Public International Law

ESSAY

Yemen's Devastation: A Worldwide Tragedy

Introduction

Yemen's war-torn environment serves as a powerful example of the pernicious effects of

geopolitical manoeuvring and global capitalist interests on a nation's destiny. Yemen's
destruction, which sprung from the ashes of economic reforms pushed in the name of
stability, emphasises the convergence of political unrest, foreign interference, and neoliberal
goals. Yemen's predicament, which stems from a history of exploitation and power conflicts,
highlights the urgent need for a critical analysis of the forces influencing our globe.
Investigating the causes and ramifications of this humanitarian crisis is crucial as we watch it
unfold, lest we make the same mistakes elsewhere.

One horrific illustration of how the spread of global capitalist interests devastates countries is
the war in Yemen. Neoliberalism—often mistakenly referred to as globalization—takes the
lead initially, and once the targeted nation's inevitable structural collapse gets under way, a
more overt kind of violence is adopted to undermine the political system due to the inevitable
popular resistance. People in other nations, even powerful ones like Turkey, should take note
of Yemen's latest recounting of a frequently told tale. It's possible that an American
ambassador speaking on behalf of the Obama administration foresaw this war in Yemen
initially.

As Washington reacted negatively to a popular uprising against economic “reforms” it’s

neoconservative and Clintonite cliques threatened Yemenis with financial destruction via the
devaluation of their national currency, the Rial.

The origins of the war

Officially, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is in charge of the war itself. It is
spearheading an effort to reinstate the "transitional government" that was established in 2012
and is headed by veteran Yemeni politician Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, with backing from the
UN and IMF. His "government" was tasked with enforcing economic austerity in the near
term following the collapse of the previous administration, which had consented to
implement these "reforms" by popular uprising. Yemen's brief involvement in the "Arab
Spring" was this.

The policies of Hadi's purportedly temporary administration wreaked havoc on the nation in
the initial months of its implementation. The Yemeni people's violent austerity as a result of
these economic policies is what spurred their resistance to globalism and, thus, the war's
continuation.

Crucially, what Yemen’s people revolted against in 2010-2011, and again in 2014, were the
kinds of austerity and structural adjustments that were also recently made on Greece. As
elsewhere in the world, IMF-imposed austerity hurt the poorest of Yemen’s population,
whose suffering matched those of Egypt’s and Tunisia’s masses prior to 2011.

For Yemen, victims of globalisation found a champion in the resistance movement emerging
from the cities and villages of northern Yemen. Long associated with a charismatic spiritual
leader, incorrectly labeled “the Houthis”, this populist outburst remained intact by late 2014
and orchestrated a successful second campaign to again remove the international regime of
global capitalism.

The devastation

The enormous toll of what has to be considered globalism's war is in place. 2016 alone saw
the deaths of over 63,000 children (the final year UNICEF dared to count). Current figures
show even more horrific results. A study submitted to the UN on September 21st by the
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs states that, in Yemen, 8 million people
are classified as "severely" food insecure and 18 million people experience food insecurity as
of 2018.

In addition to the malnutrition, the war-torn nation is probably seeing the biggest cholera
outbreak in recorded human history. Put another way, Yemen is the biggest humanitarian
crisis on earth and gets very little attention from the media. One explanation for why most
media refuse to report this war is the fact that the slaughter was largely directed out of
US/UK command centers. It has been the Western empires that organised hit-lists since the
beginning of this war.
 Intent

In fact, the first week of the bombing campaign that started in March 2015, was already a
window into the criminal intent of the American-maintained Qatari and Saudi jets. Targeting
food storage facilities, farms, food processing plants, water tanks and bridges, the aim was no
doubt to put pressure on the millions of civilian Yemenis and accomplish what the former
ambassador’s threats did not.

Unfortunately for agents of globalism, the Yemeni people still openly revolt against efforts to
impose economic and political “order” over Yemen. The war today is the frantic attempt to
reverse a popular uprising against imposed economic devastation. The GCC partners who
formed the heart of the “coalition” to enforce Yemen’s compliance at the time were Qatar
and Saudi Arabia (and their EU and US partners). This “coalition” sanctioned by the UN used
violence, by way of mercenaries. Crucially, this violence that targets civilians and wields
righteous “international law” as its legitimising bludgeon, is nothing new.

As I painfully conclude in my study, Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us

about the World (2018), the current destruction of Yemen constitutes but the latest wave of
violence used to sequester the country’s wealth. Blessed with the region’s richest human
resources, massive untapped oil/gas, mineral, water, and fishery wealth, Yemen has been the
target of globalists since at least the 1920s. With this in mind, it becomes even more clear
that the origins of war in the larger Middle East today needs to be read through a new
analytical filter.

Economic war

The world economy has gradually changed during the 1990s. The American Empire was
formerly able to finance endless wars thanks to the petrodollar, but this has been
compromised by a mounting liquidity problem. The resultant desperate hunt for fresh funding
sources fuels the current globalists' desire to forcefully conquer the Middle East.

Previously alluring "emerging markets" that promised overly leveraged "sure things" to
investors in dire need of greater returns. Much of New York and London are now exposed
due to the subsequent crisis and the frantic attempt to stop a trend that is seeing the world's
savings move away from the West. In general, Western banks and equities markets are
currently in a desperate attempt to drain the last of the world's liquid money before Asia or
Africa takes it all. This campaign implicates members of the GCC long responsible for
assisting in redirecting much of the trillions earned from oil and gas industries back to the
West.

