A fighter jet sets off from a British aircraft carrier (Photo Credit: Robert Sullivan)
Britain bombed Yemen this week to stop the Houthi rebels disrupting shipping in the Red Sea.
The United States has been bombing Yemeni ports and the capital, Sanaa. When Israel ramped up its siege to Gaza, and broke the ceasefire in March, the Houthis began attacking US and Israel-linked ships again.
The Houthis have caused huge disruption to the flows of Western capital through the Red Sea.
Britain has joined the assault on Yemen to maintain its role as a junior partner to US imperialism.
It’s part of a long and bloody history of British intervention in Yemen.
Britain took control of what is now Yemen in 1839 in order to secure trade and communication routes with India.
It would use ruthless methods to maintain control of the Aden colony, which it held on to until 1967.
In 1928, Britain dropped 70 tons of bombs, 1,200 incendiaries and fired 33,000 machine gun rounds.
Its attacks were primarily aimed at towns and villages, killing dozens of people.
Over a period of a week in March 1934, British air forces directly targeted the Queteibis tribe. They dropped over 28 tons of bombs on them—an average of 166 bombs an hour on entirely defenceless people.
By the 1960s, the British faced an insurgency by the National Liberation Front that aimed to boot out colonialism.
In mid-1964, British four-engine bombers dropped 3,505 20 pound bombs, 14 1,000 pound bombs and fired some 20,000 cannon rounds. Hunter jets fired 2,508 rockets and nearly 200,000 cannon rounds, destroying insurgent forces.
The election of a Labour government in 1964 saw Britain step up its intervention to maintain control of the Aden port.
British imperialism murdered hundreds of the Yemeni resistance—but eventually withdrew its forces in November 1967.
Keir Starmer is the tenth British prime minister to bomb Yemen—and far from the first Labour one either.
It is important to remember the history of bloodshed in Yemen under the banner of British imperialism—and that it was defeated before and can be defeated again.
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