Saudi allies to be hit back hard over Yemen: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Hussain al-Bukhaiti, an activist and political commentator in Sana’a, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: It is been since March 26, now we are in November and still we are reporting the same type of stories, more bombings by Saudi forces, more people, civilians being killed and still nothing on the so-called international front as far as those who say they are defenders of human rights, really not making a whole lot of noise concerning Yemen. Why is that the case? Why isn’t Yemen important to the likes of London and Washington?

Bukhaiti: Of course, for the international community and for the Western countries, Muslims lives and now Yemeni lives is nothing for them. They consider them just as numbers. When they announce any reports, Yemenis become just a number in this report like human rights or Amnesty International.

We have seen that all type of weapons have been used against Yemen, including thousands of cluster bombs across Sa’ada and Hajjah region and still, with the silence of the international community and with the UN itself, it is actually clearly biased with the Saudis because they have been asking parties in Yemen like Ansarullah, the Houthis and the GPC (the General People’s Congress) to agree about the 2216 resolution and when they have announced they agree about this resolution, they still have not done anything and they still have not asked Hadi or the Saudis for any concession.

It seems they just want things to stay as they are with the bombing across the country, with constant strikes, with cover and weapons sent to al-Qaeda and given to extremists and Jihadists in Yemen and we heard as well about planes coming from Turkey, United Arab Emirates’ planes and Qataris and Turkish planes as well, bringing Yemeni terrorists and as well international terrorists from Syria back to Yemen because this is what they just want to do. They want to bring this scenario in Yemen. It started in Afghanistan and then to Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen and now it is going to start in Egypt and they are going to start with Sinai and the Suez Canal and we will see the same story in Egypt and I hope that the Egyptians will be careful with their coalition with the Saudis against Yemen.

Press TV: Tell me what is it like? The deteriorating humanitarian situation on the ground in Yemen. Tell me what it is like now?

Bukhaiti: I will give you an example. For example Sa’ada is the worst hit area. There was only two running hospitals - al-Joumhouria, which part of it is run by the MSF, Doctors Without Borders, and there was as well Haydan Hospital or medical center, which is totally run by the Doctors Without Borders. This hospital was bombed. So for the entire north region of Yemen, there is only one hospital to deal with over two million people. Can you imagine this high number of strikes to result in thousands of casualties?

And just I will give you as well one example. I have been to Dhamar last week and, in Dhamar, there was a project called “Dhamar Survey Project.” It is a project that is done by Chicago University and they have built a museum in Dhamar city and for 20 years researchers from Yemen and from the United states have been collecting anything that is artifacts in central Yemen and this museum was bombed in July and 12,500 artifacts were gone in a matter of second.

This shows you that these attacks and these strikes just affect Yemenis and it affects our history, it affects our heritage sites and this is what happened in Syria and the Saudis want to repeat the same thing exactly in Yemen.

Press TV: You just brought up an interesting point about the archaeological artifacts; you talked about a museum that a lot of these items have been taken, either destroyed or stolen. Why do you think that we are seeing this over and over again?

We saw great historical archaeological sites that were destroyed in Afghanistan; we saw it in Iraq, we saw it actually in Syria and now Yemen. What is it about these Takfiris that they want to destroy these archaeological sites and history itself?

Bukhaiti: If you see why the same story like you asked is repeated in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq and here in Yemen is because those – as you called them Takfiris or al-Qaeda or Daesh – they are from the same ideology, they have the Wahhabi ideology, which is the one that is in control in Saudi Arabia. They studied those books of Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, they do not recognize anything that is historic. They destroy everything.

So if you see the same story repeated, [it] is because the source is one. The source is the Saudi royal family that has established hand-in-hand this so-called Saudi Arabia and those things are happening everywhere. And I expect that in the coming month, if not the coming year, the Egyptians will see the same things if they are not going to stand against this war and if they are going to take side with the Saudis, just like a circle, all this is going to come back to hit them hard and we have seen this starting in Sinai as well.

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