Saudi Arabia Blackmails UN Over Children’s Rights Abuse List

Saudi Arabia Blackmails UN Over Children’s Rights Abuse List

The United Nations has shown they care more about money than children’s rights as they removed Saudi Arabia from a list of countries who committed atrocities in Yemen.

The kingdom threatened to pull money from numerous UN programs if they remained on the list. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon immediately gave into their demands and will remove Saudi pending a review.

Not just human rights. This list only mentioned countries that violated CHILDREN’S rights. The UN put money above innocent children.

The list claimed that “the Saudis’ campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen was blamed for causing 60% of child deaths in the conflict.”

The UN report said the Saudi coalition killed 510 and wounded 667 children in 2015. The military also “carried out half the attacks on schools and hospitals.” From Reuters:

“Grave violations against children increased dramatically as a result of the escalating conflict,” Ban said in the report.

“In Yemen, owing to the very large number of violations attributed to the two parties, the Houthis/Ansar Allah and the Saudi Arabia-led coalition are listed for killing and maiming and attacks on schools and hospitals,” he said.

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The U.N. report blacklists groups that “engage in the recruitment and use of children, sexual violence against children, the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and/or hospitals and attacks or threats of attacks against protected personnel, and the abduction of children.”

The kingdom, who routinely violates their own citizens’ human rights on a daily basis, threw a fit and threatened to pull their checkbooks from the organization. Foreign Policy reported that “senior Saudi diplomats told top U.N. officials Riyadh [Saudi Arabia capital] would use its influence to convince other Arab governments and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to sever ties with the United Nations.”

On Monday, Ban said “the Saudi coalition would be removed from the list, pending a review.” Saudi UN Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi insisted the removal was “irreversible and unconditional.”

Human rights groups have rightfully condemned and blasted the UN for their reversal:

“It appears that political power and diplomatic clout have been allowed to trump the U.N.’s duty to expose those responsible for the killing and maiming of more than 1,000 of Yemen’s children,” Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, Oxfam’s country director in Yemen, said in a statement. “The decision to retract its finding is a moral failure and goes against everything the U.N. is meant to stand for.”

Philippe Bolopion, Human Rights Watch deputy director for global advocacy, said that the office “has hit a new low by capitulating to Saudi Arabia’s brazen pressure” and “Yemen’s children deserve better.”

Amnesty International’s UN office claimed if the UN doesn’t start standing “up for human rights and its own principles” then they will “become part of the problem rather than the solution.”

Last September, the UN decided not to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in Yemen only “after Saudi Arabia was chosen to head a key U.N. human rights panel.”

Saudi Arabia began the coalition in Yemen in March 2015 “to restore the Yemeni government.” Experts believe the kingdom chose to get involved because their arch-enemy Iran back the Houthi rebels:

The Saudis “perceive this as a threat from the Iranians,” said CNN military analyst Lt. Col. Rick Francona. “They look at the Houthis as nothing more than a proxy Iranian force, just like we can look at Hezbollah as a proxy Iranian force in southern Lebanon.”

Analysts say that Shiite-majority Iran and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia are locked in a strategic contest for influence across the Middle East.

Now, the epic chess match has spread into Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor.

“What they do not want is an Iranian-run state on their southern border, because they already feel they’ve got enough problems on their northern border,” said Francona, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.

[Featured image via IBT Video]

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