[Peace] AWARE leaflets the Art Theatre on Tuesday, May 16, 6-7pm, on U.S. crimes in Yemen

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Champaign's Art Theatre is presenting films and a panel on Yemen 
tomorrow.]

"'The Mulberry House'
This screening is part of THE SEVENTH ART STAND
Tue, May 16 at 7:00pm

"Filmmaker Sara Ishaq grew up in Yemen to a Yemeni father and a Scottish 
mother. As a teenager, she became increasingly suffocated by the 
constraints of her surroundings, and at age 17, finally decided to move 
to Scotland, where her mother now resides. Her father, however, would 
only approve under the condition that she would not forsake her Yemeni 
roots – a promise she made, but could not keep. Ten years later, in 
2011, Sara returns to Yemen prepared to reconnect with her long-severed 
roots, only to find her country teetering on the brink of a revolution. 
THE MULBERRY HOUSE focuses on the shifting dynamics between women and 
men within the context of a modern Yemeni family, testing all 
preconceived ideas about identity, customs, and familial and social 
bonds. (2013, Sara Ishaq, Yemen-Scotland, 65 min, HD, Eng subs)

"Preceded by: KARAMA HAS NO WALLS (2013, 26 min, digital. In Arabic with 
English subtitles.)
Ishaq’s earlier film is a gripping, eye-witness account of the tragic 
day – March 18, 2011 – that changed the course of the revolution in 
Yemen, when pro-government snipers opened fire on a peaceful gathering 
of protesters, sparking national outrage and ultimately leading to the 
end of 33 years of autocratic rule.

"Post-show discussion w/ Hadi Esfahani & Angela Williams (Center for 
South Asian & Middle Eastern Studies)"

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[The Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana will be 
distributing the following flyer outside the theater before the film.
You're welcome to join us for leafleting and discussion.]

VOICES FOR CREATIVE NONVIOLENCE | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS | MARCH 20, 2017

{outline map of MENA - Mideast and North Africa}

REALITY AND THE U.S.-MADE FAMINE IN YEMEN | KATHY KELLY
{Kathy Kelly (kathy at vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative 
Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)}

This week at the Voices for Creative Nonviolence office in Chicago, my 
colleague Sabia Rigby prepared a presentation for a local high school. 
She’ll team up with a young friend of ours, himself a refugee from Iraq, 
to talk about refugee crises driven by war.

Sabia recently returned from Kabul where she helped document the young 
Afghan Peace Volunteers’ efforts to help bring warmth, food and 
education to internally displaced families living in makeshift camps, 
having fled the Afghan War when it raged near their former homes.

Last year Sabia had been visiting with refugees in “the Calais Jungle,” 
who were fleeing the Middle East and several African countries for 
Britain. Thwarted from crossing the English Channel, a large mass of 
people were stopped in this refugee camp in Calais, France, from which 
French authorities eventually evacuated them, defying their careful 
solidarity and burning their camp to the ground.

As part of her high school talk, Sabia prepared a handout to show where 
refugees are the most welcomed. One detail astonished her.

In FY 2016, the U.S. admitted 84,995 refugees, but Yemen, the poorest 
country in the Arab world took in 117,000 new refugees and migrants in 
2016, and hosts more than 255,000 refugees from Somalia. Yemen is now 
beginning to host the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. What’s more, 
the country is regularly targeted by Saudi and U.S. airstrikes.

Since we are also planning a week of fast and action related to the 
tragic circumstances Yemen faces, we were astounded when we realized 
Yemen is a path of escape for Somalis fleeing the Horn of Africa, 
refugees of one conflict, stranded in their flight, and trapped in a 
country where deadly conflict is precipitating into deadlier famine.

After years of U.S. support for dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, civil war 
has wracked Yemen since 2014. Its neighbor Saudi Arabia, itself among 
the region’s cruelest dictatorships and a staunch U.S. ally, became 
nervous in 2015 about the outcome and, with support from nine regional 
allies, began subjecting the country to a punishing barrage of 
airstrikes, and also imposed a blockade that ended the inflow of food 
and supplies to Yemen through a major port. This was accomplished with 
massive, ongoing weapons shipments from the U.S., which has also waged 
independent airstrikes that have killed dozens of civilians, including 
women and children.

