Houthi Sanctions Would Have 'Disastrous' Impact on Yemen, Humanitarian Workers Tell Congress
The U.S. should refrain from imposing sanctions on the Houthis and others for the violence in Yemen because the restrictions would have a “disastrous” impact on the country’s commercial imports, humanitarian aid experts said. The experts applauded the Biden administration for repealing the terrorism designation of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels last month (see 2102100016) and urged policymakers to find a diplomatic solution rather than turning back to sanctions.
“The strategic ends of the designation would have been minimal at best and it would have come at an unacceptable humanitarian cost,” Amanda Catanzano, a senior director at the International Rescue Committee, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee March 11. Catanzano said merely rumors of sanctions on Yemen led to drops in commercial imports into the country, which she said is 90% reliant on foreign goods. “Anything that slows down the commercial sector in that way would have been a death sentence.”
But several Republicans said they were opposed to the Biden administration's revocation of the designation of Houthi rebels as a terrorist group, which was issued by the State Department under the Trump administration (see 2101110015). “I fear that lifting the designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, without any actual behavioral changes by the Houthis, has removed one of our most potent leverages,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said.
Radhya Almutawakel, co-founder of Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, told lawmakers that the sanctions had almost no impact on the Houthis, who are causing mass violence throughout the country and frequently divert humanitarian aid. She said the U.S. needs to push for “peace and accountability” in the region rather than impose trade restrictions. “The designation didn't make the Houthis weaker and to [revoke] the designation didn't make them stronger,” Almutawakel said. “The only impact of the designation was on civilians.”
Abdulwasea Mohammed, a policy adviser for the non-profit group Oxfam, said the designations would have had “direct and indirect disastrous consequences” for the Yemen people by blocking humanitarian imports, especially from the U.S. “This would have substantially reduced the presence of humanitarian supplies throughout the country,” he said.
Catanzano said the U.S. instead needs to work with allies to continue to push for a peace agreement in the region while also stopping arms sales to Yemen. The administration can also “press for the reopening of air and seaports and other steps necessary to facilitate import flows.“
Other measures, such as sanctions, would only hurt civilians and limit imports, Catanzano said. She said many traders won’t want to risk exporting to Yemen even if there are carve-outs for humanitarian shipments “given the lack of clarity around” those exceptions. “I think that specific steps like sanctions, I don't know what that would do. There have been sanctions on the Houthis and the senior leaders for a number of years,” Catanzano said. “That doesn't seem to have changed the calculus.”