A Year on the Saudi Aggression on Yemen! What Now?

Local Editor

One year into the Saudi aggression against Yemen, Sanaa-based pro-Ansarullah activist, Hussein Bukhaiti, tells Yemenwatch.net in an exclusive interview that over nine thousand Yemeni lives have been lost so far. With another ceasefire due to come into effect on April 10, subsequently followed by peace talks eight days later, Bukhaiti does not believe that the conflict will end in the near future.

On what basis did the Houthi Ansarullah movement agree to attend the upcoming peace talks in Kuwait?

According to the statement of Ould Sheikh Ahemd, the UN envoy [to Yemen], the ceasefire will take effect on April 10th and on April 18th, talks will begin in Kuwait. So this means that if the Saudis do not adhere to the ceasefire and break it, I think parties in Yemen like Ansarullah, they are not going to go to Kuwait. This is why they have this eight-day period between the start of the ceasefire and the start of the talks. For both sides, the eight-day period is a test to see if the ceasefire is broken by either the Saudis or the Yemenis. But I am sure that the Saudis are going to do something stupid, because we know that previous ceasefires, which were announced by the UN and supposedly were agreed to by the Saudis, were used by Riyadh to invade Aden and Marib. So we have to wait and see what is going to happen during that eight-day period, because I think those eight days are the key determining factor for weather Yemeni parties end up going to the talks or not.

So do you think that we can expect an end to the Saudi aggression any time in the near future?

No. I don't think that it will end any time soon, because the Saudi-led coalition still has the full support of the US, Britain and France. These countries are profiting from this war so it is in their interest for the war to continue. Of course it is also in the interest of the Saudis for the war to go on, because they have been unable to reach any of their goals, which included the desire to destroy the ability of the Yemeni forces to launch missiles. This hasn't happened as the Yemeni forces can still strike inside Saudi territory. The Saudis also said they wanted to eliminate the threat to their southern border. But this hasn't happened either, in fact that threat which was inexistent before the start of the war, is now inside the Saudi border. They also have not been able to return [fugitive Yemeni President Abed Rabu Mansuor] Hadi to Aden as they claimed. Instead all of these areas [in Yemen] are now under al-Qaeda control. Hadi claims that he controls eighty percent of Yemeni territory, which is inaccurate, but the truth is that it is al-Qaeda that now controls sixty percent of Yemen.

It has been a year since the start if the Saudi aggression against Yemen. How have the country and the Ansarullah movement, been transformed over the course of the last twelve months?

I can tell you that Yemen has totally changed since the beginning of this aggression because 9,156 lives have been lost out of which 2,211 are children, while 33,000 have been wounded. They [the Saudis] have destroyed all of our airports, seaports, power stations, water plants, government facilities, mosques, schools, health facilities; I could go on for over one hour. They have destroyed the entire infrastructure in Yemen, and when I say the entire infrastructure I mean literally the entire infrastructure. They have destroyed all of the sports facilities in every city and in every village.

All of the medical centers have been forced to close. They have destroyed 151 historic and touristic sites in Yemen. So they have completely altered the landscape in Yemen. But I think that all of this has united Yemenis more because now Yemenis know who is with Yemen and who is against Yemen. The Saudis couldn't even bring basic secure to Aden. So now the Ansarullah movement and their allies can point to Aden and tell the Yemeni people, ‘look at Aden, didn't we tell you at the start of this war, they just want to destroy Yemen and Aden is an example of this'. On Saturday, we also saw mass protests, denouncing the Saudi aggression, in the capital Sana'a and I believe that the rallies were attended by over a million people. I have never ever seen such a mass demonstration in this country over the last three to four years.

Source: Yemenwatch.net, Edited by website team