Prominent Dutch minister says his government was responsible for Srebrenica genocide

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Fueling a widening debate, a senior cabinet minister says the Dutch government must accept responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Bosnian Muslims who were under the protection of Dutch troops in the U.N.-declared safe area of Srebrenica in 1995.

Environment Minister Jan Pronk said the government failed to give clear instructions to the commanders of the Dutch peacekeepers in the Muslim enclave in Bosnia, which was under siege by Serb forces.

The abandonment of the Muslims under their charge has raised accusations of cowardice and is widely considered a low point in Dutch military history.

Pronk said the failure was the government's, not the military's. "I won't say the soldiers failed. They operated on the basis of instructions given by us," he said in a television interview Thursday.

Pronk's remarks followed publication of a 128-page report by the respected Interchurch Peace Council, which blamed former Defense Minister Joris Voorhoeve for giving priority to the safety of the Dutch troops rather than to those they were supposed to defend in the besieged enclave.

An estimated 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered in the Srebrenica area in one week of July 1995. The peace council said the Dutch could have prevented the massacre, and called for an independent inquiry to hold Dutch politicians accountable for the fiasco.

In two weeks, the state-funded Netherlands Institute for War Documentation will publish the results of a five-year investigation by a team of more than a dozen historians who examined the Srebrenica affair. The exhaustive study will run 5,000 pages.

Pronk is a veteran member of the Labor Party of Prime Minister Wim Kok, and is known for his outspoken views. Last year, he nearly had to resign after he condemned the bombardment of Afghanistan (news - web sites), but he withdrew his criticism.

In the interview, Pronk said the Dutch commander in Bosnia should have been instructed to defend the Muslims who had fled to the U.N. compound for shelter from a Serb onslaught during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia.

Instead, the Dutch troops allowed Bosnian Serb General Radko Mladic to evacuate the Muslims, accepting his assurances they would be escorted to safety. Mladic segregated the men from their families, and most of the men were later massacred.

Kok, who also was prime minister at the time of Srebrenica, declined to comment on Pronk's remarks or on the peace council's report, saying he was awaiting the official report by the war documentation institute due on April 10.

The peace council said it based its findings on interviews and unpublished documents, including confidential minutes from ministerial meetings. Kok said he wanted to know how those minutes were leaked.

A 1999 report by the United Nations (news - web sites) largely absolved the Dutch battalion, saying the 150 soldiers were outnumbered and outgunned. It held the Bosnian Serbs primarily responsible, along with then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), now on trial at a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (news - web sites).

The mop-up was hellfire, pure and simple. End of story.

No matter how well planned, Gen M. never suspected that a few companies of RSA infantry(The Mladic Garde were there) could have rendered a full entrenched division into a mob of fleeing fighters. Gen. M. only wished to demilitarize the zone by making it impossible for the execution squads of the 28th BiH to operate.

Mladic wanted to wipe clean the eastern Bosna of Muslim controlled pockets. Once he cleared the "Safe Havens", his troops would not be thinned out. Why? He was pushing for the finale in the late summer. That was going to buy him a few months to negotiate the Muslims into surrendering. If the Muslims werent going to, then he had a month or two to seize more terroritory from the Muslims. The Serbs had 72% terroritory as of Feb 95. Serbs only wanted 64%, they were willing to give up 8% land.

There was one mistake he made and I tried to convey indirectly to HP2, but they went overboard. The UNPROFOR cant take a joke..:)

Hey, according to all parties to the conflict, UPROFOR was a joke. Why do you think they called us "stupid UNPROFORs"? Welcome back, MG(smile)

On a more serious note, the idea of "safe havens" was one of the most stupid the UN was ever sucked into. (Sorry about ending the sentence with a preposition... originally wrote it the proper way, but this way conveys the truth of what happened better.) Do the homework.

Doesn't excuse the UN, though. Just plain darn stupid.

Several questions for you. First, did the Muslims have universal male conscription, and would all men of fighting age in, say, Srebrenica have been in the military (at least in a reserve capacity)? Second, can you give a ballpark estimate of the size of the Muslim garrison in Srebrenica, both before and after Oric pulled out? Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

The exact figure is not known, only guestimated. The number was approx. between 2-4,000. Oric took his shooters that had allegiance to him and his agenda. Not sure of the number in that entourage. He left the area largely unhindered from the Serbian side.

All males capable of fighting were "called up". It was chaos and there was fear within Srebrinica. Mass Propoganda was spewed from Orics camp and Sarajevo about what the Serbs "would do". Ham Operators were the worst, as they made up stories in the attempt to draw in NATO airstrikes.

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