Saying, “According to Greg Hayes, CEO of Raytheon Technologies, at a shareholder meeting, ‘peace is not going to be breaking out in the Middle East anytime soon,’ but we are here today to say peace and a lifting of the cruel Saudi blockade of Yemen must happen,” Massachusetts Peace Action organizer, Brian Garvey, opened a public readathon event to call attention to this crisis. The “readathon” event aimed to educate the general public and create a new way to speak out against the Saudi blockade of Yemen ports and against U.S. arms sales to the Saudi regime. Readings included news articles, poems and political statements of great significance from past decades of opposing wars.
These egregious words seeking to reassure Raytheon shareholders that killing would continue across the Middle East and that Raytheon-made weapons would continue to be sold briskly to countries using them on civilians, served as a spur to action.
The Saudi air and sea blockade of Yemen (a food importing nation) is causing an unparalleled humanitarian crisis because vital food, medicine and fuel are not being brought into the country. A child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes and 400,000 children are in peril of starvation in the next weeks.
“We are heading straight toward the biggest famine in modern history. It is hell on earth in many places in Yemen right now…And now, to add to their misery the innocent people of Yemen have to deal with a fuel blockade…That blockade must be lifted … Otherwise millions more will spiral into crisis” (David Beasley. Executive Director, UN World Food Programme, March 11, 2021)
Despite President Biden’s promise to treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah state, the U.S.-Saudi Alliance remains in place. Starting in 2015 our two countries have devastated Yemen and destroyed much of its infrastructure with bombs and blockade. The U.N. reports that by the end of last year 233,000 Yemenis have died from the war: 100,000 from military action and 133,000 from starvation, disease and lack of basic infrastructure due to bombing and shelling. We don’t have the casualty numbers for the last 5 months, but they are enormous as starvation intensifies.
Meanwhile U.S. arms corporations: Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed among others have made billions of dollars by providing the bombs and other weapons to the Saudis. Raytheon Technologies bears particular responsibility for the crisis, as former lobbyists and corporate board members have served and are serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense (previously Mark Esper and currently Lloyd Austin). Raytheon spokesperson, Corinne Kovalsky, told the NYT in a May 2021 article, “We believe further dialogue regarding foreign military sales is best directed to official in the U.S. government.” This stunning disavowal was brought into the public arena a number of times at the readathon.
The U.S. continues to provide maintenance and sustainment assistance to the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), which is essential to keeping Saudi aircraft flying. Saudi Arabia continues to bomb areas in Yemen which has taken a heavy toll on civilians who already suffer from conflict-born hunger, a resurgence in preventable diseases and Covid-19. The United Nations estimates that 80 percent of Yemen’s 31 million citizens – more than 24 million people – are in need of assistance and protection.
By reading news articles, poems by Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy and Mahmoud Darwish, and from the Catonsville 9 trial transcript the crisis in Yemen was illustrated and illuminated to focus attention and understanding of the profitable arms trade that kills children in Yemen, Palestine and too many other places. Father Daniel Berrigan’s prophetic words spoken during the trial: “Apologies good friends for the fracture of good order…the burning of paper instead of children…” and his rigorous question: “When at what point will you say no to this war?” are as alive in 2021 as they were in 1968.
Materials used are available for download to organize a readathon in your area.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0jtnjq82ua52med/Yemen-Readathon-Readings.pdf?dl=0
Youtube video of event: https://youtu.be/C23VugiBiT8
