The Los Angeles Times: US officials do not want you to know why Yemen has become a humanitarian disaster

In the dark hours of March 16, 2017, a boat carrying 140 Somali refugees was en route from Yemen to Sudan. Suddenly an Apache helicopter flew over them, opened fire, killed more than 40 people on board and wounded dozens.

“I knew very well that my daughter was between life and death when I went on this trip,” said Zahra Osman, the mother of one of the victims. “But I never heard of rockets raining civilians on a boat.

Last week, the United Nations reported the findings of its investigation into the attack and confirmed that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for the attack. But are the coalition countries alone to blame? But what about the US providing the coalition with billions of dollars of military equipment used in the war and supplying the warplanes with fuel, logistical support and intelligence?

In 2016, for example, the United States sold $ 3.5 billion worth of helicopters to the UAE, a member of the alliance with naval forces in the area where the attack on refugees took place. The United States regularly sells similar weapons to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, all of whom are members of the alliance.

Since 2015, Human Rights Watch has documented 81 illegal attacks by the Coalition in Yemen and found weapons provided by the United States in 23 of these locations, including an impending market attack in March 2016 that killed at least 97 civilians, Was signed in October 2016 at a condolence hall in Sanaa, which killed at least 100 people and injured more than 500 others.

Other illegal strikes destroyed farms, factories and food and drug warehouses. As a result, a cholera epidemic has devastated the country. According to the World Health Organization, 400,000 suspected cholera cases have been reported in the last three months alone and 2 million are severely malnourished.

However, Congress approved the sale of additional $ 500 million worth of weapons to the Saudis in June to be used to kill civilians in Yemen.

If moral concerns do not make Congress move and stop it, legal concerns will make it do so.

According to Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former defense attorney, the provision of weapons – which he knows will be misused – creates a “significant legal risk” for the United States.

Even if the United States does not intend to encourage war crimes, it may be guilty of helping and inciting it, Goodman said. In other words, if the United Nations discovers that US helicopters were used in the attack, US officials could have violated international law.

This will not be the first time a country or its leaders have been accused of facilitating the commission of war crimes in foreign territory by another person. In 2015 Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, was convicted of assisting and inciting 11 war crimes in Sierra Leone, making him the first former head of state to be convicted by an international tribunal since the Karl Donitz trials in Nuremberg.

State Department lawyers advised the Obama administration before it could sell $ 1.3 billion worth of arms to Saudis in 2015, considering the legal implications of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Whether the Saudis deliberately target civilians or not, it does not matter when it comes to the United States’ legal responsibility.

“If a country selling arms knows that the buyer country lacks the technical training or discipline to avoid civilian casualties, this sale can be described as reckless and the seller bears criminal liability,” said Bryan Fynukan, legal adviser for political and military affairs at the US State Department. Saudi Arabia has learned the US State Department that they are not ready. ”

In the end, the Senate decided to ignore the legal arguments and agreed to sell arms to the Saudis (by 71 votes to 27 votes) in September. He did so again in June and narrowly won (53 to 47 votes).

Whatever the reservation expressed by some senators, it may have been tempered in part by the knowledge that it would be difficult for the international community to charge war crimes to America. The United States is likely to ignore any investigation by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, which normally oversees such cases.

In 1986, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States had violated Nicaragua’s sovereignty when it supported the Contra rebels.

There are mines planted in their ports. After the court decided that it had jurisdiction over the case, the United States supported it. The United Nations has tried to implement the resolution, but Washington has used its seat on the Security Council to stop those efforts.

Similarly, the ICC has no mandate in the Yemen case, because Yemen has not ratified the Rome Statute. According to Peith van Shak, a visiting professor of human rights at Stanford University Law School, the Security Council can refer Yemen’s file to the ICC, but once again, the United States is likely to use its seat and prevent voting, as Russia did on Syria.

Whether it is concerns about responsibility or humanitarian affairs, some members of Congress are working to remove the United States from the destruction caused by the coalition in Yemen.

Last month, the House of Representatives added three amendments to the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018 that would limit US involvement in the war on Yemen. If approved by the Senate, it will limit US participation in the war on Yemen, and effectively end.

Source: YemenPress