Middle East Eye condemns the West’s continuing to sell arms to the Emirates
The British Middle East Eye website attacked Western countries for continuing to sell arms to the UAE against the background of waging a criminal war on Yemen, its military intervention in Libya, and the support of separatist militias in both countries.
The writer Jonathan Fenton Harvey said in an article published by the British website, that the continuation of arms sales from Western countries to the Emirates represents evidence of their approval of its actions.
Harvey stressed that the ruling regime in the Emirates publicly supported the Khalifa Haftar militias in Libya and the separatist Southern Council in Yemen in an attempt to enhance its regional influence and spread chaos and sabotage in both countries.
He adds that the Council in Yemen and Haftar in Libya have rebelled in less than 48 hours against their governments, in defiance of previous peace initiatives in order to serve the Abu Dhabi plots and their ambitions to gain influence.
He said that it would not have been possible for these moves to have taken place had it not been for the hidden initiative of the Emirates, as Abu Dhabi supported both sides in an attempt to show its strength and enhance its influence without regard to the fate of the two countries.
In early April 26, the Southern Transitional Council declared “autonomy” in Aden, which ended the Riyadh agreement that stipulates uniting the forces of the Council with the forces of the government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The next night, Haftar declared himself a military ruler of Libya, indicating his desire to “create conditions for building permanent civil institutions”, announcing the cancellation of the Skhirat agreement signed in Morocco in 2015, which called for the formation of a unity government leading the country.
Harvey adds that such timing may be surprising, given that the two sides rely critically on the UAE, it is possible that Abu Dhabi – despite its official rejection of the Council’s unilateral move – has encouraged these simultaneous coups against Hadi in Yemen and the National Accord government in Libya.
He points out that while the Council has faced pressure from the Yemeni government to implement the Riyadh agreement, and with the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord achieving gains against Haftar’s forces, these moves constitute an attempt to preserve the presence of the parties.
He confirms that Abu Dhabi worked to secure the hegemony of both sides (the Council and Haftar), in order to guarantee its regional sphere of influence.
He stresses that Abu Dhabi played a pivotal role in establishing the so-called Libyan National Army led by Haftar, and also assisted him in his ongoing campaign to seize Tripoli since April 2019.
He added that with Haftar withdrawing from the Moscow talks mediated by Russia and Turkey in January, the retired Major General clearly felt that he had received sufficient support from elsewhere, specifically from Abu Dhabi, to resume military operations.
In addition to supporting the Haftar coup, the UAE has funded and supported the Southern Transitional Council since its establishment in 2017, which has demanded a southern state independent of northern Yemen.
The UAE air strikes against government forces after the coup of the Southern Transitional Council in Aden last August showed that the UAE was keen to reinforce this separatist campaign.
He explains that the UAE seeks to control southern Yemen and its ports, especially Aden and Socotra, in order to create a zone of influence on the Red Sea and to enhance its maritime trade, and that it also seeks to undermine the independence of Libya.
Harvey reports that both Emirati agents have eternally accepted each other, and that the two factions are promoting the novel “Combating Extremism” for the UAE, to justify their military efforts, while claiming that they are legitimate representatives of their peoples!
