Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

SREBRENICA RESIGNATION, DUTCH GOVERNMENT
the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), was issued on April 10, 2002.
Six days later the entire Dutch government resigned. The government’s resignation was
followed immediately afterward by the army chief of staff, Adriaan (“Ad”) van Baal
(b. 1947). All in all, the role of the Dutch peacekeepers at Srebrenica was, at the least,
ineffectual; at most, it was criminal in its complicity with the Bosnian Serbs. What it
pointed to most clearly was the danger to be found in UN security operations that were
not sufficiently supported at every level. Arguments have been made that Dutchbat’s
mandate was not clear enough, and the troops were not properly trained or equipped for
the tasks they were required to undertake. They were, in short, sent on a mission to keep
the peace where there was no peace to keep.
Srebrenica Massacre. In 1995, Srebrenica, a city in Bosnia, became the scene of the
greatest massacre on European soil since the Holocaust.
In the spring of 1993, the United Nations declared Srebrenica a “safe area,” along with
five other Bosnian Muslim cities (Bihac, Gorazde, Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Zepa) then under
siege at the hands of the Bosnian Serbs. As a city under siege, Srebrenica found itself constantly
suffering privation, as the Serb army tested the resolve of the UN Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) troops guarding the city by blocking UN aid convoys. In holding out
against the Serb attacks—in much the same way that Sarajevo, the capital city, did—
Srebrenica became a symbol of Bosnian Muslim resistance throughout the Bosnian war.
That abruptly changed, however, on July 6, 1995. Inadvertently encouraged by UN equivocation
over whether or not to maintain the safe areas initiative, Bosnian Serb general
Ratko Mladic (b. 1942) led a ten-day campaign to take over Srebrenica in an effort to
ultimately subject it to “ethnic cleansing.” As the Serb campaign got underway, thousands
of Srebrenica’s men and boys fled the city in order to reach Muslim fighters beyond the
hills, presumably hoping to lead them back to defend the city. The women, children, and
elderly were, for the most part, loaded onto Serb-chartered buses and evacuated. Upon
taking the city and overrunning the UNPROFOR base at nearby Potocari, where the
members of the Dutch peacekeepers had been sheltering thousands of Bosnian Muslims,
Mladic’s men began hunting down the Muslim men who were then struggling through
Serb-controlled lines. Capturing them in small groups, the Serbs concentrated them in
larger numbers in fields, sportsgrounds, schools, and factories, where they were slaughtered
in their thousands. It is impossible to arrive at anything but an approximation of the number
killed, as many mass graves are yet to be located and population figures from before
the fall of the city are imprecise owing to the large number of uncounted refugees who had
earlier flooded into the city. Best estimates have fluctuated between seven and eight thousand
killed. Srebrenica has subsequently become a symbol of the brutality of the Serb war
against Bosnia’s Muslims, as well as of the United Nations’ failure to stand up to genocide—
especially given the fact that the “safe zone” created by the United Nations was not
defended but simply allowed to be taken over by the Serbs.
Srebrenica Resignation, Dutch Government. On April 16, 2002, the Dutch government
of long-serving prime minister Wim Kok (b. 1938) resigned after an emergency cabinet
meeting that had been called to discuss the ramifications of an official report regarding
the actions of Netherlands peacekeepers in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995.
The report, conducted under official auspices by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation
and released on April 10, 2002, had found that both the Dutch government
and the United Nations shared responsibility for the Serb massacre of approximately
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