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‘Defensive’ refuelling of planes bombing Yemen can still cause war crimes. Just ask Keir Starmer
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Pollard would not provide details on what he described as “a range of defensive missions” that have been agreed with Saudi Arabia and acknowledged “a grey” area of what defensive action included.
Reporting by The Times claimed “the remit for Saudi operations goes wider” and includes refuelling of Saudi fighter jets bombing “defensive targets on land and along coastal areas, such as weapons depots and sites used to launch missiles and drones” adding to the opaque nature of Britain’s military support.
British refuelling support to Saudi Arabia, especially if it facilitates Saudi fighter jets carrying out bombing runs into Yemen, risks drawing UK-linked maritime vessels into Houthi targeting criteria.
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Three successive Conservative prime ministers supported Saudi Arabia’s first air war against the Houthis from 2015 to 2022.
The war resulted in more than 19,000 civilian casualties in up to 75,217 individual strikes over the seven years of bombing, according to airstrikes monitor Yemen Data Project (YDP). Saudi Arabia successfully lobbied to remove UN experts from investigating the conflict.
In October 2021, in an unprecedented move by member states, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) voted down a resolution for a two-year renewal of the Group of Eminent Experts (GEE) on Yemen.
The GEE was created in 2017 to investigate and monitor violations of human rights, international humanitarian law (IHL) and war crimes by all belligerents. It was the first time in UNHRC history for a resolution to be voted down. Saudi Arabia reportedly influenced the vote by lobbying member states using “incentives and threats”.
The GEE mandate ended on 31 October 2021, halting the only international mechanism for accountability for IHL violations in the conflict.
In the three months following the UNHRC vote, civilian casualties in Saudi’s air war more than trebled every month, taking the monthly average of civilian casualties in bombings after October 2021 to 141, compared to less than six per month in the 12 months preceding the dissolution of the GEE, according to YDP records.
Adding to Saudi Arabia’s documented track record of civilian harm and accountability prevention is an absence of any record keeping or process for assessing civilian casualties by the British Ministry of Defence.
Yet Pollard asserted in one of his BBC interviews on Tuesday that all British actions would “be compliant with international humanitarian law”.
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Article is recommended. https://www.declassifieduk.org/what-the-media-isnt-telling-you-about-burnhams-support-for-saudi-arabia/
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