Vulnerable Saudi Arabia must be careful over Yemen war: Lawyer

Press TV has conducted an interview with Edward Corrigan, an international and human rights lawyer in Ontario, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s military aggression against Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Give us the point of view from Canada as far as this ongoing aggression against Yemen goes?

Corrigan: Well, I would say that most Canadians are not in favor of war. The problem is the conservative government likes to pretend that can it play with the big boys and has taken a more jingoistic position against the Palestinians, particularly in favor of Israel, but they have also sent fighters to join the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria.

So, the government, which was elected with less than 60 percent of the vote - it only had 39 percent - they are… I think not reflective of most Canadians. Most Canadians do believe that there should be peace, and war is an absolute last resort.

The intervention by the Saudis… they said that they were ending their air war, which raises the question that they are trying to trick their opponents or... I do not have any evidence for this but there is a possibility that other countries are joining the attack and have painted decals on their planes to say that they are Saudis when in fact they are maybe Israeli or even Egyptian. But I do not have any evidence of that but it has happened in the past, where Israel particularly has changed the coating on the planes and continued with their attacks but have not heard anything specific about the Saudis whether or not they are resuming their attack or why did they change their mind.

I know that there was a Houthi attack on a Saudi military base inside Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have to realize that they are very vulnerable. If they get into a huge war with Yemen, it is almost impossible to prevent infiltration and they are very vulnerable. There could be attacks on the pipelines, there could be attacks on Saudi facilities and of course there are a lot of people from Yemen who work in Saudi Arabia and have relatives back in Yemen, so this cannot be very good.

And of course, there is a lot of Shias in Saudi Arabia, too. They are a minority but that is an issue. By pouring gasoline [on the fire]… and inciting war between the Sunnis and the Shias is a very, very bad thing for actually the Arab world, for Saudi Arabia itself. There should be other alternatives.

There is a recent report saying that people were accusing Iran of supplying the arms, when in fact, it was former President Saleh, who has, according to some sources, a massive wealth of 60 billion dollars.

So, the fighting in Yemen is more complex. It is simply not a Shia-Sunni fight, it is different power groups and there are still elements of the Yemeni army who are loyal to the previous president that are fighting against the current president.

So it is a big mess but there are over 2,000 people killed. They are killing, attacking wedding parties and stuff. This in the end is not going to help peace or help promote it. It is just going to antagonize people.

AHK/HJL

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