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Ali al-Ahmed: No peace prospect in Yemen right now

People inspect the rubble of UNESCO-listed buildings destroyed in Saudi airstrikes in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, September 19, 2015. (AFP)

Press TV has interviewed Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for [Persian] Gulf Affairs, Washington, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

 

Following is a rough transcription.

 

Press TV: Recent days have been among the deadliest since the Saudi aerial campaign against the Yemeni nation started back in April. Why aren’t these killings reported in the mainstream media, and why aren’t international organizations stepping up to act against the Saudi aggression?

Ahmed: The international media is linked to the interests of certain governments and nations, so they act on these interests not on the basis of journalism like we know it. In terms of international organizations and the United Nations, it is really also a very similar situation. They are funded, for example if you take UNESCO or the UN Human Rights Commission and the commissioner, they are linked to the Saudi axis of dictators who are acting or waging war against the Yemeni people. So it is not surprising that we don’t see the outrage from the Saudi six months of daily bombardment.

The Saudi bombardment is the longest bombardment of any country in the past decades. There has not been a sustained, daily campaign of aerial bombing by any country against any nation since World War II or since the Vietnam War. So you are talking about the worst air campaign against a nation, mostly civilian deaths. That really shows how the international community, it is not a community really, it really has disregarded whatever laws that they have authored and speak of all the time. So it is really a time of war around the world, and today you are who you can be in terms of strength. If you have the gun, you will continue to be powerful, otherwise you are on your own and you’d be killed without anybody saying anything about it.

Press TV: The picture that is actually being broadcasted on mainstream media about Yemen is quite a reverse picture of the reality on the ground. While most Yemenis are against the fugitive former president and against the Saudi aggression, what the mainstream media is repeating is that the Yemeni people are totally for it, they are against the Yemeni army, and the Yemeni Anasarullah fighters who are actually trying to retaliate these attacks.

Ahmed: Absolutely. We know that the overwhelming majority of the Yemeni army and the supporting Ansarullah movement and other popular committees are facing invading armies with some local Yemeni allies of ex-President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. So this is very clear an invasion of a country, a blockade against a country, yet we see in the media the reverse. This is really a telling time where the international media and the international community are accepting the fake reality that the Yemeni people, who are defending themselves, are the minority and the invading armies are the majority. This is the reality that we have to deal with and the Yemeni people must not have any shred of hope from the international community, the United Nations and the United States and from the Arab system to defend them. They have to defend themselves.

Press TV: Ansarullah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has warned the aggressors that even if Saudi Arabia manages to impose their will on the Yemeni people, resistance will still continue until all their lands are liberated. Does this mean a quagmire for Saudi Arabia and its allies like Vietnam was for the United States?

Ahmed: The Saudis might not be there physically, but this conflict is going to continue for many years down the road, and it will reach Saudi Arabia itself, so it is looking like a quagmire. But this war will not end even if the Saudis and their allies take Sana’a in the next few weeks, it will be bloody and this war will continue for the foreseeable future.

Press TV: Is there any prospect for peace?

Ahmed: There is no prospect for peace right now, especially after the Saudis deliberately bombed the house of the Omani ambassador and did not apologize for it, and basically they said, ‘we did it on purpose,’ and they prevented any peaceful negotiation of this conflict, any political resolution to this conflict.

The United States and the United Nations have not shown any pressure on the Saudis to stop this war and find a political solution. I think they are willing even to kill half of the Yemeni people and not worry too much about it.


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