stepped down after months of protests and handed power to his deputy, Mansour Hadi, as part of a deal backed by the US and Saudi Arabia.
“[Former US President Barack] Obama helped install the puppet Hadi, promised change and elections. What Yemen got was more austerity, privatization and land grabs by foreign investors,” Wallace said.
During his three years in office, Hadi was constantly under fire from opposition groups for widespread corruption in his administration and also for failing to thwart the rising threat of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
“Ansarullah put a stop to the plunder in 2014. They negotiated a deal with Hadi and others, making elections the top priority, but the Saudi-led coalition went to war to stop the prospects of peace, power-sharing and independence in Yemen,” the EU lawmaker added.
In September 2014, Ansarullah and Hadi’s former regime signed a UN-brokered power sharing agreement. In early 2015, Hadi resigned and later fled to Aden and then to Saudi Arabia. However, he rescinded his resignation one month later.
Then, he fled to Saudi Arabia along with most of his officials and declared Aden as their new capital. However, they have spent most of their time in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
The Ansarullah movement took over state matters after the resignation and escape of Hadi, which had thrown the country into a state of uncertainty and threatened a total security breakdown in Yemen amid rising AQAP insurgency.
Wallace noted that the Saudi-led aggressors have killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and committed brutal crimes with Western help.
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