Aid agencies fear impact in Yemen after US brands rebels terroists
Aid agencies were thrown into confusion yesterday over the Trump administration’s out-the-door decision to designate Yemen’s Iranianbacked rebels as a terror organisation, which they warned could wreck the tenuous relief system keeping millions alive in a country already near famine in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
The designation is to take effect on President Donald Trump’s last full day in office, a day before Presidentelect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Several aid groups yesterday pleaded for Biden to immediately reverse the designation. The Biden transition team has not yet expressed his intentions.
“Acting on day one cannot only be a figure of speech,” Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Policy Lead Scott Paul said. “Lives hang in the balance.”
Six years of war between a USbacked Arab coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been catastrophic for Yemen. Most of its 30 million people rely on international aid to survive. The UN says 13.5 million Yemenis already face acute food insecurity, a figure that could rise to 16 million by June.
Aid agencies said they were struggling to figure out the implications of the designation, which would bring sanctions against the Houthis. Some were considering pulling out foreign staff. They warned that even if the US grants humanitarian exceptions as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised, the move could snarl aid delivery, drive away banks and further wreck an economy in which millions can’t afford to feed themselves.
The Houthis rule the capital and Yemen’s north where the majority of the population lives, forcing interna
tional aid groups to work with them. Agencies depend on the Houthis to deliver aid and pay salaries to Houthis to do so. Still, the rebels have been implicated in stealing aid and using aid access to extort concessions and money, as well as in a catalogue of human rights abuses including rape and torture of dissidents.
Houthi officials were defiant over the US designation.
“We are not fearful,” tweeted the head of the group’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, Mohammed Ali al-houthi. “America is the source of terrorism. It’s directly involved in killing and starving the Yemeni people.”
In Iran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the designation was “doomed to failure” and the US would eventually have to enter negotiations with the Houthis.
The US designation move is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to isolate and cripple Iran. It also shows support to its close ally, Saudi Arabia, which leads the anti-houthi coalition in the war. Saudi Arabia has advocated the terror designation, hoping it would pressure the rebels to reach a peace deal. Past rounds of peace talks and ceasefire agreements have faltered.
Maged al-madhaji, the director of Yemen’s most prominent think tank, Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies, said the designation will “shut the doors of [Houthi] attempts to win international legitimacy.” It will also “paralyse their finances and drain money coming from regional allies”, he said.
But the designation could hamper UN mediation efforts and hurt peace talks by polarising each side’s positions, said UN secretary-general spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Yemen’s war has killed more than 112,000 people and has reduced to ruins the country’s infrastructure, from roads and hospitals to water and electricity networks.