What has remained an unspoken rivalry between members of this false alliance, simmering
for years, has exploded over Yemen. Here, then, is the critical concern for observers moving
forward. What animates the calculations of those waging war on parts of Yemen requires an
appreciation for the geostrategic concerns of participants otherwise assumed to be aligned in
a “coalition” led by Saudi Arabia.

America’s favoured Kingdom, itself, is a financial wreck. Unable to find new sources of
investment (even its once cherished ARAMCO can’t attract the foreign capital needed to
keep the corrupt family afloat), an invasion and rapid sequestration of Yemen’s natural
resources in underpopulated South Yemen was deemed a necessary gamble. The problem
here is that Yemenis despise the Saudi enterprise and have resisted this latest campaign to
steal their country’s wealth most violently. By 1990, when a newly unified Yemeni state was
created, the anger was in response to a state increasingly serving the interests of the General
People’s Party (GPC). From its Sana’a’ base, centered around the personality of Ali Abdullah
Salih, the GPC had corruptly formed lucrative, temporary alliances with pliable local leaders’
like the Ahmar family and Abdul Majid al Zindani who all secured parallel ties to the United
States, various EU countries, and rival GCC states. In “emerging market” economies, Yemeni
leaders offered the best of Yemen’s economic assets for lease or outright purchase.

In this period of rapid “integration” into the global economy, applauded by the IMF and US
Embassy, a race began between rival actors seeking the lion’s share of Yemen’s valuable
assets.

Western bankers and their allies in the Gulf were the primary speculators. As with all money
from the global south, in the form of savings and investments, whether poured into property
markets in Dubai, Istanbul, or Beirut, regional actors and their London-based advisors hoped
Yemen would be the stage to the next boom economy. To many with the proper knowledge,
Yemen’s largely untapped natural resources—especially its oil/gas, minerals, and fisheries—
promised the country was going to be the next big thing.

The roots of the current destruction of Yemen was established in this context of investment in
Yemen. The resulting conflict pitted key actors within Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates against each other. As the three primary centers of finance in Arabia all
directed resources into Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Qatar applied a tried-and-true tool of
coercion to poison the religious underbelly of Yemen’s diverse population. By the late 1990s,
Southern Arabia was littered with al-Qaeda affiliates, a threat to the United Arab Emirates.

The subsequent sectarianism visiting other parts of the region by the 2000s brought Yemen to
its 2011 political meltdown.

Lessons to learn

The foundations of the current catastrophe in Yemen, however, cannot be entirely blamed on
the intra-GCC struggle over regional ascendency. Recent reports of former and present
government officials advocating war in Yemen have clearly sought to benefit certain
industries to which they were affiliated. Such barely reported “scandals” highlight the
obvious links between US policy and major companies in the weapons, oil/gas, logistics, and
financial industries. Indeed, war in Yemen can be seen as a campaign by these industries,
through corrupt American officials, to shift what appears to be the last bits of GCC savings
into the greedy hands of the financial elite. The now obvious war pitting Qatar, Saudi Arabia
and the UAE against each other in Yemen, threatens to undermine any ability of other
regional players, including Turkey, to make necessary adjustments moving forward.

Any collapse of the Saudi leadership threatens dramatic changes in Arabia’s political
economic order. By necessity, this shift has the heavy hand of global financial interests
attempting to control the outcome, a precarious intervention that calculates Turkey’s new
relations with Russia as a possible pretext for the next violent confrontation in the region.

Therefore, the destruction of a regional order that has been shaped by an oil economy since
World War II requires deep consideration. I believe a gaze into the origins of the campaign to
destroy Yemen is one resource from which leaders can draw. For over a century, Yemenis
have resisted a global capitalist machine that today is threatening to break down. Ironically, it
was Yemen that educated high-level Ottomans about the limits of modern government.
Perhaps responsible leaders today can also consider what lessons they can draw from Yemen
and hopefully avoid the impending disaster that awaits those too closely linked to a
collapsing Western-centered capitalist order ensnared in southern Arabia’s destruction.

Conclusion
Finally, the destruction of Yemen is a clear example of the brutal convergence of geopolitical
power conflicts and global capitalist interests. Under the pretence of bringing about political
stability and economic changes, the war on Yemen has left its people in unspeakable agony,
with an astounding toll of deaths and humanitarian catastrophes. This tragedy's origins can be
found in decades of foreign power abuse and manipulation, which were exacerbated by
internal strife and corruption.

The international community must acknowledge the larger ramifications and lessons to be
learned as we consider Yemen's predicament. We need to address the structural inequalities
that the militarization of economies and neoliberal objectives are promoting.

In the end, Yemen's destruction is a sobering reminder of how urgently cooperation,

diplomacy, and a sincere dedication to peacebuilding are needed. Global leaders have a
responsibility to learn from Yemen and work towards a future in which the pursuit of wealth
does not come at the expense of human lives and dignity. We can only expect to stop
tragedies like this in the future and create a more just and equitable world for everyone by
working together and demonstrating a strong sense of collective commitment.