„Injured Houthi rebels from Sanaa flown out,“ announced international news agencies earlier this week. The fact that they consider the evacuation of 50 militiamen as hopeful even before the beginning of the negotiations gives an idea of how hopeless the situation in Yemen really is: It is the most serious humanitarian crisis worldwide, say United Nations spokespersons.
New start for peace
Four years of war, tens of thousands of dead, hunger, epidemics – nothing needs Yemen more than peace talks. Two attempts have already been made: 2016 in Kuwait, 2017 in Geneva. Both failed miserably. Now Sweden.
„We stand ready to negotiate rifle by foot,“ says Hmeed Aasem, a representative of the Houthi rebels. „We extend our hands to peace, if they want him, they can have him, if they want war, they get it too.“ The past four years should have made it clear that they can not defeat us. “
In 2014, the Houthi rebels from northern Yemen first captured the capital, Sana’a, and then overrun almost the entire country. They were stopped only when Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab and African countries, a military alliance and intervened.
What role does Saudi Arabia play?
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, then Defense Minister, promised a quick victory: „We could eliminate the Huthi in a few days,“ he said, „but we will not do it, that would require too many casualties, and then there would be just funerals everywhere . “
The Crown Prince is now under pressure because of the never-ending war and also because of the Khashoggi affair. That’s why Saudi Arabia might want to get out of Yemen as open as possible.
It is one of the absurdities of this conflict that the Saudis in Yemen, on the one hand merciless warlords, but on the other hand as a good Samaritan occur. Together with their allies, the United Arab Emirates, they have since the beginning of the war, according to their own information, relief supplies worth four billion. Dollars delivered to Yemen. „We are the ones who bring by far the most humanitarian aid to Yemen,“ Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir said in an interview with the British BBC. Unfortunately, many things do not arrive because transports were looted by Huthi.
Huthi are complicit
The Saudis have a bad press in the West. Commentators often put them on the dock. They point to the brutal aerial bombardment of the Saudi Air Force, to the countless dead in villages and towns. But guilty of Yemeni misery is also the insurgent Huthi militia, which is funded, inter alia, by blackmailing and kidnapping.
That the Huthi are now massively ammunitioned by Iran is not just Saudi war propaganda. It also coincides with the course of the war and the findings of Western intelligence services. How else could the Huthi fire Iranian missiles to Riyadh?
The Yemen War, like most conflicts, can not be grasped with a black and white pattern. It began as a civil war, became an interventionist war and is now a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is no longer just about Yemen. It’s about supremacy in the whole region.
