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Saudi halt to Yemen raids meant for public opinion: Analyst

Smoke billows following a Saudi airstrike on an army camp on May 12, 2015, in the capital Sana’a. ( © AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ajamu Baraka, a human rights activist in Cali, to discuss the latest Saudi aerial attack on Yemen after the Riyadh regime announced a temporary halt to its nearly seven weeks of military campaign against the impoverished country.

 

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

 

Press TV: Why even going to this whole act of a ceasefire if the Saudis never really meant to respect it anyhow?

 

Baraka: Because they have been under tremendous negative public opinion regarding this ongoing criminal assault on the people of Yemen. So they have engaged in another one of these sort of phony efforts to pretend to be responsive to the international community by agreeing to this ceasefire but basically it is only a slight pause in the ongoing assault on the Yemeni people.

This is something that was forced on them by the US government that it is a little more sensitive to the negative reaction to this assault than perhaps the Saudis are.

 

Press TV: Mr. Baraka, from the beginning of this Saudi assault on Yemen, it seems that there has been an effort to control the media narrative and even now with the ceasefire it seems to be the same effort, now many Western media saying it has been successful and that the Saudis are respecting it. Are we living in the twilight zone? How is it that the media can be so blatantly lying? 

 

Baraka: You know it is one of those questions we have to really grapple with. There seems to be people living in alternative universes. We have the attempt to try to paint the picture in Yemen as something that has some positive possibilities while the same corporate media failed to critically expose the fact that the Saudis in full cooperation with the US were responsible for an attack on the airport that has made it almost impossible to deliver much needed humanitarian assistance to the people of Yemen. And then they are talking about the fact that the Saudis again with the assistance of the US is engaged in a land and sea blockade of humanitarian assistance.

So it demonstrates once again the extent of which the corporate Western media is in lockstep with the interest and the worldviews of their patrons in the West. 

AHK/MKA


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