San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Activists demand U.N. form panel to probe abuses
UNITED NATIONS — More than 60 organizations have urged the U.N. General Assembly to establish an investigative body to gather and preserve evidence of human rights violations during Yemen’s sevenyear conflict, including possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said the matter is urgent, particularly after the U.N. Human Rights Council voted in October to shut down its probe into atrocities in Yemen. The Group of Eminent Experts had reported that potential war crimes have been committed by all sides.
Yemen has been convulsed by civil war since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the northern part of the country. That forced the internationally recognized government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed by the United States, to try to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power. Despite a relentless air campaign and ground fighting, the war has deteriorated largely into a stalemate and has spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The more than 60 organizations said the Human Rights Council vote in October was the result of an aggressive lobbying campaign by Saudi Arabia, backed by the United Arab Emirates, a key coalition partner, and other allies.
“The international community
Yemeni fighters supported by a Saudi-led coalition ride an armored vehicle June 19 as they leave the front lines of fighting with Iran-backed Houthi rebels near the city of Marib.
cannot stand by and allow that vote to be the last word on accountability efforts for abuses and war crimes in Yemen,” the organizations said.
Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard told a virtual news conference last week that parties to the conflict, including the Saudis and Houthis, “have committed atrocities with impunity, and there is seemingly no end in
sight for this war.” That’s why, she said, “we have to act now.”
U.N. members should approve an investigative “mechanism” to demonstrate to the Yemeni people that the United Nations will not turn a blind eye to their suffering and that they support international accountability for crimes and abuses committed in Yemen, the statement said.
Human Rights Watch Executive
Director Kenneth Roth said the organizations will be going to capitals “to explain that, in light of the Saudi armtwisting that killed the investigation by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the integrity of the U.N. human rights machinery, as well as many Yemeni lives, are at stake.”