MPs to Urge Ban on UK Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
Local Editor
Fresh calls for a UK ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia are due to be made this week when the powerful all-party select committee on arms export controls meets to finalize a report expected to be deeply critical of the 18-month Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
A cross-party push will be made for the committee to urge the UK to suspend its multibillion-pound arms sales to Saudi Arabia in a move that would infuriate Riyadh, unnerve arms manufacturers and embarrass the Conservative government.
Since the 16-strong committee last met before the recess, Saudi airstrikes on 15 August left 19 killed and 24 injured when a raid hit a Yemeni hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF]. It was the fourth attack on an MSF facility in Yemen in a year, and led to the MSF withdrawing from parts of Yemen.
In this regard, the organization insisted it had shared the hospital's GPS coordinates with all parties involved in the conflict.
On 25 August the United Nations' top human rights official, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, called for an international independent inquiry into the Saudi air campaign.
The UN's report showed that 60% of the civilian deaths documented in a one-year period resulted from airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on weddings, markets, schools and hospitals. In several of those attacks, the UN said it was unable to identify any possible military target.
The UK government has said it was not against an international inquiry, but favored a Saudi-led inquiry.
The joint incident assessment team, a Middle East-based group made up of members representing Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, accepted that coalition forces bombed a residential complex in Mokha directorate in July 2015.
In a series of written corrections made on 21 July, the last day of parliament, the Foreign Office withdrew previous claims that the UK judged no breaches of humanitarian law had occurred, stating instead "we have been unable to assess whether there is a breach of international humanitarian law".
The Ministry of Defense also revised its position stating "it had not been able to assess whether the Saudis were targeting civilians". The ministry advisers have been providing logistical support to the Saudi-led bombing campaign.
The government said the changes did not represent a change in policy, but were made to ensure consistency in ministerial responses to parliament.
Since March 2015 Saudi Arabia, backed by its Sunni Arab allies, the US and Britain, has launched airstrikes in neighboring Yemen to reinstate the president Abed-Rabboh Mansour Hadi.
Source: The Guardian, Edited by website team
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