08/07/15 – Scott Paul – The Scott Horton Show

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Okay, guys, welcome back.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Appreciate you tuning in.
Wrapping up today with Scott Paul from Oxfam.
And they have this media briefing, Yemen struggling to break the fast.
Welcome to the show, Scott.
How are you?
Doing okay.
Thanks for having me on the show, Scott.
Very happy to have you here.
So let's see.
I guess basic background, as you say in here, Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemen for about four months now.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it's American spies and military men are controlling the airspace and picking the targets.
It's really an American kind of proxy war there, bombing the Houthis in an attempt to reinstall the last dictator, Hadi.
And so now you guys are talking about the humanitarian impact here.
And I think it's been, if the war's been four months, it's been at least, you know, three, three and a half months since we first were told, at least by Patrick Coburn, if not others, that the Yemenis import as much as 90 percent of their food.
Under this blockade and war, we can only expect them to start starving to death basically immediately unless something is done to end this conflict.
Is that about right?
Yeah, we couldn't agree more on that part of that, ending the conflict.
You know, Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East.
It has been for a long time, even before this stage of the conflict began.
It has the second highest malnutrition rates in the world.
Since coalition led airstrikes began towards the end of March, the conflict has only escalated.
And since then, only we've seen about 1.3 million people displaced within Yemen.
And the numbers are really staggering and they don't even do justice to the nightmare that people are living in.
There's now 21.1 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance to survive.
That's about more than four out of every five people in the country.
So a ceasefire and a political solution can't come soon enough.
Okay, now when it comes to whatever local crops, I mean, somebody's got to be growing something.
I know we're talking about the Arabian Peninsula here, but I mean, is it really right 80, 90 percent of their food is imported?
It's kind of amazing that the population was able to grow that much beyond what food that they can grow themselves would provide.
You know, it's the magic of markets, but I guess it does leave them very vulnerable at the end.
It does.
In a crisis like this.
It is a staggering statistic.
And Yemen is the lion of import, not just to meet its food needs, but also to meet its fuel needs.
And that's been a double whammy.
It's been a one-two punch because what food is produced within the country, just as what food is what little food is able to be imported.
If there's not fuel to move it around, people aren't able to access it.
So, as you said, it's a country that's immensely vulnerable to outside pressure.
And it's now been effectively isolated by from the international community and from its trading partners with historically a very close relationship.
Now, here's the thing about this, though.
So we're four months on and I don't know.
Do you have numbers for how many people you estimate have already died of hunger or starvation or malnutrition?
And I guess, you know, whatever diseases that hit along with that level of weakness that gets lumped in with, you know, basically you could call it starve to death already.
And how many more?
I mean, it seems like if their markets are completely shut down, their imports are completely shut down, the war continues to rage.
So many millions of them are on the brink of starvation.
They can only be on the brink for so long before they actually starve.
I mean, what kind of window of opportunity do we have to save these people's lives here?
Well, the window is already closing.
It's tough to track exactly who is starving to death per se, but malnutrition has been simmering in Yemen for a long time and it's getting worse and worse and worse.
Since the stage of the fighting began, at least 4000 people and we estimate it's much higher, but at least 4000 people have died just from the violence alone.
Over half of those being civilians.
Again, we think it's more than that.
There's been almost 20,000 people who've been injured from that violence.
And when you have these staggering malnutrition rates, coupled with hospitals that aren't working, with people who by and large are only able to access unclean and unsafe drinking water, you get an incredibly high risk of disease that could go from zero to 60 in about two seconds.
And that's really what we're most concerned about is this combination, this lethal cocktail of violence, malnutrition, disease, and other impacts of this lack of sanitation and water distribution.
I've had colleagues tell me they walked through some of these devastated cities in Yemen and it's like a scene out of Blade Runner.
You have piles of garbage on either side of the street that's festering and there's no fuel for local authorities to pick it up and move it somewhere where it's not going to be infecting people.
So it's the combination of all of these factors that's really most worrying.
Yeah, well and Matthew Akins was on the show, snuck into the country through the blockade across the Red Sea, got into Yemen and went and reported from the northern province there right there adjacent to the Saudi border.
And basically described it, I don't mean to put words in his mouth, I forget exactly what he called it, but he basically described a place that looked like the pictures of the Gaza Strip after the war last year.
Of just Europe after World War II ended, those pictures of Germany we see or whatever, the place is just devastated.
Where they clearly, again I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but I think it was pretty clear that it was indiscriminate bombing here, not oops we accidentally hit these civilian targets, but let's just take out this neighborhood and this neighborhood and that neighborhood.
Yeah, Sadat governor in the far north is the one that's probably suffering most of all.
About 80% of its people are going hungry right now and 50% are at a critical level in terms of food security.
They've also had to deal with some of the most devastating airstrikes.
