A United Nations team arrived in southern Lebanon this week to begin investigating the circumstances around a controversial videotape filmed by UNIFIL soldiers on the day following the kidnapping of three IDF soldiers by the Hizbullah in October 2000. The United Nations' attempt to salvage its reputation with the investigation may fail due to a Lebanese report that the international organization destroyed "current and relevant" evidence connected to the kidnapping.

UN Undersecretary-General for Management Joseph Connor, appointed by the United Nations to lead the investigation, arrived at UNIFIL headquarters in Nakoura in southern Lebanon on Sunday. Connor and his team are investigating senior United Nations officials' initial denial of the existence of the videotape, filmed by a member of the UNIFIL's Indian contingent.

According to a statement issued earlier this month by a spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the "investigation will also look into the subsequent handling of the tape, and exchanges with the Israeli Government."

Connor's team is expected to remain in the area for a few days.

Current and relevant evidence destroyed
According to a report published in the Lebanese Daily Star on Friday, the "United Nations peacekeepers discovered evidence in the two abandoned vehicles used by Hizbullah during the abduction of three Israeli soldiers last October that Israel would have 'screamed for' if they knew it had existed."

According to the Daily Star's source, an unnamed former officer with the UN Truce Supervision Organization, "UNTSO received instructions to destroy all photographs and written reports connected to the investigation due to the 'potential sensitivity of the issue.'" UNIFIL denies that "previously unreported 'sensitive' material was found in the two vehicles and insists that no reports nor photographic evidence were destroyed," according to the Daily Star.

Even so, the UNTSO source told the Daily Star that there was, in fact, equipment in the vehicles that could be considered "extremely sensitive." Though the source refused to relate the nature of this additional equipment, the Daily Star understood from his comments that he was referring to mobile phones, something that nearly every young man in Lebanon uses.

"The information that may have been gained from this equipment would have been relevant in the immediate to short term," the source told the Daily Star.

UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel insists that "nothing was destroyed." Goksel added, "I have never heard anything like this until now. I think this guy has been watching too many movies."

The Daily Star source believes "Goksel may be speaking from a UNIFIL-only perspective … He may not have been fully informed of the details of all the equipment recovered. Certainly UNTSO direction from the headquarters in Jerusalem was to destroy" the reports.

The charges that the United Nations destroyed evidence connected to the Hizbullah action comes in the wake of a recent Maariv report that UNIFIL soldiers could have been prevented the kidnapping and may have been bribed or actively assisted the Hizbullah. It is not clear if the recently launched United Nations investigation will check into these additional allegations being raised about its troops.

© 2001 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.