HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------["A month before Srebrenica fell, Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans and local Muslim army leaders agreed to defend it together. But the Dutch did not fulfil that promise when the Serbs attacked." - no mention is made that the presence of "local Muslim army leaders" completely contravened the stipulations of the agreement to set up safe areas that stressed the disarmament of these zones. The rest of the report is typical of the "West didn't intervene enough" in Bosnia narrative we're accustomed to, with all the usual lies and manipulations...]
Dutch slammed for not stopping Srebrenica slaughter
By Abigail Levene
THE HAGUE, March 28 (Reuters) - The Dutch could probably have prevented the 1995 Srebrenica massacre but failed miserably on every level, according to a damning new report into Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two.
The report, released by Dutch peace group IKV on Thursday, said Dutch U.N. troops and politicians bore responsibility for failing to protect up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered after Serb forces overran the U.N. "safe area" in eastern Bosnia.
"The Srebrenica genocide could probably have been prevented if the Dutch government and the Dutch battalion had reacted differently," the IKV (Interchurch Peace Council) said in its report called "Srebrenica: The genocide that was not prevented."
Some 110 lightly armed Dutch soldiers were stationed in the town when it fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 without a single shot being fired.
"There were blunders, there was a lack of concern, there was a single focus -- on the Dutch only -- but they knew Muslims would be killed," said IKV chief Mient Jan Faber, accusing the Dutch of caring only about the safety of their troops.
Faber said the Dutch had wrongly tried to deflect the blame by accusing the French of failing to supply air support, and by complaining their mandate was weak. "But if you look at the main actors, you can see that most of the burden and therefore also the responsibility is on the shoulders of the Dutch."
The IKV report, issued two weeks before an official Dutch report into the Srebrenica debacle, coincided with news that the
Netherlands had been asked to command a NATO peacekeeping force in Macedonia when a German mandate ends in late June.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
The IKV interviewed many people including survivors, Bosnian generals and politicians, NATO and United Nations officials, members of the "Dutchbat" battalion and Hague politicians.
A French report last November found U.N. members including France and Britain shared the blame for failing to stop the massacre, citing a major lack of political will to intervene.
That parliamentary report accused French General Bernard Janvier of an error of judgment for refusing to okay air strikes against Serbs, as the Dutch requested, to protect Srebrenica.
But Faber said the Dutch knew air support was highly unlikely, since United Nations policy had become only to launch strikes as a last resort to protect U.N. forces in battle.
A month before Srebrenica fell, Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans and local Muslim army leaders agreed to defend it together. But the Dutch did not fulfil that promise when the Serbs attacked.
The report described how Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic -- indicted for genocide by the Hague-based Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal but still at large -- asked Karremans on July 11, 1995 to organise U.N. buses to evacuate the local Muslims.
Karremans passed the request to his Dutch superiors stationed in Sarajevo and Zagreb, but they said he would have to arrange evacuation himself although they knew he lacked the means, the IKV said.
When no U.N. buses were offered, Mladic "decided he had to do the evacuation himself -- with all the results," said Faber. Bosnian Serbs brought in buses, and the Muslims were taken away.
"There was an opportunity missed -- an opportunity for the Dutch to mobilise the U.N. and the international community to save those people," Faber said. "If the U.N. had mobilised all its forces, there probably wouldn't have been a genocide."
The IKV said Dutch ministers talked of how the Muslim men and boys could be murdered if Dutchbat abandoned them, but those fears were not translated into policy on the ground.
Many Muslims sought refuge inside the Dutch U.N. compound in nearby Potocari, while thousands more gathered outside. Not only were those outside denied entry, but those inside were ultimately kicked out of the compound, the IKV found.
Soon after the Serbs took Srebrenica, the Dutch battalion left. Their wild partying when they reached Zagreb was captured on film footage that shocked the Netherlands.
The U.N. tribunal in The Hague last year convicted former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre and jailed him for 46 years.
Mladic and Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic are also indicted for genocide in Srebrenica -- the tribunal's most wanted men after last year's transfer of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague.
12:57 03-28-02
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