The revelation that the UK secretly supported the candidacy of Saudi Arabia for a place on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council is a fascinating - if disconcerting - peek behind the diplomatic curtain. It appears to have been a simple back-room deal, with Saudi officials assured of the UK’s support in exchange for Riyadh’s return vote for the UK.
Except, strangely enough, the UK’s election to the Council was uncontested and the UK was therefore in no need of Saudi support. Very curious. What would impel Britain to help Saudi Arabia onto an important UN human rights body when it is plain to all that Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is lamentably poor?
The FCO won’t discuss the vote and we’re left with no official explanation. But here are a few of the underlying realities to the UK-Saudi relationship. Saudi Arabia is the biggest single purchaser of UK-manufactured arms. Its enormous multi-billion-pound Al-Yamamah contract is the largest single arms deal ever conducted by the UK with another country. The lucrative deal is swathed in secrecy and successive UK governments have taken unprecedented measures to block the release of information concerning it.
Meanwhile, for the past six months Saudi Arabian warplanes have conducted regular airstrikes against the Houthi armed group in Yemen where there has been an appalling casualty rate amongst civilians. Over 2,100 Yemeni civilians have been killed, including at least 400 children - a rate of more than ten people a day. Amnesty believes that many of the Saudi attacks could amount to war crimes. Nevertheless, the Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition is supported by the UK.
In addition to weapons, the UK has recently been marketing its experience in running prisons to the Saudis and other countries with poor human rights records. Despite widespread criticism of the scheme, and Michael Gove’s decision to wind it up, the contract with Saudi Arabia appears to be going ahead.
Saudi Arabia is considered by Britain to be an “important strategic ally” in the region and it can be extremely difficult to elicit any public criticism of the country from the lips of UK ministers. Even with a flagrantly outrageous case like that of Raif Badawi (the blogger flogged and jailed for his peaceful writings), ministers were circumspect to the point of self-censorship. Recently, with the Shia activist Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr facing a death penalty after a deeply unfair trial in Jeddah, the UK has again been uncomfortably quiet.
Read more:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-uk-is-trading-away-its-credibility-in-its-relations-with-saudi-arabia-and-china-a6678861.html
