Yemen — House of Commons, 2017-01-12
Topic: International Affairs
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): Yemen is one of the oldest civilisations in the Gulf, yet a unified Yemeni state was not formed until 1990. The BBC gives an excellent timeline on that, and I urge Members to look at it. Yemen has a history of war, assassinations, and political, civil and internal conflict, with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides thrown in. Its history is a toll of misery in many respects. In 1992, along came al-Qaeda. We heard little of al-Qaeda initially, but following the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole, violence grew from al-Qaeda. In 2009, Saudi and Yemini branches merged to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the death toll has risen yearly. The northern-based Houthi, or Partisans of God, insurgency against the majority Sunni Yemeni Government started to grow in 2004. Houthis adhere to a branch of Shi’a Islam, and I appreciate that it is a branch Ex-President Saleh became President of North Yemen in 1978, and President of Yemen, following unification with the south, in 1990. He was forced to leave office in 2012, since when he has fought alongside the Houthi insurgents to control Yemen. In February 2015, a panel of UN experts released a report alleging that, during his time in power, Saleh amassed a fortune worth between $30 billion and $62 billion. The report claims that the assets—including gold, cash, property and other commodities—are held under various names in at least 20 countries In 2012, President Hadi was inaugurated, but he fled to Aden in 2015, as the Houthis took over large parts of the country. President Hadi is supported by the Gulf Co-operation Council—the military alliance that is often referred to as being led by Saudi Arabia In April 2015, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yemen’s Houthi rebels and allies, including former President Ali Saleh and his son. That arms embargo has been broken many times by the Iranians The 2016 global terrorism index lists Yemen as the country facing the sixth highest level of terrorism in the world. Of the 20 most fatal terrorist attacks in 2015, two were in Yemen—carried out by Houthi extremists. In 2015, 1,591 Yeminis were killed in terrorist attacks. Three groups carried out 90% of the attacks: the Houthis, AQAP and a new group, the IS affiliates. The Houthi still claimed responsibility for 63% of deaths and 62% of the attacks, the majority of which were against private citizens and property There is no doubt that violence has engulfed Yemen. That country has a history of conflict and tensions between its regions, and its ethnic and religious groups. Its leadership has a history of failing the ordinary people of Yemen. It is naive to suggest that Yemen is not also a proxy battle for dominance between Sunni and Shi’a powers drawing in wealthier and more powerful regional countries. The Houthis have also launched attacks on their neighbour, Saudi Arabia. I will not repeat all the information we have heard about the famine, disease and death tolls that result from the conflict, but this disastrous situation has reached a stalemate. Ceasefires and peace deals have been made and broken, and no side seems to see a real interest in reaching and maintaining a settlement In a region where the headlines so often include the horrific barrel bombing of civilians in Aleppo, a rising tide of refugees, murder, rape, and the torture of followers of differing religious groups, the warring parties in the Yemeni conflict have no real impetus in getting behind peace initiatives. I appreciate that the UN special envoy has worked hard. There is little in the motion before us that I think anyone in this House would not support, but I will talk about where we should be going because I am not going to get into a tit-for-tat argument about whether the Saudis are the main problem or whether the coalition is the problem. The problem is that we do not have a clear road map to resolve the conflict I have looked at what I think is a very good report from Chatham House, which is one of the UK’s best independent think-tanks and can be trusted to take an impartial view. Its report points out that "the conflict is in fact multipolar, fuelled by regional and international support for the various parties involved in the fighting. There is broad consensus among international policy-makers that the only way the conflict can be brought to a sustainable end is through political mediation." Tensions are rife not only between the two warring factions—the two ex-Presidents—and we need to tackle those because the groups are also deeply divided. Whether we come down on the side of the Houthis or on the other side, an ongoing civil war will still ultimately emerge. We need a peace process that is more inclusive. I wish we would all listen much more to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who happens to be, in my view, one of the great experts on the region. We need to move away from prioritising elite-level mediation and security concerns, particularly counter-terrorism initiatives, to look at the economic needs of the population The Chatham House report also states: "The new political process will need to give equal weight to bottom-up, grassroots local approaches to peacebuilding alongside top-down, national and elite-level interests; and ensure that the political, security and economic tracks of the transition are interlinked rather than dealt with separately. Failure to expand representation and to focus on local governance will…lead to renewed hostilities at a local level that could push Yemen a step closer to becoming a ‘chaos state’" There are many reasons why we in the UK need to pay great attention to what is happening in Yemen. Yemen sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which most of the world’s oil and trade traverse on a daily basis. Security and stability in the straits is vital to the whole world’s economies and whoever controls the straits has a potential stranglehold on those economies The situation is a matter of urgent attention for the world. In my view, it is only the United Nations that can speak on behalf of the world, so it is to the UN that we must turn. It is the UN’s responsibility to take that bottom-up, rather than top-down, approach. A coalition of support for the people of Yemen is where we must give our support. Rather than dividing the issue into attacks on Saudi Arabia or attacks on Iran, let us focus on the peace needs of the people of Yemen.