And it's interesting that he said he has, he jumps to, he concludes that it's indiscriminate because we're not an investigative agency, we're there to provide humanitarian assistance.
And so it's difficult for us to draw legal conclusions about who's bombing indiscriminately or who's targeting civilian infrastructure, but the level of destruction is just jaw dropping.
And I think there's, it's easy to make that inference when you look at the hundreds of civilian sites that have been damaged through the airstrikes and through the ground fighting as well since this stage of the conflict started.
You have hospitals, schools, religious centers, bridges and main roads and collectively what it all means is that people aren't able to get the basic services that they need, even from aid agencies that are there and able to deliver help.
Because they need to at least be able to leave their homes in a safe way and go to a place that's a little bit safer or go to a place where services are being carried out.
Man, and then, you know, the bad news, of course, is that the former government backed by the Saudis is now making headway in the port town of Aden and they brought in, I don't know how many, but very many tanks from the United Arab Emirates.
And so they look like they're just starting the next phase of the war here.
It is not their intent on putting Hadi back on the throne in Sanaa, I guess.
Yeah, and you know, all of the parties at the moment are taking a maximalist position.
Everyone from the Saudis to the armed groups on the ground, each of them with their own interests and other players in the region who now have been involved militarily.
We've seen a really startling uptick over the past half a year or so of arms going into Yemen and going to parties that are fighting in Yemen.
And the result of all that is that what had been a set of political grievances and political disagreements have now crystallized and hardened into sort of deeply entrenched military conflict.
And it's in everyone's interest in Yemen for these parties to put down their arms and agree on a political solution that's inclusive of all of the different groups that have an interest there.
And at the same time, none of them are willing to give up on their dreams of total control and imposition of their authority.
Right.
All right.
Well, can you stay one more segment with us here?
Yeah, absolutely.
Happy to.
Okay, great.
Hang tight right there, everybody.
It is Scott Paul from Oxfam.
We'll be right back.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Wrapping up for the week here.
Talking with Scott Paul from Oxfam.
We're talking about the Saudi-American war in Yemen.
It's Saudi planes, but of course the Americans are the ones running the entire air traffic control and everything, picking the targets according to the Wall Street Journal.
So it belongs to us.
But Scott, I think part of the problem, part of the effect, you characterize it as a problem or not, I guess, part of the effect of having it kind of sort of halfway outsourced war means there's much less attention paid to it.
It's not being considered an American war.
Obviously, it's really hard for reporters to even get in there past the blockade like Matthew Aikens did.
There's very little journalism coming out of there, very little incentive, I guess, for especially American reporters to even cover the thing.
I wonder if anybody even noticed when you guys put this report out.
I mean, you could watch CNN for a week and not even know there's a war in Yemen at all.
Yeah, I think you're spot on that the difficulties that journalists have had getting into the country has really limited the ability of organizations like ours to spotlight just how much people are suffering.
The journalist you had on sounds like he managed to get in.
Great job to him.
But when we put reports out like this, our goal is to really spotlight just how much people are suffering and also what needs to be done to bring this conflict to an end and to end that suffering.
There's a lot of individual journalists, I think, who are very interested in this.
But since people can't go, can't take pictures, see just how horrible the situation is, they can't talk to individuals who are affected quite as much.
There's a limited resonance.
So it's important that you invited me onto the show and that other journalists continue to pay attention to this as it goes on.
But you're absolutely right.
It's funny, you mentioned this is an American-owned war.
Inside Yemen, a lot of people think of this as the Saudi-American conflict.
And the U.S. role in this conflict has been really confused.
On one hand, the U.S. has talked very vocally about the need for a political solution.
President Obama, in fact, called the king of Saudi Arabia King Salman and had a conversation about the need for political solutions.
And at the same time, it's been reported that U.S. military personnel are coordinating on operations, offering logistical and intelligence support, and of course, selling massive quantities of arms to Saudi Arabia.
And I think what we would want to see is we would want the U.S. to make itself very clear that when we say political solution is needed, it means we're not going to support one of the parties to the conflict anymore.
Right.
Yeah, it's as simple as that.
America is the 800-pound gorilla in this situation, especially concerning the Saudis.
Call the king, tell him it's over, it's over.
Simple as that.
And all that has to mean is, hey, I'm ordering the AWACS back to their bases.
So sorry.
Right.
That's the end of that.
It's I mean, they'll say they have limited, limited influence.
And it's certainly the Saudis that are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this military operation, according to public reports.
But the U.S. has a lot of leverage with a close ally.
And frankly, to hear U.S. policymakers say that they want political solutions while they're heavily arming and supporting one of the parties to a conflict is pretty is pretty disingenuous and disjointed.
It rings hollow for me and I think to a lot of people in Yemen.
Yeah.
Right.
So now.
So I know or I guess I don't know, but I assume you guys are doing some lobbying here.
