THE United Nations yesterday defended the conclusions of its report which said Israel probably had deliberately shelled the UN camp at Qana, south Lebanon, insisting that the document was "balanced and objective".
Shaken by international reactions to the report of the UN special envoy Brig Gen Frank van Kappen, UN spokeswoman Ms Sylvana Foa said the intention "was not to embarrass or accuse any member state".
"We went out there to establish the facts so that steps can be taken to see that an incident like this will not happen again," she said. "The report is balanced and objective. The facts speak for themselves. It's difficult to understand the strong reactions from some quarters."
Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, has dismissed the findings of the report as "absurd", while the United States said the conclusions were "unjustified".
Referring to the "emotional reactions" triggered by the report's conclusions, Ms Foa said "there are those who seek to discredit not only the report itself, but its authors, the secretary general and the UN itself."
Ms Foa also said the contradictory reactions from both Lebanon - which said in an initial reaction that the UN report was not categorical enough in establishing Israeli guilt - and Israel highlighted the report's objectivity. She detailed the long military experience of Gen Kappen and his team, which had sought the advice of "outside experts" before issuing its report. "All of the experts came to the same conclusion from their analysis of the data."
She added that the UN Secretary General, Mr Boutros Boutros Ghali, an Egyptian, "cannot be seen to be bowing to political pressure, when questions of this weight are involved", or it would undermine public confidence in the UN.
. Israel aimed "to kill as many Arabs as possible" in its attack on the Qana compound, an official Syrian newspaper claimed yesterday.
"They had nothing to justify their criminal act but to say that there were map errors", it said, referring to the Israeli army's explanation. "Given the fact that the Israelis have sophisticated weapons and very advanced monitoring systems, it is very hard to believe their lies about map errors.
The Syrian ruling party's AlBaath newspaper also insisted yesterday that the job of the five nation watchdog group for Lebanon was "solely to monitor the ceasefire to allow a resumption of (peace) negotiations, and nothing else."