News Right Now: Looters and Leeches

Welcome to this week's episode...’Looters and Leeches’

The popular narrative that Yemen is “on the brink of disaster” or is “suffering from a civil war” or “humanitarian catastrophe” is a limited and disingenuous understatement, perpetuated by those who either fail to understand, or explain the truth of the matter.

The reality shows that the colonial struggle in Yemen has now succeeded in decimating the country, taking its population into abject poverty and opening every avenue to starvation and disease. And all this because of the political allegiances of Yemen's own politicians and the superpowers who control them, to fulfill their own geopolitical interests in the region.

Yemen's natural resources have never really benefited the people as they should have. Since oil and gas production began in the 1980’s, successive governments including Ali Abdullah Saleh’s had close ties with Britain who ran the oil fields as it wanted, granted concessions to whoever it wanted, and withheld it from those who it wanted in the absence and presence of the House of Representatives.

However, since the uprisings of the Arab Spring removed Ali Abdullah Saleh from office, the Americans have been heading the agenda to control Sanaa - outsourcing deals to their own companies like Enron and Hunt Oil as well as the Indonesian and South Korean companies which are really American in origin and identity. The power and wealth grab is taking its toll on human life, as the disadvantage to the Yemeni people is ever increasing... depriving them of their own much needed wealth to feed, educate and modernise their nation. Affected by the ongoing war and conflicts, Yemeni people are forced to travel for hours for what should be a short journey. The two hour journey between Sana’a and Marib now takes eighteen hours, and from Al-Hawban to the city of Taiz it's no longer twenty minutes, but a full day!

So it's been impossible to make a living or even collect one's salary for years now. With schools and hospitals out of bounds no one can live anything near a life of normality. Also, Yemen is now the site of the largest food crisis in the world... The UN Children's Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization said the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity is expected to increase from two million to 3.2 million in the country's south, and 20 million people were food insecure in Yemen, of which 13 million receive humanitarian food assistance.

Yemen's conflict has killed more than 100,000 people and created the world's worst humanitarian disaster, with more than three million people internally displaced and two-thirds of the population reliant on food assistance for survival. Yemen’s energy industry is still operational - hovering at around 44,000 barrels per day and like vultures over a carcass, many global energy giants continue to benefit heavily from the colonial project in Yemen.

As mentioned, Enron and the Texas based Hunt Oil are major beneficiaries.. as are the Canadian producers Nexen. Kuwait Energy, French Total and Austrian OMV previously dominated the Yemeni oil industry along with Engie, Eni, and Schlumberger. And the Chinese also showed interest in Yemeni crude oil from as early as 2000 - their major oil producer Sinopec delivered at least 250,000 tonnes of Yemeni crude each month until recently.

The Korean company Yicom, are supported by the UAE company Mushin, who, based in Marib, saw CEO Ali Mushin Saleh al-Ahmar deputise his sons to act as agents to sell Yemeni energy products. Also Saudi Arabia and the UAE control much of Yemen's energy industry and by destroying its already meagre infrastructure, they have benefited greatly - even by renegotiating contracts with some of the global players.

Yemen must be seen as a vital issue, this blessed land must be liberated from the stranglehold of the colonists, who have pillaged its wealth and treasures for their own greedy and nefarious desires. Only an Islamic government will care enough to uphold its first responsibility of evicting the colonists and their infrastructure from the land.. and end all the biased deals with any nation that challenges or seeks to undermine its authority.

Islam’s divine focus on the distribution of wealth as opposed to its hoarding is an excellent developmental construct in the fight against poverty.. and the responsibility of the Islamic state to exhaust all efforts to provide adequate housing, health and social care, education and the development of the nation, will be a prime factor in the decisions taken on behalf of the people. This application of the Islamic objectives, is the ideological solution that will see a permanent halt in the conflict and eradicate the poverty in Yemen, finally allowing the people to benefit from the wealth, ordained for them by Allah.

When it comes to Yemen, the old and new colonialists have vied with each other, creating a complicated web of allies, each with their own political interests of domination in their respective regions and within the Middle East. These same rotten values that drive these nations have destroyed all semblance of morality and justice within their own countries... their societies are riddled with crime, immorality and individualism that is ruining the generations at an incredible rate!

The Muslims and people of Yemen must work towards ridding themselves of these western and global leeches, who only know how to destroy, and who have no interest in maintaining the country or ever facilitating its people. Instead we must put our full reliance in the Islamic Khilafah as the only system that has the ideological will to allow Yemen to access its potential; intellectually, politically, and materially. Likewise, the Khilafah will ensure the protection of the peoples lives, wealth, and honour.

Allah swt says

(وَلَنۡ يَّجۡعَلَ اللّٰهُ لِلۡكٰفِرِيۡنَ عَلَى الۡمُؤۡمِنِيۡنَ سَبِيۡلًا‏)

“And never will Allah give the disbelievers over the believers a way to overcome them.[An Nisa:141]

Jazak Allahu Khayran for Joining Us!

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