Health, humanity and hypocrisy

Etched in my mind are images from the mid-1980s Ethiopia. I was very young, but the images of famine in Ethiopia on the only TV channel in Pakistan still haunt me. I still remember vividly the pictures on the 9pm news (Khabarnaama) of children who looked like ghosts, mothers who were too sick to even cry and fathers who were a combination of stretched skin and weak bones.

There is a good chance that we may be reliving that nightmare again. This time the crisis a little bit closer to home, in Yemen. The UN estimates that Yemen may be facing the worst famine of the last 100 years. In the last year, my research team and I have been working closely with colleagues in Yemen, trying to come up with approaches to increase the reach and impact of basic medical supplies. The stories from the country keep me up at night. My friends and collaborators who have worked at the field hospital of Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF or doctors without borders) tell me that the patient number in the hospital is dropping precipitously, not because people are getting better, but because of bombing the roads are impossible to travel and the cost of petrol has sky-rocketed, grounding nearly all transportation. The hospital is still there, but fewer and fewer people can reach it and just die at whatever is left of their destroyed homes.

In Ethiopia, the crisis had many dimensions but Pakistan was not involved in any real manner. We cannot say the same this time around. This time, the famine is driven in part by Saudi-led bombing that has led to not just the loss of innocent lives but also a complete destruction of infrastructure. This is on top of controlling the air, sea and land routes making it impossible for international aid to reach Yemen without explicit permission of Saudi Arabia. The fact that the Saudi-led coalition is led by a Pakistani, and one that was serving as the head of our armed forces not too long ago, should bother us deeply. The National Assembly was also not taken into confidence earlier this year when additional troops were sent to Saudi Arabia. Beyond Pakistan, those who sell arms to Saudi Arabia, including the US and the UK, cannot be absolved of the murder in Yemen either. History will not judge those who participate in this crime kindly.

Pakistan’s complicity has continued in the recent past. In September 2018 when the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva voted to continue investigation by a panel of international experts into the war in Yemen, Pakistan along with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and its allies voted against the investigation. Yemen has done us no wrong. We should not ever be a party to killing innocent children and driving them to the edge of famine. Taking this immoral position is actually not just bad from a humanitarian perspective, it fundamentally undermines our calls for international support for oppressed people. It is hypocritical to call for support in Kashmir or Palestine, while at the same time supporting a regime that seems to be bent upon destroying a neighbouring country, its people and its future.

Some may argue that we should side with Saudis no matter what, since we depend on them for aid and oil. Once again, let us go back to the 1980s, when a similar argument was made during the conflict in Afghanistan. The “support” of Saudi Arabia led to money flowing in, but the cost to us has been devastating in terms of our national security, sectarianism and intolerance. As Steve Coll points out in his book Ghost Wars — a long series of bad decisions from the Pakistani side with respect to Saudis and the CIA has cost Pakistan dearly, even to this day. Our decisions and choices today will have consequences. Let us be on the side of humanity and health and not of destruction, famine and annihilation. Our own future will pay a heavy price, if we take away the future of Yemeni children.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2018.

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