A Position Paper on Canada’s Involvement in the Saudi-led Coalition in Yemen

Between 26 March 2015, and 26 March 2017, the United Nations recorded 13,045 civilian casualties as a result of the civil war in Yemen (BBC News, 2017). Two years of conflict have devastated the country, leaving 18 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and causing the largest food security emergency that currently exists on earth (BBC News, 2017). The main cause of this horrific crisis lies at the doorstep of the region’s most influential and well-connected power, Saudi Arabia, a gulf nation backed by a list of several western states, one of which being Canada. Through the use of illegal munitions, indiscriminate targeting of civilians, and a brutal blockade blocking the country from the resources it needs to survive, Saudi Arabia and its coalition are causing the deaths of thousands and the suffering of millions more. Amongst those complicit in these crimes lies the Canadian government, who in the past few years has began selling its own high-tier weapons and military technology to this solafist empire. There are many paths that can be taken to halt this crisis, the most effective being to stop providing the Saudi government with reasons to continue their onslaught. If Canada withdraws its support by halting its sale of arms to the Saudi Kingdom, then their government will have one less tool for use in their campaign against conflicting ideologies, in Yemen as well as at home.

Yemeni Soldiers from the 1st Armored Division.

In Yemen, there are currently seven million people who don’t know where their next meal might come from (BBC News, 2017). A country that had already been struggling with years of instability, improper governance, lack of any substantial rule of law, environmental decline, high poverty rates, and significant under-development, is now edging on a famine that could leave millions starving to death by the end of summer (BBC News, 2017). More than 14 million people have no access to safe drinking water or sanitation, two million remain displaced from their homes, 3.3 million children and pregnant or breastfeeding women are acutely malnourished, and 462,000 children under five years of age also face severe acute malnutrition (BBC News, 2017).

Thousands die in Yemen’s ‘forgotten war’ — BBC News, 2016

The crisis in Yemen has been ongoing for years, and has been characterized as being one of the most critical humanitarian crises of the century. With all the horrifying information and stunning statistics, one could easily assume that the international community would have stepped in by now, but that, unfortunately, is not the case. With over 20,000 cases of cholera being reported as of March 2017 (BBC News, 2017), 82% of the population of Yemen in need of humanitarian assistance (United Nations, 2017), and over 100 civilians being killed each month (United Nations, 2017), something obviously needs to be done, but the world has kept its eye turned to Syria while a much more major crisis occurs in the south. So far, the UN’s appeal for $2.1 billion to provide aid to those in need in Yemen has been failing miserably. In fact, it has only received 7% of its funding goal as of March 2017 (BBC News, 2017). The appeal would allow the United Nations to assist 12 million people who are in critical need, and that isn’t even nearly enough to begin solving the rest of the crisis (BBC News, 2017). Before it is possible to understand why the international community has shown little interest in this “humanitarian catastrophe,” as a senior UN official said in August 2015, context regarding the war is required.

Since the civil conflict in Yemen escalated in March of 2015, the Saudi government has led a coalition military force against the rebellion in an attempt to support President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi (BBC, 2017). The reason for this has its roots in a failed political transition intended to bring stability to the region in November of 2011, where longtime authoritarian president Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to hand over his power to Mr. Hadi (BBC, 2017). When Mr. Hadi experienced several problems in office, including corruption, disloyalty from many of his military officers, unemployment, food insecurity, attacks from al-Qaeda, and a separatist movement forming in the southern region, many Yemenis quickly became fed up and began taking to the streets (BBC, 2017). Most notably, the Houthi rebel movement took advantage of the new president’s weaknesses and gained swaths of territory, advocating for the representation of Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority (BBC, 2017). Soon, the Houthis gained more support, and by January of 2015, with the support of Shias and even some Sunnis and other Yemenis, they surrounded the presidential palace, forcing the President to flee the country (BBC, 2017).

To the north of the border, government officials in Saudi Arabia were not excited to hear about the success of rebellion they believed was being backed by Shia power Iran (BBC, 2017). Soon after the Houthi rebel success, Saudi Arabia and eight other primarily Sunni Arab states formed a coalition military force aimed at restoring President Hadi’s government, with logistical and intelligence support from the United States and the United Kingdom (BBC, 2017). Fast forward to 2017: the civilian casualty rate is now over 100 per month (United Nations, 2017). Yemen relies on imports for about 90% of its food supply, and yet Hodeida, Yemen’s largest port, is under siege, and the Saudi-led coalition has enforced a naval blockade (The Economist, 2017). The humanitarian crisis in Yemen, specifically regarding the millions without food and water, is a direct result of the blockade and constant fighting over major supply routes and landing areas orchestrated by Saudi Arabia and the coalition (The Economist, 2017).

