The decision by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to abandon the planned investigation into what happened in the Jenin refugee camp during the recent Israeli offensive and disband the fact-finding team is a shocking blow against justice. It is not just the Palestinians who say that a massacre took place there. A host of independent witnesses say that something terrible happened there. Whatever it was, it has to be investigated. Justice demands it.
The decision does great damage to the UN’s reputation. Not only will Palestinians and Arabs be devastated by the news, so will anyone who had faith in the UN’s integrity. It has been compromised. The response of many will be to regard the organization with contempt in future. It had both the duty and the chance to make a stand for truth and fairness — and it has blown it. No one can see this decision as anything other than a victory for Ariel Sharon, handed on a plate to him. He did not want an investigation — because he was afraid of what it would uncover — and he has got what he wanted. No one in the international arena appears prepared to stand up to him.
All that Sharon has to do, it seems, is stand rigid like a strutting dictator, barring entry to all comers, and the UN backs off, its tail between its legs. The speed with which it threw in the towel is particularly shocking. Annan is, of course, right that with time passing, it is going to become more and more difficult to establish an accurate account of what actually happened. But that makes his decision more incomprehensible. The need for speed so as to ensure accuracy is all the more reason to refuse to take Sharon’s "no" for an answer.
Not that anyone is going to forget what happened in the camp. It is not as if they are dying off, like witnesses to some World War II horror. The crimes have only just been perpetrated. That is the whole point. We are talking about crime, not a policy failure or natural disaster. The Palestinians and others say a gross human rights crime has been committed. It has to be investigated, and the UN is the body with the power to do it.
It is true that Sharon is in a position to prevent access to the scene of the crime. But that is no reason for letting him get away with murder. Instead of allowing himself to be bullied, Annan should have insisted on the team flying in to Israel. It would have said so much more about the UN’s determination to see justice prevail and would have put Israel under the spotlight, if the team had flown in, and then been seen by the world’s TV cameras as being refused entry into Jenin.
Annan has let Sharon off the hook. The question that has to be asked is this: who put the pressure on whom? Was the decision to abort the mission part of some grubby little backroom deal? Was the US involved? Was it an undisclosed part of the agreement to free Yasser Arafat?
Sharon may have won this round, but the matter is not going to go away. The inhabitants of Jenin demand justice. They deserve justice. The UN cannot avoid its responsibility in investigating the matter. Indeed, it is in Israel’s own interests that it is investigated; otherwise no one is going to believe its claims that it has nothing to hide. But, if it has nothing to hide, why is Sharon trying to hide it?
