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UN Admits Lapses in Videotape Controversy

Voice of America, August 3, 2001

The United Nations has faulted itself for lapse of judgement in its handling of a videotape related to the abduction of three Israeli soldiers by Lebanese guerrillas last year.

But a report by a U.N. investigator says there was no conspiracy or intentional misleading of Israel in the U.N. 's failure to acknowledge the video or provide Israel with the information it contains.

The investigation, by under-secretary general Joseph Connor, was launched last month when an embarrassed United Nations admitted it had the videotape after denying its existence for months.

The three Israeli soldiers were seized last October by Hezbollah guerrillas in the Israeli-occupied Shebba Farms region in the border area of Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

The day after the abduction, U.N. peacekeepers filmed U.N. efforts to remove two abandoned, bloodstained vehicles carrying false U.N. license plates. Armed men, allegedly from Hezbollah, interfered with the U.N. effort.

Mr. Conner's report says the amount of blood seen in the vehicles believed to have been used in the kidnapping makes it likely the Israeli soldiers were badly injured and may succumb to their injuries. He says the world body should have informed Israel of the tape's existence.

The U.N. investigation found that no tape was made of the abduction itself.

Israel has been demanding an unedited version of the videotape. The United Nations has offered an edited version in which the faces of non-U.N. personnel would be blurred. Hezbollah has warned that showing the film to Israel in any form would amount to providing information to its enemy and jeopardize the world body's neutrality.

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