TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior human rights activist from Sweden slammed the Saudi regime for its heinous crimes against the Yemeni people and raised the alarm that Riyadh is seeking to relocate the Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group to Yemen.

“The biggest potential danger now is a renewed Saudi policy to relocate hardened ISIS-mercenaries from Syria and Iraq to Yemen,” Ulf Sandmark said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.  

“There should be an international uproar against the continued deployment of those ISIS-criminals who should be put on trial and imprisoned for their crimes against humanity,” he added.

Sandmark is a Swedish economist and human rights activist as well as a longtime collaborator of American political figure Lyndon H. LaRouche. He is a board member of the Schiller Institute in Sweden and the Stockholm Correspondent for the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR). As a child, he lived for three years with his family in Addis Ababa and became active in Third world development issues at the time of his studies at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has written many articles and proposals for development programs, including "The Phoenix program - Discussion points for the reconstruction of Syria" (coauthor Hussein Askary) about how to realize the major potential for recovery in linking up Syria to the New Silk Road. As a chairman for 20 years of the Anti-Drug Coalition in Sweden, he has written about how to dismantle the drug banks and their narco-terrorist bands. He has also delivered speeches to various international conferences, including a two-day conference held in London last year to “support the Yemeni people against the Anglo-American-Saudi imperial war”.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: The UN children's agency has recently said the ongoing Saudi aggression against Yemen has killed or injured more than 5,000 children and left another 400,000 severely malnourished and fighting for their lives. UNICEF said nearly two million Yemeni children were out of school, a quarter of them since the start of the war. In the meantime, the Saudi-led war on Yemen has led to a cholera epidemic in Yemen, which is one of the worst ever recorded in the world. The epidemic is likely to surge again around March, according to media reports. What do you think about the Saudi crimes in the Arabian Peninsula country? Why doesn't the UN take a practical measure, like imposing sanctions against Riyadh, in the face of its crimes?

Sandmark: UNICEF and other agencies sound the alarm, but it is up to governments to take the decisions, however, in the UN Security council, the nations are silenced by strategic threats. China is under the existential threat of oil cutoff in the Persian Gulf region. Russia is also strategically threatened by the combined need to prepare existential survival in a nuclear war and avoid risking national bankruptcy through the oil pricing. The Western European powers are blackmailed by a British instigated New Cold War hysteria. The limited maneuvering room, which Russia has played carefully and wisely in Syria, is not there in the Persian Gulf. Therefore, it so far has been possible for the war policy of the Saudi-led coalition, which includes the Western powers, to resort to the tactic to try to break the will of the nationalist forces in Yemen by setting up the heinous starvation and health crisis for the civilian population.

Tasnim: Some Western countries that claim to be champions of human rights are pursuing double-standard policies on Saudi Arabia's atrocities. How do you see the role of Washington and London in the Riyadh regime's heinous crimes against Yemen?

Sandmark: The Riyadh regime was never on its own since its inception as the British maharajas to control the region. The War is part of the British policy to threaten strangulation of India, China, and Japan by bringing destabilization to the energy flows from the Persian Gulf region. As the wars in Iraq and Syria are about to end, tension is brought there by the British instigating ever new crises, some of which is aimed to trick the US president into war against Iran. The British old policy to weaken and crush Iran is now a convenient part of the immediate British goal to crush the US Presidency of Trump and keep the US divided from Russia and China. Trump would not survive as president if he starts another American war in Asia, all of which he pledged to stop. The modern form of British Empire would not survive the stable and good relation between USA, Russia and China, which Trump vowed to establish.

Tasnim: Since the start of its war on Yemen, the Saudi regime has reached none of its objectives. How do you assess recent developments on the battlefield?

Sandmark: The Saudi-led coalition still cannot win against the Yemeni barefoot patriotic soldiers, as it depends on mercenaries who are just being slaughtered. The biggest potential danger now is a renewed Saudi policy to relocate hardened ISIS-mercenaries from Syria and Iraq to Yemen. There should be an international uproar against the continued deployment of those ISIS-criminals who should be put on trial and imprisoned for their crimes against humanity.

Tasnim: What do you think about the political future of Yemen? Through what solutions can the Yemeni crisis be resolved?

Sandmark: If the war ends, the future of Yemen is bright, as China, together with 70 nations, has launched the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) with a promise to end poverty in the world. This is in line with China’s successful policy to end domestic poverty for 700 million Chinese. Included in the BRI policy is bring electricity into every home in the world and connect all regions with modern train systems.

The visions of the BRI is also the core of a strategy for Yemen to end the war. Yemen can already now seek to establish international alliances for the protection and development the BRI in the region. Even though such a policy takes a long time materialize as physical buildings and infrastructure, the policy can forge immediate political alliances with important powers, as well as with domestic factions, which could be strong enough to stop the war very soon. One urgently needed decision from the Yemeni government is to guarantee forever a national commitment to ensure the safety of the nearby Maritime Silk Road and help to end piracy. The illegal deadly blockade against Yemen could, for instance, end as a byproduct of an absolute massive international naval peace mission to end piracy in the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea. As the siege is an illegal implementation of the UN Resolution 2216, there are many possible maneuvers to outflank and stop the siege.