Support and Succour for the Saudi's

UK government ministers have signed a £100m aid agreement with Saudi Arabia  described  as a “new long-term partnership” to improve livelihoods and boost economic development in some of the world’s poorest countries. This can be seen as the smoke-screen to hide the growing deep relationship that the UK has with this dictatorship.

Allan Hogarth, head of policy and government affairs at Amnesty International UK  said: “British overseas aid is important in many ways, but at a time when the UK is arming a Saudi-led military coalition that’s laying waste to homes, hospitals and schools in Yemen, this raises troubling questions.It is not good enough for the UK to provide humanitarian aid on the one hand and supply the weapons that fuel a humanitarian crisis on the other.”

Downing Street said a target of £65bn worth of trade and investment had been agreed during the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the UK and Saudi Arabia has moved closer to a deal to buy 48 Typhoon fighter jets, UK aerospace giant BAE Systems has said. A memorandum of intent on the deal was signed after the Saudi Crown Prince met Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. Shares in BAE Systems closed up more than 2% in the wake of the announcement.  BAE chief executive Charles Woodburn said: "We are committed to supporting the Kingdom as it modernises the Saudi Armed Forces." 

 Human rights and anti-war protesters have strongly opposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia both on the grounds of its poor human rights record at home and more urgently because Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen are blamed for the majority of civilian casualties there.

Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children, blasted the government over the welcome lavished on the prince.  “It has become acceptable to operate humanitarian blockades which, if not explicitly designed to starve children and harm children, will have that inevitable consequence. The fact that we have the head of state of a government that has been operating such a blockade – Saudi Arabia – recently invited to Buckingham Palace and Downing Street while the military … is orchestrating what will potentially become the worst famine in the last 50 years, I think speaks volumes.” Noting a “growing sense of impunity surrounding crimes against children”, Watkins added: “The fact that you can rape, murder, kidnap, bomb schools, bomb clinics with no consequence, speaks I think to the heart of the deeper challenge.”

Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said that since the bombardment of Yemen began in 2015, the UK has licensed arms worth £4.6bn to Saudi Arabia even before the latest proposed deal.

“If agreed, this shameful deal will be celebrated in the palaces of Riyadh and by the arms companies who will profit from it but it will mean even greater destruction for the people of Yemen,” Smith said.