Because Professor Orsini is wrong
This is why what Professor Alessandro Orsini wrote about the war in Yemen (to draw a parallel with Ukraine) "is disinformation, if not propaganda, or at least inaccurate information". The comment by Stefano Feltri, editor of the newspaper Domani
Professor Alessandro Orsini is the victim of a witch hunt that wants to silence the rumors not aligned with the dominant Atlanticism on the Russian aggression against Ukraine or is a more or less unconscious protagonist of a disinformation campaign that inserts propaganda arguments Russian in the Italian debate?
The newspaper Il Messaggero is convinced that Orsini is misinforming, and has interrupted the collaboration with the professor of the Luiss university.
Il Fatto Quotidiano leans towards the interpretation that sees him as a brave free intellectual and immediately enlisted him as a columnist.
On the basis of the first article that Orsini produced for Il Fatto , however, the conclusion reached by the Messenger seems more correct: Orsini's is disinformation, if not propaganda, or at least inaccurate information.
MODEL YEMEN?
In his debut editorial, Orsini elaborates an analysis that he had already mentioned in the numerous television talks in which he has found space in recent weeks. Title: Not weapons, but more sanctions for every child killed Orsini draws a parallel between the conflict in Ukraine and the war in Yemen.
The premise of Orsini's analysis is this:
At the start of the military campaign in Yemen (2015), Saudi pilots dropped bombs wildly, which hit a large number of civilian targets. After being blacklisted by the UN for the number of children killed, Saudi Arabia established the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JLAT), a body tasked with investigating incidents and allegations of violations of international law from part of the Saudi coalition itself.
A successful experiment, says Orsini:
"As stated on the Saudi government website, the JLAT has the task of preparing a report for each individual case, including the facts, the circumstances surrounding each incident, the background, the sequence of events, the lessons learned, the recommendations and future actions to be taken to avoid new civilian casualties.
Thanks to the JLAT, Saudi pilots were forced to launch their missiles in a less reckless way, causing a drop in the number of children killed under the bombs ».
It's still:
"Result: in June 2020, the UN removed Saudi Arabia from the list of countries accused of crimes against children, in which it was included on April 20, 2016.
As the children live at home with their parents and in elementary schools, Saudi pilots have had to pay more attention to all civilized places in general. And so the use of sanctions to defend Yemeni children has caused, at least until 2020, an overall attenuation of the devastation ».
When I read the article, I was amazed at Orsini's confidence in the transparency of the Saudi government.
His reasoning, in fact, seems a bit absurd: the Saudi government is accused of indiscriminate bombing in Yemen, then starts a self-monitoring on exactly where its bombs fall and, from the official website of the government, announces that after the car -monitoring the pilots started to aim a little better and to kill fewer children.
Now, the logical flaw is also evident to those who do not deal with international politics: the idea that a dictatorial regime, where the separation of powers does not act and without independent media, is the most credible subject in monitoring itself in a context warfare is quite bizarre.
Wasn't it easier to order Saudi jets directly not to bomb civilians? What is the meaning of this "monitoring"?
This whole thing, presented by Orsini as the model to follow in Ukraine, seemed absurd to me.
Who would think today that Vladimir Putin is the person most entitled to monitor the war crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine? Only in Orsini, in fact.
SAUDI ARABIA AND THE UN
Let's start with the only true thing that Orsini says: in 2020 the UN removes Saudi Arabia from the black list reserved for those who commit war crimes against children.
It is not the first time, even in 2016 he had removed it, because the Saudis had threatened to withdraw certain funds, but then the United Nations had classified them again among the worst countries.
Amnesty International and other 23 non-governmental organizations have written to the UN to protest against the 2020 choice to acquit the Saudis: in 2019 alone, the coalition led by Riyadh killed 222 children.
Of course, they could have been more, the previous year there were 729 , but the NGOs contest the method adopted by the UN: it is a bit absurd that if one kills children a year, it is enough to kill a few less a year. after to be considered okay from the point of view of respecting children's rights.
The Saudi-led coalition, in 2019, was also guilty of four attacks on schools and hospitals.
In Orsini's scheme, even assuming that the Yemen model worked, we should therefore consider it a success if in Ukraine Putin's Russian army massacred only a few hundred children (not to mention their parents, etc.) every year, including schools. and hospitals?
However, Orsini is content with little: for him the promotion of 2020 is a sign that the JLAT strategy works.
But perhaps the professor could also read the 2021 edition of the United Nations report on the war in Yemen.
The number of children killed attributed to the Saudi-led Coalition practically doubled in a year, from 222 to 436.
It was truly a diplomatic success that he removed Saudi Arabia from the black list: the following year the forces he leads killed twice as many children.
However, the Joint Incidents Assessment Team that Orsini considers responsible for the "improvement" of 2019 is never mentioned in UN documents (while it is often mentioned by Saudi propaganda sites ).
Maybe it is very important, but the official UN report on the conflict in Yemen never mentions it.
And anyway, better to reiterate it, the dead children have doubled after the "success" indicated by Orsini as a model for the war in Ukraine.
WITH THE SUPPORT OF RUSSIA
In October 2021 , the UN Human Rights Council votes against the Dutch proposal to extend for another two years the mandate of the Gee, the "Group of Eminent Experts" on Yemen, the body that was to investigate the crimes of war in conflict.
Leading the coalition of states that, very rarely, managed to put Western countries in the minority was Bahrain, which acted as the figurehead of Saudi Arabia, the real responsible for lobbying.
Thus there will no longer be a UN body that will monitor human rights violations in Yemen, but only the Joint Incidents Assessment Team that Orsini likes.
The substantial difference is that in this way the analysis of the behaviors and abuses of the Saudi coalition will be entrusted to the press office of the Saudi government and it will be possible to read on the official sites of the Riyadh government instead of in the independent reports of the UN, those that until now sanctioned the substantial worsening of abuses by the Mohammed bin Salman regime.
In this attempt to secure substantial immunity for the worst crimes in a conflict that has claimed at least 100,000 victims in seven years, Bahrain and the Saudis have been able to count on a decisive ally, one of the member countries of the UN Security Council: the Russia. And here everything is held, at least in the geopolitics of propaganda that Orsini tells about between newspapers and talk shows.
In January 2022, the ArabNews site – in English, useful for knowing the official version of the Saudi regime – publishes an exclusive interview with the spokesperson of the Joint Incidents Assessment Team, Mansour Al-Mansour: the investigation by the Saudi body found that "the Arab military coalition was not responsible for the violations of human rights in numerous air raids conducted in recent years ”.
Who would have thought.
(Extract from the editorial of Tomorrow; here the full version)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-il-professor-orsini-sbaglia/ on Sun, 27 Mar 2022 06:16:21 +0000.