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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (158998)	7/8/2001 4:10:06 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The only rival the IOC has in scumminess is the UN. Monday, July 9 12:06 AM SGT Israel demands full kidnap video, inquiry into UN role JERUSALEM, July 8 (AFP) - Israel demanded Sunday the United Nations hand over a full version of a videotape it says may shed light on the abduction of three Israeli soldiers by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas nine months ago and called for a a probe into the UN's knowledge of the case. The United Nations disclosed only last week that peacekeepers stationed in the volatile Israel-Lebanon border region had recorded a video the day after the kidnapping, raising tensions between Israel and the world body. Last week, the United Nations, which has denied any cover-up, said it would allow the governments of both Israel and Lebanon to see the tape, but only after obscuring the faces of presumed members of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer fired off a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Sunday demanding that he release the video in its entirety, describing the UN conditions as "disappointing and disturbing." "Its decision not to hand over the original film to Israel is altogether puzzling and incongruous. It also raises doubts concerning the completeness of the video film," Ben Eliezer said in the letter. He also said Israel had requested a UN inquiry to determine the facts known by the organisation about the abduction "in view of the doubts relating to the conduct of UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon) and the UN Secretariat in this matter." Avi Pazner, advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel hoped that the video would provide more information about the soldiers, whose fate is still unknown despite mediation with Hezbollah by the German government. Beirut and Hezbollah have slammed the UN decision to allow Israel to see the video filmed by an Indian UN peacekeeper, the day after the soldiers were captured on October 7 in the disputed Shebaa Farms region. UNIFIL spokesman Timor Goksel said the tape had not been handed over because of "considerations of impartiality, of neutrality, which we will breach if the UN tries to give information about one side to the other". "Its not that the UN has anything to hide," he told army radio, adding that information on the tape had been passed on to a high-ranking Israeli official within a few days of the abduction. The 30-minute video shows two abandoned cross-country vehicles, their contents, efforts by UN troops to remove them and their interception by a group of armed men, allegedly from the Hezbollah, UN Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno said. It also shows small blood stains in the vehicles as well as false UN licence plates, false antennas and two UN uniforms, Guehenno said Friday. The UN only admitted officially to the existence of the videotape Thursday, but Guehenno denied it had kept quiet for fear of reprisals by Hezbollah on UN troops in southern Lebanon, from which Israel pulled out its troops in May 2000 after 22 years of occupation. The Lebanese ambassador to the UN, Salim Tadmuri, said Israel had created a "storm in a teacup." "It is simply an attempt by the Sharon government to embarrass the UN and its secretary general Kofi Annan after he denounced Israel's decision to continue its policy of liquidating Palestinian activists," he told Lebanon's Al-Mostaqbal newspaper. Israel has accused UN peacekeepers of failing to ensure security in the region, with three Israeli soldiers killed since the withdrawal, while the UN and Lebanon have charged Israel with violations of the UN resolution on the pullout. Media reports here said Israeli officials were concerned Hezbollah, which spearheaded the armed campaign to oust Israeli troops, was preparing further kidnappings. And a bomb hidden in a water bottle was found in the Shebaa region near a UN post on Sunday, Lebanese police said. Relations between the Jewish state and the world body have long been rocky, with Israel isolated for decades from powerful regional blocs inside the United Nations and complaining about a permanent anti-Israel bias in the General Assembly. "We did for many years have a problem with the United Nations ... but that does not mean that when you have a humanitarian case like now that the United Nations cannot rise to the occasion and share all relevant information," Pazner said.