Pummeled by airstrikes and fighting, facing economic collapse and on the 
brink of famine, how could this tiny, impoverished country absorb 
thousands upon thousands of desperate migrants?

Yemen imports 90% of its food. Because of the blockade, food and fuel 
prices are rising and scarcity is at crisis levels.

UNICEF estimates that more than 460,000 children in Yemen face severe 
malnutrition, and 3.3 million children and pregnant or lactating women 
suffer acute malnutrition. More than 10,000 people have been killed, 
including 1,564 children, and millions have been displaced from their 
homes, but worse is the groundwork laid for the far greater devastation 
of famine. Iona Craig, in the IRIN publication, recently wrote:

In the middle of a vast expanse of grey scrubland, a rapidly growing 
population of more than 120 families huddle under parched trees. 
Escaping the latest wave of conflict on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, they 
walked two days to get to this camp southwest of Taiz city.

But on arrival, the scores of women and children found nothing. No 
support from aid agencies. No food. No water.

No shelter. The elderly talk of eating the trees to survive, while 
children beg for water from local farmers. A mother cradles her clearly 
malnourished baby in her arms.

Now comes word that on March 16th, forty-two Somali people were killed 
in sustained gunfire from the air as they set forth in a boat attempting 
to flee Yemen.

“I took cover in the belly of the ship,” said Ibrahim Ali Zeyad, a 
Somali who survived the attack. “People were falling left and right. 
Everyone kept screaming, ‘We are Somali! We are Somali!’”

But the shooting continued for what felt like half an hour.

The attack on Yemen traps both Yemenis and fleeing Somalis in the worst 
of four developing crises which collectively amount, one U.N. official 
warns, to the worst humanitarian crisis in the history of the U.N. As of 
this writing, no one has taken responsibility for the strike, but 
survivors say they were attacked by a helicopter gunship. The boat was 
carrying 140 people as it headed north off the coast of Yemen.

Meanwhile, US weapons makers, including General Dynamics, Raytheon, and 
Lockheed Martin, profit massively from weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. In 
December, 2017, Medea Benjamin wrote: “Despite the repressive nature of 
the Saudi regime, U.S. governments have not only supported the Saudis on 
the diplomatic front, but militarily. Under the Obama administration, 
this has translated into massive weapons sales of $115 billion.”

At this critical juncture, all member states of the UN must call for an 
end to the blockade and airstrikes, a silencing of all guns, and a 
negotiated settlement to the war in Yemen. The worst malefactors, the 
U.S. and Saudi Arabia, must abandon cynical maneuvering against rivals 
like Iran, in the face of such an unspeakable human cost as Yemen is 
being made to pay.

U.S. people bear responsibility to demand a radical departure from U.S. 
policy which exacerbates the deadly tragedy faced by people living in 
Yemen.

Choosing a path of clear opposition to U.S. policies toward Yemen, U.S. 
citizens should demand elected representatives stop all drone attacks 
and military “special operations” within Yemen, end all U.S. weapon 
sales and military aid to Saudi Arabia, and provide compensation to 
those who suffered losses caused by U.S. attacks.

Our group of activists long functioned under the name “Voices in the 
Wilderness,” a campaign to defy U.S. economic warfare against Iraq, a 
form of war through imposition of economic sanctions which directly 
contributed to the deaths of over 500,000 children. Lost in a culture of 
hostile unreality and unbearable silence concerning economic warfare, we 
were evoking, perhaps unconsciously, the plight of refugees seeking 
survival. We didn’t succeed in lifting the brutal economic sanctions 
against Iraq, but we surely learned harsh realities about how callous 
and reckless U.S. policy makers could be.

We must ground ourselves in reality and in solidarity with the greater 
part of the world’s people. As our neighbors around the world flee in 
desperation across borders or within the confines of their own 
countries, we must continually educate ourselves about the reality of 
what our nation’s actions mean to the world’s poor. Building toward a 
time when our voices may unite and be heard, we must raise them now in 
crying out for the people of Yemen.

{ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT - on Facebook at <AWARE of Champaign Urbana 
Illinois>
~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ 
Universal basic income ~}

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