The most Hidden stories of 2017 #3: Western Bombs In Yemen

Too many vital stories remained under the radar. They should be on the front page every week, but they hardly ever get a column in the back of the paper. This has to do with power and how media works these days. I want to bring up these stories, with a positive and a negative story each time. In this episode: western bombs in Yemen. Feel free to resteem these stories if you think they are important.

On December 27, 2017, 68 Yemeni civilians were killed in attacks by the Saudi Arabian army on a busy market and on a farm where 16 members of the same family were killed. What is missing in the news coverage of these facts is the essential information that, in addition to the US, two European states are directly involved by supplying the weapons deployed there.

As early as 28 January 2016, in an opinion in The Guardian, Owen Jones pointed out that his country not only supplies weapons to Saudi Arabia but also has local advisers to assist them in the attacks on Yemen. Officially, they are only there to train the Saudi army in the use of British weapons.

At the end of 2017, the number of Yemenites killed exceeds 13,000, of which at least half are unarmed civilians. 130 medical posts were destroyed in what Médecins Sans Frontières called "a total negation of the rules of the law of war". The real figures are probably much higher in this country where almost all essential infrastructure, emergency services and communication were destroyed.

More than ten percent of the population is on the run internally. 80 percent of the population depends on foreign humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, several European countries have agreed to give Saudi Arabia a seat in the UN Human Rights Council.

Already under Prime Minister David Cameron, the British government supplied more than 6 billion euros in weaponry. This policy continues under his successor Theresa May. In July 2017, May approved a new delivery worth 318 million euros. It was about the sale of spare parts for bombers, new air-to-surface missiles, parts for aircraft guns, heavy rifles and related software. Saudi Arabia is the biggest customer of the British arms industry, long before the conflict with Yemen started and that is now continuing.

Six months earlier, a British rocket hit on a funeral in the capital Sana'a. At the ceremony, victims of previous attacks were commemorated. 140 people died in this attack on a building that had no military interest, nor was it near military installations. The large concentration of people was enough reason for the Saudi Air Force to strike.

Of the British tabloids you can traditionally expect them to grotesquely mislead readers about foreign policy. In this way they prevent the British from knowing what is happening in their name in Yemen. The better media, however, also participate. Their image of greater reliability makes that disinformation worse. They do not do that by lying about the facts, but by framing them in a context in which their own responsibility is concealed or minimized.

That disinformation works. According to a March 2017 poll, 49 percent of Britons have no idea that a war is going on in Yemen, let alone that they would know that their own government is involved. In stark contrast, 84 percent of all Britons know about the war in Syria, which does not mean that they know the exact details of that conflict.

Even less well known is that thousands of Somali's are also victims in this war. They had fled over the Red Sea from their own country in the years before and are now detained in another war zone. For more than 80 percent of the population there is a threat of famine. The UN calls the situation the worst humanitarian crisis of the moment. The cholera epidemic is expanding further due to the total lack of health facilities. It is estimated that more than 1 million people have already been infected (Yemen has 28 million inhabitants). More than 2,200 affected people have already died from the disease.

The report gives the impression that the war crimes are committed by both sides. That completely ignores the fact that the Yemeni people are fighting a very unequal battle on their own territory against foreign force majeure.

To emphasize the so-called neutral-objective balance in news coverage, recent indignant commentary was given that Houthi rebels had fired one rocket that would have been intended for the royal palace in the Saudi capital Riyadh. In addition, neighborhoods with many people could have been touched. The missile never reached his goal because Saudi air defense could intercept and destroy them with (by the US supplied) devices and software. Yemen, on the other hand, has no defense against far-away ground rockets, nor against bombers.

In addition to the daily bombing, a coalition of neighboring countries headed by Saudi Arabia also creates a sea blockade, which means that the country can only introduce much-needed help from abroad. According to Iona Craig, an independent on-site journalist, there is a sophisticated strategy behind the bombing and rocket attacks on Yemen. "Targeted attacks are carried out at places and regions where food is produced, stored, collected and distributed. Farmers at work on their fields are a permanent target, as are fishermen on the coasts. Tens of thousands of Yemenis regularly argue against this Saudi blockade and Western involvement in this."

To be indignant about conflicts of opponents and enemies, which you cannot do anything about, is easy and comfortable. You do not make enemies in your own midst. Doing the same with crimes of your allies and your own government, however, would make a big difference. By denouncing them you can have an impact, you could win the public support. Apparently the media does not think this is necessary

If you are interested, you can read the story of the BDS movement here:
https://steemit.com/palestine/@keysa/the-most-hidden-stories-of-2017-2-the-bds-campaign

My first 'hidden' story was about the war on drugs:
https://steemit.com/news/@keysa/the-most-hidden-stories-of-2017-1-the-war-on-drugs