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Reuters. 2 May 2002. UN council weighs scaled-down report on Jenin; Palestinians slam U.N. for aborting Jenin mission. UNITED NATIONS and JERUSALEM -- A divided U.N. Security Council weighed asking Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday for a scaled-down report on Israel's assault on the Jenin refugee camp after the Israeli government refused to cooperate with a full-fledged fact-finding mission. A letter drafted by Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani, the council president for May, would ask Annan to "collate all available information regarding recent events" at the West Bank Palestinian camp "with a view to producing, as far as possible, an accurate, thorough, balanced and credible report." Experts from the council's 15 member-nations were reviewing the letter and it was unclear how the body would proceed. Seeking to capitalize on anger among council members at Israel's rejection of a mission it had initially welcomed, Arab delegates had tried to push through a resolution telling Annan to go ahead with the operation and demanding Israel cooperate. But as the council was about to vote, Syria and Tunisia withdrew their draft because they did not have the required nine "yes" votes among the 15 council members to succeed. The object, diplomats said, had been to maneuver the United States, Israel's closest ally, into an embarrassing veto against a mission it had helped initiate. But at least eight nations were also said to have opposed the measure. After nine hours of on and off negotiations on Wednesday evening, council members went home for a brief sleep before returning for more scheduled talks. Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, said Israel was trying to hide its crimes in Jenin "and beyond." "We know that war crimes were committed in Jenin and other places," he said. ''What is left to be known is the scope of the willful killing of civilians and whether this would constitute a massacre or not." "This is a dark spot in the history of the Security Council and the United Nations," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters. "The United Nations is destroying its credibility before the peoples of the world," he added. Meanwhile, Israeli government spokesman Dore Gold said "It is good now that this committee is not going to engage in this fact-finding mission because there are no facts to find." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews Last train to Nuremberg --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
