02 May 2002
Security Council Undecided on Response to Cancellation of Jenin Mission
(Vote on resolution aborted) (630)
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- After two days of closed door talks, the Security
Council May 2 has been unable to agree on a response to Secretary
General Kofi Annan's decision to disband the UN fact-finding mission
to the Jenin refugee camp.
Council President Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore said
during a mid-day break that there was no consensus among council
members on how to proceed and could not say whether they would be able
to agree by the end of the day.
"Everyone's exhausted," Mahbubani said, referring to the negotiations
that had begun in the late afternoon May 1 and dragged well past
midnight before resuming around noon.
Just after midnight May 2 the council was preparing to vote on a
resolution drafted by Syria and Tunisia that that would have asked
Annan to send the fact-finding mission to the Jenin refugee camp
instead of disbanding it and demanded that Israel and the Palestinian
Authority cooperate fully with the mission. However, just before the
public meeting was to begin, Syria, the Arab representative on the
council, withdrew the resolution.
Diplomats said that Syria did not have the nine votes needed to pass
the resolution or force a veto from one of the council's five
permanent members.
Council members resumed private negotiations around noon May 2 on a
letter to the secretary general drafted by Council President
Mahbubani. The draft letter supported and thanked Annan for his
efforts to send the mission. It also asked the secretary general "to
collate all available information regarding recent events at Jenin
refugee camp with a view to producing, as far as possible, an
accurate, thorough, balanced and credible report..."
Arab delegations and the Palestinian representative rejected the
concept of a letter, saying that the situation required a much
stronger stance by the council than a letter. They were asking for an
open Security Council debate and a resolution. Failing council action,
they said, the issue would be brought to the General Assembly.
The letter, Palestinian Observer Nasser Al-Kidwa said, does not
"reflect the gravity of the situation and the fact that a member-state
of the United Nations flouted a Security Council resolution and
refused to cooperate with the secretary general."
US Ambassador James Cunningham said that the United States had no
objections to an open debate.
On May 1 the secretary general informed the council that he intended
to disband the Jenin fact-finding mission, saying that after many days
of talks, Israel continued to have objections to the mission that were
unlikely to be overcome.
Annan told the council that the cooperation of both sides was a
necessity as was a visit to the camp. In addition, he said, "time is
also a critical factor. With the situation in the Jenin refugee camp
changing by the day, it will become more and more difficult to
establish with any confidence or accuracy the recent events that took
place there."
"I regret being unable to provide the information requested by the
council in resolution 1405, and especially that the long shadow cast
by recent events in the Jenin refugee camp will remain in the absence
of such a fact-finding exercise," the secretary general said.
The team, which has been working in Geneva since April 24 while
awaiting the green light to travel to the Middle East, is headed by
former Finish President Martti Ahtisaari and include UN High
Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata; Cornelio Sommaruga, the former
president of the International Committee of the Red Cross; and police,
military, and forensics experts.
The UN gave no indication May 2 whether the team actually had been
disbanded.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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