Yemen: The War Canada Can’t Afford to Ignore

Yemen, a country of 25 million, has become a focal point for a proxy war between rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia. Elizabeth Renzetti, in her Globe and Mail column, urges countries to reconsider supplying arms used in a brutal conflict resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. The median age in Yemen is under 19. A ceasefire ended in August, and Médecins Sans Frontières and many journalists are withdrawing. “The … argument for selling the combat vehicles to a country with an abysmal human-rights record boiled down to, ‘it creates jobs, and ‘if we don’t, someone else will,’” she argues, adding that Canada is reported to follow the United States as a top supplier of arms to the Middle East. “Canada is not in the same weapons-dealing class as the United States, which supplies Saudi Arabia with helicopters, missiles and arms. However, the Canadian government has diluted the language around arms-export controls to make them less sensitive to human-rights concerns and more attuned to commercial interests.” A steam of weapons flowing into the region is destroying rather than providing security. – YaleGlobal