UK Labor chief urges end to arms supplies to Saudis

UK Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn says the British government should halt its arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the kingdom’s deadly military aggression against neighboring Yemen.

Corbyn said in a statement on Wednesday that the bombing campaign has been “a human rights tragedy and a violation of international law.”

“The British government should halt arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, now being used for this assault on its neighbor, and it should end its diplomatic and military support for the Saudi intervention,” he added in the statement.

The Labor chief further stressed that London should instead focus on promoting peace in Yemen and providing assistance to the people in the country, which  has been under military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015.

At least 8,400 people, among them over 2,230 children, have been killed and 16,000 others injured since March 2015. The strikes have also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.

Corbyn has previously challenged the UK government over the issue of arms supplies to the Saudi regime which has been accused of “widespread and systematic” targeting of civilians in its aerial campaign in Yemen.

However, London has stood defiant against calls to suspend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia. In January, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that the UK has “the strictest rules for arms exports of almost any country anywhere in the world.”

According to Amnesty International, the British government has sold 2,400 missiles and 58 warplanes to Saudi Arabia last year alone, enabling the regime to continue its war against Yemen.

British media reports say that the UK government has licensed £6.7 billion ($9.4 billion) of arms to Riyadh since Cameron came to power in 2010, including £2.8 billion ($3.9 billion) since the bombing of Yemen began.

Meanwhile, a powerful cross-party committee on arms exports has launched a full-scale investigation into British arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

“We have launched this inquiry to understand what role UK-made arms are playing in the ongoing conflict in Yemen,” said the arms control committee’s chairman, Chris White.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has also brought a high court case against the British government, urging London to suspend all current export licenses and refuse all new licenses to Saudi Arabia.

Andrew Smith of CAAT slammed the UK for standing “shoulder to shoulder” with the Saudis throughout its bloody campaign in Yemen.

Yemen financial and food crisis

The Britain-based international charity group Oxfam said on Thursday that Yemen, the Arab Peninsula’s poorest nation, is in the grip of a looming famine in the face of a domestic financial crisis.

Half of the nation's residents, or nearly 14.4 million people, already struggle to buy food and need assistance in a crisis going largely unheeded in the international community, it said in a report.

The global charity said the possibilities of tightening credit and a currency devaluation threaten Yemen which imports nearly all its food and needs a functioning economic system to fund those shipments.

The warning was issued after reports said Yemen’s Central Bank might cut credit lines that guarantee payment for incoming wheat and rice cargoes.

The Yemeni riyal also runs the risk of devaluation, which could in turn contribute to a rise in food prices in a poor country that imports nearly 90 percent of its food.

“An invisible food crisis ... risks turning famine warnings into a reality over the coming months,” Oxfam said.

Sajjad Mohamed Sajid, Oxfam's country director in Yemen, said Yemenis cannot endure the rising prices for food if importers are unable to trade.

Saudi Arabia began a military campaign in Yemen a year ago with the aim of restoring former president Abd Rubbuh Mansur Hadi to power.

"A catastrophe on top of catastrophe ... has created one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies in the world today," Sajid said. "Yet most people are unaware of it."

The charity reported instances of people eating only a meal a day in Ta'izz city, which is a regular target of Saudi attacks, and empty market stalls with no vegetables on display.

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