Peace movement against Belgian Saudi war profiteering

This 23 April 2018 Voice of America video says about itself:

Boy Clutches Father After Saudi Air Strikes Kill at Least 20 at Yemen Wedding

A video published on Monday (April 23) by Al-Masirah … showed a young boy on the ground clutching his father’s body in Hajjah after a Saudi Arabia led air strike killed at least 20 people at a wedding. The boy was seen lying on the ground in the dark crying and refusing to leave his father’s body, shouting “I swear I won’t leave him”, as people around him could be heard trying to help him.

An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, killing at least 20 people, health officials said Monday, as harrowing images emerged on social media of the deadly bombing, the third to hit Yemeni civilians since the weekend.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman initiated a military intervention in Yemen in 2015.

Translated from the Belgian peace movement Vredesactie today:

Belgium complicit in war

On the morning of March 25, banners were lowered from the roof of CMI Defense in Seraing and from the Walloon Parliament in Namur. Activists thus point out to the arms corporation and the Walloon government their involvement in the conflict in Yemen, which is entering its fifth year.

That war is accompanied by large-scale human rights violations and has already claimed more than 60,000 victims, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. In the meantime, more and more evidence is emerging of the use of Belgian weapons by the warring parties in Yemen. Vredesactie and Agir pour la Paix today publish a file that maps the Belgian involvement in the conflict.

At the CMI headquarters in Seraing, campaigners unrolled a banner with the inscription ‘Yémen: 60,000 morts. Stop Saudi arming’. Red paint was poured out, symbolizing the blood of many civilian casualties, and facts about the war were posted. All activists were arrested.

CMI Defense, part of the CMI Group, sells turrets to Canadian General Dynamics, which mounts them on the light armored cars that it sells to Saudi Arabia. What was then called “the contract of the century” was signed in 2014 for an amount of € 3.2 billion. It was also announced in February that CMI wants to open a factory in Saudi Arabia. By producing in the country itself, CMI no longer needs to apply for export licenses.

In Namur, on the bridge near the Walloon Parliament and the Elysette, the seat of the Walloon Prime Minister, a large banner reminds the Walloon government of its responsibility.

By continuing to issue export licenses for the sale of Walloon weapons to Saudi Arabia, the Walloon government is complicit in this war, the 60,000 dead and what the United Nations calls the worst humanitarian crisis in the world“, says Bram Vranken from the roof of the Walloon arms corporation. ‘The Flemish government is guilty as well. Because 60 to 70% of the end use of Flemish arms exports is unknown, we cannot rule out the possibility that Flemish weapons will end up in Yemen. ”

To date, an estimated 85,000 children in Yemen have died of famine and cholera, a direct consequence of the war and the Saudi naval blockade.

Despite the seriousness of the situation on the ground and the repeated calls from the European Parliament for an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, weapons continue to leave for Saudi Arabia. “Belgium has blood on its hands. How long will policymakers continue to accept this?” Vranken adds.