Right.
Part of your staff, their assignment is to take this report to Washington, D.C., try to get a congressman or a State Department official to acknowledge it, to talk with you guys about a little something like that.
That's what we do.
We have a we have a lot of different pieces to our mandate.
First and foremost, we deliver assistance to the people who need it most.
And that's our goal is to reduce suffering.
But we also see ourselves as a campaigning organization.
And our view is our goal there is to use our mouthpiece to promote justice and to end that suffering.
So we distribute that report in Washington as well as in capitals around the world.
That's cool.
And forgive me, I don't know too much about Oxfam, but you don't do the H.R.W. amnesty thing where every once in a while you support a regime change like in Libya, if it, you know.
Oh, look, a war for humanitarian purposes.
We're buying it.
That kind of thing.
You guys don't do that, do you?
You know, I can't I can't think of an instance where we support a regime change.
We're an impartial organization.
So our our aim is to prevent suffering.
I mean, that's what they say, too.
But, you know, sometimes it's not so consistent.
Yeah.
Unlike a lot of humanitarian organizations, sometimes we do speak out in favor of or in opposition to use of force in a specific situation.
But it has to be an extraordinary situation for us to support the use of force.
And it would have to be very, very specifically devoted to protecting civilians.
And we'd have to have confidence that people on the ground want that and that it's reasonably likely to happen.
Well, I mean, that was the exact script.
I mean, it was all lies.
But that was the story for the Libya war in 2011, of course, that amnesty jumped right on board with.
But I guess you guys didn't.
That wasn't quite a good enough excuse for you, huh?
We didn't adopt that position.
And here in Yemen, this is a case where it's very clear that the military objective, if all the parties continue to pursue their military objectives and, you know, refuse to make some pretty common sense concessions that would end the suffering of twenty one point one million people.
That's unacceptable for us.
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
And now.
So, yeah.
And back to Yemen and D.C., when you talk to the State Department, do they give any indication to you guys that there's any kind of time limit on this thing or, you know, onward to victory until Hadi rules the place again?
Or do they even answer you?
Well, I mean, the State Department view and I'll do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt and sort of reiterate their position.
Their position is that Yemen is a country in transition and the the administration of President Hadi is one part of that transition.
And that irrespective of all that, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has decided to conduct a military campaign to restore that transition.
And they're going to support the effort to restore the transition.
I think you can imagine what the exchanges would be like between, you know, an organization like Oxfam that believe we need an immediate permanent ceasefire to end the suffering of people in Yemen and the State Department.
But ultimately that our views are falling on deaf ears at the moment.
So I think there ought to be a very strong public awareness that this is a no win situation.
We've got a war in Yemen that's going on that's not really serving anyone's interest.
And it's going to continue until someone until someone finds sense and agrees to start making concessions.
You know what, man?
I mean, this is a little bit beyond your mandate, I understand.
But in this situation, it seems pretty clear that the Houthis, they bit off more than they can chew.
They don't really want to rule Sana'a and the rest of the country.
The Iranians, their friends, not their owners, advise them not to do it.
And, you know, defending their own autonomy is one thing.
But in other words, there is clearly room for negotiation here.
You guys withdraw to there and we'll stop bombing you if you stop bombing us when we, you know, come to here and there and whatever, share power.
I mean, in other words, there's nothing like a stalemate here.
There's plenty of room for compromise, set.
Yeah, you know, like I said, everyone is pursuing their maximalist military goals at the moment.
When in reality, there is a political deal to be had.
One thing I think may be worth pointing out is the U.N. Security Council has issued one adopted one resolution over the past four months.
And rather than insisting on a ceasefire, it's a resolution that was very one sided and didn't really reflect the situation on the ground.
It imposed a lot of conditions on one party, the Houthis, to abandon a lot of the positions they had taken up.
And in reality, the Houthis had no incentive to do that at the time.
So now we're in a position where other parties like the Saudis and the coalition are pointing to this resolution and saying, well, this has to happen before we make any concessions.
Or sure, we'll talk, but the talks have to be around how to how to implement these concessions that the international community has demanded of the Houthis.
And I think in order for peace to really take hold, in order for the parties to realign their incentives and end this conflict that's causing so much suffering, the Security Council needs to speak again and make clear that these conditions on the Houthis, they're not preconditions.
They're not the exclusive objects of peace talks.
They may be part of negotiations, but ultimately, the international community's position has to be we need a ceasefire.
We need an opening of the sea, air and land routes to Yemen that have much more potential than even our organization.
Organizations like ours to reduce and relieve some of this suffering.
We need to get back on a track toward the political solution.
All right, everybody, that is Scott Paul from Oxfam sticking up for the people of Yemen.
Thanks, Scott.
Appreciate it.
My pleasure, Scott.
Thanks for having me on.
All right, Shaul, that's it for the show.
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