Yemen

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for securing this important debate.

I am told that the ancient name for Yemen was Arabia Felix. It is certainly not a happy country any more. I recently received messages from a friend whose family still lives in Yemen. His sister writes, “One thing you don’t expect is the eerie silence. Due to petrol shortages, there are no cars on the roads. Even the children have stopped crying … Suicide is a mortal sin in Islam, yet for the first time there are stories of ‘family suicides’ where a desperate single mother, or a deeply impoverished family, choose to end their own lives and the lives of their children since this is the ‘less painful’ way out of the nightmare they’re in … We now realize that the entire world has turned its back on us—we’re on our own”.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s visits to the Gulf. He is right to say that there is,

“a short window to make a difference”.

I hope that his energy will be matched with action that will help stop the shameful disaster that is the war in Yemen. I also welcome the recent American and United Kingdom shift to advocating a ceasefire. However, I regret that this did not come sooner. The Saudis have been embarrassed before the world, not for the thousands of civilians killed in Yemen and their own ambitions to control that country, but by the appalling killing of one man, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia should rightly face strong international diplomatic pressure for atrocities of this kind. But we should collectively ask ourselves what has happened to our moral compass if we respond more to that one killing than to the faces of thousands of emaciated children being starved to death in front of our very eyes, for years now.

Stepping back in time, I believe that we did not intend our Government’s initial support for the coalition to become a blank cheque. I do not say this lightly, and I am sure that that Ministers themselves are not comfortable with the course the conflict has taken. But sadly, we have shown a touch of naivety and a lack of understanding of the Middle East and of the history of Saudi ambitions in Yemen, and we have failed to put uppermost the interests and values of the United Kingdom. We and our allies claimed we would have leverage to push the coalition to abide by international humanitarian law and to support parallel diplomatic efforts. That has clearly not been the case. Unfortunately, we all failed in limiting and ultimately ending the war.

I hope that as we prepare to try to bring about a ceasefire, we will bear in mind two lessons. The first is that our so-called influence is weak and almost non-existent. Unless we use the leverage we possess, collectively, as arms suppliers and trade partners, Europe, the United States and we will fail to affect the calculations of stronger regional actors. I cannot see any justification for not suspending arms export licences to Saudi Arabia and other countries engaged in operations in Yemen, given the compelling evidence that international humanitarian law has been breached by all parties to the conflict—including of course, the Houthi rebels themselves. Can the Minister say whether it is too late to stop Saudis using the US and UK weaponry that we have provided? Can he confirm whether the United Kingdom is currently providing assistance to coalition operations with targeting?

The second lesson is surely that policy should be based not on partiality to one side or the other, as it is at the present, but on sound analysis. The Trump Administration is purely wrong to fully endorse Riyadh’s narrative that the Houthi rebels represent an extension of Tehran’s destabilising hand in the tumultuous region and that the Hadi Government can simply be reinstated. Houthis have local grievances. They began their revolt in 2004, when Iran was not a player in Yemen. They get some support from Iran but would fight on regardless without it. Does the Minister agree that a new political settlement in Yemen must include all domestic political forces?

I welcome the Government’s reinvigorated engagement in the region. I know that we have long-term relationships with the regional powers, as well as important security interests, and I know that Ministers always strive to act in the interest of our own country. But Britain is always at her best when our interests and our support for human rights align. I fear that our current policy in Yemen is serving neither as it should.