Flimsy Houthi justifications to confront decision to ceasefire in Yemen

Mohamed Yosry

The Yemen Legislative Support Coalition, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, announced on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, the suspension of its military operations as of the following Thursday, for a period of two weeks, with the aim of supporting the efforts of the United Nations sponsored by the United Nations Envoy Martin Griffiths, which seeks a permanent cease-fire.

This comes in addition to avoid a possible outbreak of the novel coronavirus, in light of the deteriorating health conditions throughout the country, especially the areas subject to the influence of the Houthi coup militia backed by Iran, which did not express a positive position on the decision.

Violations from the first moment

The Houthi militia has not announced whether it will follow the example of the coalition in one of the largest initiatives seeking a breakthrough in peace efforts in Yemen two years ago.

Soon, the ceasefire came into effect on Thursday evening, except for the Houthi violations of continued military operations, distortion of the meaning of the ceasefire, and the promotion of lies through its Iranian-backed media platforms.

The Yemeni army accused the militia of violating the cease-fire and targeting the locations of its forces in a district in the eastern Ma’rib governorate.

Houthi responses

As the Houthi militia violates the ceasefire, Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, the head of the so-called Revolutionary Committee, and the cousin of the leader of the Iranian-backed group, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, describes the operation as a political maneuver, which explains why the militia did not respond to the ceasefire decision.

Al-Houthi claimed that the cease-fire does not reflect the document he sent to the UN envoy, Martin Griffiths, entitled “Seeing a comprehensive solution”, hours before the cease-fire.

He indicated in a tweet posted on his official page on the social networking site Twitter that the decision “will not achieve any result of the continuation of the war.”

Muhammad Ali al-Houthi has long replied in response to the ceasefire decision in light of fears of the spread of coronavirus in the country, which is absent from all health data about him under the control of Houthis in a number of regions, as well as the state of internal conflict in the country.

He said in statements published by the newspaper Al Masirah that the document – the vision of a comprehensive solution – we presented on the morning of Tuesday, 7 April 2020, and “we also affirmed the readiness for peace by a full solution on Wednesday morning, April 8 in the meeting with the international envoy, and we are still waiting for the response as promised.”

Naive lies

A few hours after Houthi violated the armistice, especially the bombing of Ma’rib Governorate by the Iranian-backed militias, Iranian media trumpets supporting Houthi began spreading naive lies to justify their lack of recognition of the armistice, which comes at a time of heightened fears of the spread of coronavirus in Yemen, which does not exist.

The Iranian Al-Alam channel tried to broadcast allegations that the forces of the Sharia Support Coalition in Yemen, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, were spreading the new coronavirus in Yemen, by sending shipments of masks contaminated with the virus as part of its humanitarian assistance to Yemenis, even though the Kingdom would be the first affected if the virus spread.