“The United Nations security council on Friday [17 April] endorsed the secretary-general’s call for the warring parties in Yemen to immediately stop fighting and focus on reaching a peace agreement and countering the outbreak of the coronavirus.
“The UN’s most powerful body welcomed the unilateral, two-week ceasefire announced by the Saudi-led coalition that went into effect 9 April to support the UN-led peace process and secretary-general Antonio Guterres’s call for a truce.” (Security council backs UN chief’s call for Yemen ceasefire, Al-Jazeera, 18 April 2020)
Imperialism has used the Yemeni resistance forces’ rejection of this supposedly ‘humanitarian’ olive branch to heap condemnation upon them, but a moment’s examination of the situation lays bare the base, vulpine nature of this so-called ‘call for peace’:
“Mohamed Abdel Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis on Thursday said the current UN proposal neglects their key demand – to lift Saudi Arabia’s land, air and sea blockade, which aid officials partly blame for driving the country’s humanitarian crisis.
“‘Dialogue under fire and siege is only a strong-arm tactic that works in the interest of the military option,’ Abdel Salam said.” (Ibid)
How are the Yemenis supposed to combat coronavirus if the blockade, which the Saudis have certainly not proposed they should lift, remains in place?
It is time the shameful war against the Yemeni people waged by imperialism and its Saudi and other despotic backers be brought to an end. The fact that even in the midst of a deadly pandemic imperialism is not prepared to let go, and tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the ever-widening circles of people who are rightly horrified by its criminal activities in Yemen, demonstrates its truly monstrous nature.
It is time to take a leaf out of the book of the heroic Yemeni people, who are prepared to fight on to victory regardless of the horrors being showered upon them.
It is time to stand up against imperialism in its home countries and refuse to participate in facilitating these horrendous war crimes, either by acting as mercenaries, by making or transporting weaponry, or by disseminating imperialism’s lying propaganda and fake news.
