Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi-led coalition and its Yemeni allies have imposed a raft of punitive economic measures aimed at undercutting the Houthi rebels who control northern Yemen. But these actions — including periodic blockades, stringent import restrictions and withholding the salaries of about a million civil servants — have landed on the backs of civilians, laying the economy to waste and driving millions deeper into poverty.
Those measures have inflicted a slow-burn toll: infrastructure destroyed, jobs lost, a weakening currency and soaring prices. But in recent weeks the economic collapse has gathered pace at alarming speed, causing top United Nations officials to revise their predictions of famine.
Canada and the USA are selling arms to Saudi Arabia and are on the brink of greater arms export agreements. This is what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last said on the topic:
“We strongly demand and expect that Canadian exports are used in a way that fully respects human rights,” Trudeau said in Parliament. “We have frozen export permits before when we had concerns about their potential misuse and we will not hesitate to do so again.”
Yes, sir, the right to live is the basic human right. And the US in one year exported $18B to Saudi Arabia.
Over the five years ending in 2017, nearly one-fifth, of American weapons exports went to Saudi Arabia, SIPRI reports. Overall, half went to the Middle East and North Africa. In the 2017 calendar year alone, some $18 billion in new Saudi arms deals were cleared by the U.S.