Saudi Arabia is a country with one of the worst human rights records on the planet (Human Rights Watch, 2017), and most of the 100 casualties in Yemen each month are a direct result of Saudi-led airstrikes or naval bombardment (United Nations, 2017). Canada has made a decision to be complicit in the crimes of this country, namely by selling the country $14.8 billion in Light Armoured Vehicles in 2014 (The Globe and Mail, 2016). This is a loud and clear message from Canada, along with many other western states, that a Middle Eastern monarchy with a grotesque human rights record can do whatever it wants, given it has enough money, oil, and guns. The Canadian government has been flaky about its arms sales before, struggling to find ground in which to defend its decisions and using careful language when discussing the topic: when asked about the vehicles used in Bahrain in 2011 to shut down peaceful protests, the government failed to deny that they were Canadian-made (Open Canada, 2015). Video published by the Globe and Mail in 2016 shows Saudi security forces using black LAVs with mounted weapons gunning down other Saudi civilians in Shia-populated neighbourhoods: a clear example of the Saudi Arabian government, using weapons very similar to the ones the Canadian government is selling them, suppressing civil and human rights in their own country with military force (The Globe and Mail, 2016). To serve as a reminder: Shia Muslims are the main supporters of the Houthi movement in Yemen. More recently, the Trudeau government is actually being sued by Université de Montréal professor Daniel Turp for breaking domestic regulations and international law in the sale (Vice News Canada, 2016), and when asked for comment by the Globe and Mail about the government’s comfort in selling armoured vehicles to the Saudis, Justin Trudeau said as he left caucus, “You’ll have to make an appointment” (The Globe and Mail, 2016). The Canadian government has taken the position of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ with the sale of their weaponized armoured vehicles, with Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion saying that Canada is concerned about wrongdoing when a human rights incident in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, or Yemen involves Canadian-made vehicles, telling reporters, “the fundamental point is that this is not Canadian military equipment” (The Globe and Mail, 2016).

Trudeau defending the continuation of the contract in 2016.

Instead of openly condemning Saudi Arabia’s acts in Yemen, including the blatant destruction of infrastructure (BBC, 2017), their use of illegal cluster bombs — which are manufactured in the UK and Brazil — on civilian villages (Amnesty International, 2017), the bombing of funerals (New York Times, 2016), and even the bombing of a school for the blind (Huffington Post, 2016), the Canadian government has done nothing to address or remedy the ongoing humanitarian crisis and civil war in Yemen. Instead, Canada has capitalized on an opportunity to sell weapons and vehicles to a Monarchy state that needs resources to continue the oppression of civilians within its own country and even elsewhere. Currently, Canada is involved in three military operations in Africa and six operations in the Middle East, including Operation IMPACT, which is Canada’s contribution to the coalition against ISIS (Canadian Armed Forces, 2017). Despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is in certain respects even more extreme than ISIS in their treatment of civilians, where they still sentence people to death for witchcraft, apostasy, and homosexuality (Human Rights Watch, 2015), the Canadian government has done nothing to speak out against the Saudi-led coalition, or the support it has received from the United States and the United Kingdom. Instead, Canada has sat on the sidelines whilst lining its pocket with an ethically-questionable $15 billion, and since the deal was brokered by the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) in 2014 (Open Canada, 2015), the story has barely managed to make its way onto mainstream cable news media.

When Justin Trudeau continues to go on with the deal saying, “We need to make sure we are respected on the world stage by keeping our word,” he admits that keeping a promise to a Monarchy for blood money is worth the horrendous risk of Canada becoming an instrument in the killing of civilians by a relentless government as a result, all while he simultaneously crafts an artificial view of Canada as humanitarian, genuine, altruistic, and caring by talking about Canada’s obligation to take in refugees from Syria (The Globe and Mail, 2016). Unfortunately, actions like these seem to be becoming a popular trend for world leaders everywhere. Donald Trump killed 30 civilians in his first ever military raid in January of this year, only to turn around and bomb the Syrian government a few months later for their alleged killing of fewer people with chemical weapons (The Independent, 2017). Similar to that, many world powers are reluctant to get involved in the crisis in Yemen solely because of who it involves.

For many issues that face the world, time is not too large a concern for politics, and there is often little urgency to have certain issues immediately resolved. In the case of Yemen however, this is something that the international community absolutely cannot afford to waste time on. Within months, millions could be dead and millions more could end up starving to death or becoming severely dehydrated (United Nations, 2017). If there was any time for Canada to act, it would be now. Now is absolutely the time to get the country involved in an aid effort and global awareness campaign about what’s happening in Yemen, the time to stop funnelling cash to a power-hungry human-rights-violating country, and the time to change the conversation about what makes a humanitarian crisis important, with principles overriding politics.

Though we may not often act like it, those people who are at risk of starving to death in Yemen are just as important as those people who are facing persecution in Syria or anywhere else, and it’s time for Canada and the rest of the international community to begin acting like it. Canada must immediately halt the sale of its armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia and stop giving the Kingdom an excuse to continue their brutal campaign. If not, then the history books of the future may hold for Canada something that it is currently trying to wash its hands of already: responsibility for the deaths of millions.

Thank you for reading.

Works Cited List:

1. BBC. (2017, March 28). Yemen conflict: How bad is the humanitarian crisis? Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34011187
2. United Nations. (n.d.). Office of the High Commissioner, Human Rights. Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21444&LangID=E
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