Ever since the Srebrenica Massacre happened, the Dutch government has always denied any legal (or moral for that matter) responsibility for the murders as the Dutch troops were operating under UN mandate and hence the UN was ultimately responsible — but unindictable under international law. There have been various lawsuits against the Dutch state started by victims and their family, all of which were rejected: until now.
The Dutch court in Den Haag decided today that the Dutch troops had been wrong to force three Muslim men to leave the Dutchbat compound to be killed by Bosnian Serb troops and therefore the Dutch state was culpable in their deaths. From the report about the case at Radio Netherlands:
Hasan Nuhanovic – an interpreter for the Dutch battalion of UN peacekeepers (Dutchbat) which was responsible for protecting the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in Bosnia – and the next of kin of Rizo Mustafic, a Dutchbat electrician, filed a lawsuit against the Dutch state alleging that Dutchbat knowingly handed over their relatives to the Bosnian Serbs.
The Dutch were in charge of Srebrenica when, under the command of then-general Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb forces overran it and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The two men had sought refuge at the Dutchbat headquarters with their families. Mustafic was forced to leave and separated from his wife just outside the compound fence. She was taken away and never heard from again; he was killed by Bosnian Serb forces. Nuhanovic was allowed to stay, but his relatives were forced to leave. The remains of his father and brother were recovered in 2007 and 2010.
The court ruled that Dutchbat, which abandoned the enclave in the face of a superior Bosnian-Serb force, should have foreseen that Mladic’s soldiers would kill the men, noting that Dutchbat had witnessed the abuse and execution of Muslim men at the hands of Bosnian Serb forces. The three were the last of a group of 5,000 men who had sought refuge in the Dutch compound.
Guessing from previous experience, I’m sure the Dutch government will do everything it can to minimise the impact of this ruling, though it would do better to accept it wholeheartedly. The Srebrenica Massacre is the logical outcome of socalled humanitarian interventions, but we haven’t internalised this message yet in the Netherlands. Hopefully this ruling will show that we cannot ignore the consequences when we do attempt to throw our weight around again…