Oxfam has accused the UK government of complicity in the Saudi war on Yemen saying that British weapons sales to Saudi Arabia are a serious violation of international law.
Failure to ban sales to Saudis despite Yemen crisis makes UK a ‘significant violator’ of arms trade treaty, the charity said
During a Geneva conference on Tuesday they said that the UK was violating the International Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the transfer of conventional arms and accuses the British Government of being in “denial and disarray” over weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.
The UK Government has faced repeated calls to ban the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia amid concerns that international humanitarian law (IHL) was being broken in the conflict.
Press TV reports:
Oxfam UK deputy chief executive, Penny Lawrence, said, “UK arms and military support are fueling a brutal war in Yemen, harming the very people the Arms Trade Treaty is designed to protect.”
Lawrence further said that Britain “misled its own parliament about its oversight of arms sales,” adding that “its international credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality.”
According to Control Arms Secretariat, the UK authorized an arms license to Saudi Arabia worth $4 billion last year.
Saudi Arabia started an air campaign against Yemen in March 2015 and later launched ground operations to undermine the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement and its allies.
Nearly 10,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Riyadh’s military aggression which lacks any international mandate.
Niamh Harris