Yemen war to continue with US green light: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ajamu Baraka, human rights activist in Cali, Colombia, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Tell me the significance of 52 Emirati soldiers being killed out of a very, very small population, very small country - the significance of that number.  

Baraka: Well it is a very significant number and it is a troubling escalation of the criminal assault that has been waged on the people of Yemen. It is really a condemnation of the international community that this Saudi, [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council led assault on the people of Yemen continues without any real significant opposition from the international community - opposition that has to be voiced because this assault is basically an illegal assault that has created crimes against humanity of unimaginable proportions.  

Press TV: When we look at the situation, especially the Emiratis, and we have of course reports from others even from Bahrain and besides the Saudis themselves, we are looking at now they are having reports, this is Al Jazeera saying itself that 10,000 foreign soldiers are now involved in this crackdown on the Yemeni people.

Looking at this, now they started this on March the 26th, the Saudis started this assault obviously could not reach the goal that they thought they could and now we have at least 10,000 foreign soldiers involved. What is it going to take first of all for the so-called international community to demand that the Saudis and their Arab proxies bring this war to halt?

Baraka: It is going to be as a result of the continued inflection of casualties on the mercenary soldiers from the various states that have now involved themselves in the assault on the Yemeni people, that it was inevitable that this ground assault would going to take place, ... that the bombing campaign that has created the humanitarian disaster in Yemen was not going to be able to realize its political objectives, that at some point there had to be a ground incursion. Well that ground incursion has started unless there is a full escalation and the invading forces suffer significant setbacks it appears that the international community led by the US will continue to give a green light to this illegal assault on the people of Yemen.   

Press TV: When we look at the entities involved - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain - a lot of these entities are those that have funded a lot of wars and perhaps even terrorist groups but usually do not have their troops on the ground   and being that the Yemeni soldiers and Ansarullah are putting up a pretty good battle it seems, do you think that as the casualty counts begin to continue to increase on the side or against the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris, that they may be thinking twice about trying to continue this onslaught on Yemen?

Baraka: I think that is a real possibility along with intensification of the anti-war movements in the West. I mean we are looking at a phenomenon in which you have basically a US-led coalition and even though the Saudis are the front state for this assault - let us make no mistake about this - this is the US support in terms of its illegal naval blockade of Yemen, its selling of weapons including many people argue cluster bombs to the Saudi authorities is giving a green light to this ongoing assault.

So unless there is more opposition from the US and forces in Western Europe, along with an escalation of the casualties in the part of these invading forces, there is a good possibility that this tragedy will continue for some time in Yemen partly because of the atmosphere of international lawlessness that is in place now in the international community.

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