Tuesday 14 August 2018

WHERE IS YEMEN ANYWAY?


Our first step is to search on Google maps. For a better chance of actually locating Yemen, we focus on one place; Saada. We take care to find Saada in Yemen, because a number of places in different countries in the region share that name, just like in Ireland, where you’ll find any number of Ballys.

When we find Saada, we search for the Zaydi Cemetery. It’s between Mufrah at Talh Street and the N1, quite close to the central market, the city’s main mosques and the archaeological site of Bab Narjan. We search for the graves of the children killed in the recent airstrike on a bus. Forty children were among the fifty one dead.

"My son went to the market to run house errands and then the enemy air strike happened and he was hit by shrapnel and died," said Fares al-Razhi, mourning his 14-year-old son.

We are in north Yemen, close to the border with Saudi Arabia. If Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, Saudi Arabia is one of the richest. We pore over the Google map images of the border between the two states and wonder how that can be. 

There is a war underway in this part of Yemen. A complex war with militant actors frominside Yemen and also external to the country. The biggest external actor is the Kingdom and army of Saudi Arabia, one of Yemen’s close neighbours. What does that Kingdom and army want?

With logistical support from the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to reinstate the internationally recognised government of President Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
In 2014, Hadi and his forces were overrun by the Houthis who took over much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.
Since then, the military alliance has carried out more than 16, 000 air raids on Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, with more than 3, 000 raids pulverising the Houthis stronghold of Saada.

We search the images on Google maps to see signs of ‘success’ for these air raids and bombings. The resolution on the maps breaks down as we zoom in. The maps cannot handle the devastation. They become coy and opaque. Can we hear the Yemeni people themselves?

Hakim Almasmari, the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Post, called it one of the worst days in Yemen in recent memory.
"Today is a tragic, sad day... that has gathered all Yemenis together. There are many people who oppose the Houthis, including residents of [the capital] Sanaa, but a crime like this has given the Houthis more support. You can't have sides when it comes to children." 

The war is three years old now. Young, in world conflict terms. Young, like the children blown to pieces.

"I didn't find any of his remains, not his finger, not his bone, not his skull, nothing. I looked through all the remains in the hospital and I didn't see anything."

We look on. From afar, knowing that great amounts of money are involved in the international trade in the weaponry that produces these tragedies. Jobs too. Do we cringe or quake? Do we feel remorse? Guilt? Who are ‘we’? 

Despite repeated petitions from human rights groups to Western powers over the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, the US, UK, Canada, France and Spain have all sold weapons to the kingdom in recent years, some of which have been used in the conflict.
The US has been the biggest supplier of military equipment to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), with more than $90bn of sales recorded between 2010 and 2015.

Are ‘we’ supplying weaponry to the Houthis as well? Probably. If not directly, then covertly, via brokers and dealers. There’s money in it. And probably alongside weaponry, with logistical and political support, from Iran. Wars are complex and multi-agency, often acting in overlaps and parallels. The war in Yemen is one of numerous proxy world conflicts between the Great Powers and their allies. We are well beyond the capacity of thetwo dimensional imagery offered by Google maps.

With grand profits to be made, it is not in the interest of arms’ manufacturers like Raytheon, who dispute the evidence of the use of their products in this war, to see efforts at a cease-fire make progress.

Images sent to Al Jazeera by the Houthis on Monday suggested a Raytheon Mark-82 bomb was used in the raid.
While the photo had yet to be independently verified, fragments of Mark-82 bombs have surfaced repeatedly amid the ongoing war.

Do we say “It’s not personal. It’s just business. If we don’t sell the arms, someone else will”?

Days after the attack, body parts remain unidentified and some families were still searching for the remains of their children. 

Are ‘we’ as two dimensional as Google maps?

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, recently announced plans for negotiations between the warring parties.
The peace talks will begin in Geneva on September 6 and focus on building a transitional government and laying down arms.

Can we go beyond the flat maps in the search for a further dimension? More than simply ‘laying down arms’, can we work to end the international arms trade?






No comments:

Post a Comment