Annan Vows to Disband Fact-Finders For Jenin
In a three-page letter to the Security Council, Mr. Annan reviewed the efforts during the past 12 days to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the killings and destruction last month at the Palestinian refugee camp, part of a larger military operation in the West Bank that Israel says was intended to root out a "terrorist infrastructure."

Mr. Annan recalled in the letter how the Israelis had raised objections to the fact-finding mission and finally rejected it altogether on Tuesday. He wrote: "In light of yesterday's announcement by the government of Israel, it seems evident that the team will not be able to proceed to the area to begin its mission in the near future."

While he said he had not received any written communications from the Israeli government since April 27, "in my telephone conversations over the past two days," he wrote, "high-level Israeli officials have broached issues additional to those raised by the delegation that came to New York last week, and there have been indications that this list may not be exhaustive.

"As the secretariat has noted in its briefings to the Council, time is also a critical factor," he added. "With the situation in the Jenin refugee camp changing by the day, it will become more and more difficult to establish with any confidence or accuracy the `recent events' that took place there."

"For these reasons," he said on Wednesday, "it is my intention to disband the fact-finding team tomorrow."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/02/international/middleeast/02NATI.html