Western countries hypocritical on Saudi atrocities: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Naseer al-Omari, an author and political commentator, to discuss Amnesty International’s call on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its “gross human rights violations.”

A rough transcription of the interview follows.

Press TV: You know what the situation is as it stands right now, specifically when it comes to Yemen, However, we are seeing Western governments make arms sales after arms sales to Saudi Arabia even when Amnesty itself is saying that there has been evidence of internationally banned weapons being used over here and practices that may amount to war crimes.

Omari: Yes. Unfortunately the weapons are being sold and we now know for sure that the Saudis are receiving technical help from both Britain and the United States. They are sitting in their war rooms; unfortunately they are directing Saudis and their other allies to target Yemenis but the media is not shedding any light on this.

You wonder why the Saudis are protected and we know why, because Saudis have spent $100 billion on weapons from Western governments since 2011. So weapon sales are doing great and the Saudis are receiving technical and military help and all you have is this human rights groups objecting. Other than that these Western governments are really hypocritical. They are not doing anything about the atrocities in Yemen.

Press TV: Well, what is interesting is that Saudi Arabia has just announced another round of austerity measures, so to speak. Its own economy is suffering and yet it has that money to buy those weapons, to fund this war, to intervene in Bahrain and to intervene in Syria; What would you say to that?

Omari: Well, I would say that they are in trouble in Yemen. Yemen was in trouble before the invasion. Politically it was very hard to bring the Yemenis together and now we know that Aden, the southern capital, is descending into chaos and we know that ISIS (Daesh) is taking over parts of Yemen.

We know that in Bahrain and other places, even in Iraq, the Saudis have instigated sectarian violence.  So that explains why they have all these fires, because they don’t want the Saudi people to look internally at economic problems, at oppression of the people, oppression of anybody who  cares to give an opinion.

So no wonder they are waging these wars and squandering the oil money to avoid that moment of reckoning with the Saudi people.

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