The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded Thursday that negotiations for a new truce in Yemen must include civil society, while urging the implementation of accountability mechanisms to protect the rights of Yemenis.
The real beneficiaries of this truce should be Yemeni civilians, rather than the leaders of the warring parties,» said HRW’s researcher for Yemen and Bahrain, Niku Jafarnia.
Yemeni civil society and activists have been effectively excluded from the negotiations, leaving the people of Yemen with no one to represent their interests,» he said.
Thus, Jafarnia lamented that »civil society has not been formally included in the truce discussions or in any meaningful way in the broader negotiations led by the UN special envoy.»
»For a new truce to uphold the rights of people in Yemen, it is critical to meaningfully include Yemeni civil society actors on key issues, including the rights of women and minority groups,» a statement reads.
HRW, which has welcomed recent prisoner exchanges, has also called for the release of those arbitrarily detained, as well as reports of missing persons, including human rights activists and journalists. A truce should secure their release,» it said.
ACCOUNTABILITY On the other hand, the NGO pointed out that the warring parties have not been held accountable for their actions during the conflict, which have caused at least 20,000 civilian casualties, while 21 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian aid and 4.5 million people have been displaced.
The parties to the conflict, which have damaged and destroyed critical infrastructure in the country, have failed to provide effective reparations, and the organization has urged fair trials, reparations and reconstruction to move society forward »in a sustainable manner.»
A new truce should address this gap by including the establishment of an international investigation mechanism, which is the first step towards accountability,» said Jafarnia, adding that impunity for those who carried out or oversaw possible war crimes must be ended.
In addition, they have indicated that in order to carry out the recovery from the conflict, the parties must commit to inspect and clear the country of landmines and explosive remnants of war, as during the truce explosive remnants were the main cause of civilian casualties.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
