Newsday, May 3, 2002
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpfas032691921may03.story
Israel's decision not to cooperate with a United Nations fact-finding mission into the Israeli military assault on the Jenin refugee camp
is intended to prevent the world from knowing the truth. In the face of the Israeli opposition, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
announced Wednesday he was disbanding the mission. But there is an urgent need for the UN to dispatch the fact-finding team immediately.
With every passing day, it becomes more difficult to determine what took place in Jenin.
Among Israel's main initial conditions for allowing a fact-finding team to arrive were that Israel would decide which Israeli witnesses
would testify before the UN team and Israel wanted guarantees that witnesses would be immune from any war-crimes prosecution arising
from their testimony. But establishing the facts is a first step to justice and justice is essential to the human-rights cause. It
provides a measure of respect for the victims of serious abuse. It punishes those who commit atrocities. Justice helps societies come to
grips with the past and move forward. And it promises to save lives by deterring at least some of tomorrow's abusers.
Human-rights investigations are being conducted in other parts of the world, but Israel is being shielded from investigation. If the UN is
interested in investigating, it should investigate everything - not just what Israel wants investigated. The United States, which
sponsored the UN resolution to establish the Jenin fact-finding team, should not allow the mission to die. If it does, it allows no justice
for Jenin's victims.
It is imperative that the UN fact-finding team commence its work, with full independence, without further delay. The members of the
team and their assistants are known for their expertise and independence. The UN should not allow any deals that undermine the
search for truth.
It is not a surprise that Israel is unreceptive to any fact-finding mission. In 1996, United Nations military adviser Gen. Franklin van
Kappen conducted an official on-site investigation of the tragic events that took place at Qana, Lebanon, on April 18, 1996, in which
more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed in the headquarters of a battalion of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
In a report to former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, van Kappen concluded that "while the possibility cannot be ruled out
completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the UNIFIL compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural error," as
Israeli army officials had claimed. Van Kappen indicated that Israel army officials of "some seniority" were involved in orders to fire
upon the base, which they knew was sheltering hundreds of unarmed civilians.
International human rights organizations also conducted investigations into the Qana incident, and concluded that the
shelling of the compound was most likely deliberate, not mistaken. The United States and Israel vigorously contended that the attack had
been an unfortunate mistake, and the story gradually disappeared from all but the memories of those civilians, UNIFIL personnel and
journalists who had witnessed the carnage at Qana.
The tragedy at Qana was that this incident was not unique in its general features. More than 20 years ago, refugees at Sabra and
Shatila woke up to one of the bloodiest chapters in Lebanon's history - victims of Israeli-orchestrated attacks.
Moreover, there has been a consistent pattern that hardly suggests the United States desires implementation of international law. Faced
with only verbal censure, Israel's policies and practices, including those that breach the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitute war
crimes, remain unconstrained. Through its vetoes in the Security Council, the United States continues to block the deployment of an
international protection presence.
In an age that has witnessed the international community's growing intolerance of war crimes and the establishment of tribunals to
indict and arrest war criminals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, it is jarring indeed to see the same acts happening over and over
again. This and Israel's refusal to cooperate with a recent proposed visit by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, fly in
the face of the desire to find out what happened in Jenin. It seems more and more that Israel, indeed, has something to hide.
In former Yugoslavia, investigations into war crimes and cooperation with the Hague Tribunal have been enforced by economic sanctions.
Also a mission of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq has been imposed on that country by economic sanctions. Now it's time for the United
Nations to take its responsibility.
The United Nations has provided a program of justice to former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor, including fact-finding,
investigations, indictments, tribunals and trials. Israeli actions should not be given impunity. If the United Nations disbands the
Jenin fact-finding mission, it essentially turns its back on victims of human-rights abuses.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
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UPDATE:
MAY 5, 2002