Dutch view of Srebrenica

S

Soary Stars

At the Start
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A court in the Netherlands has ruled the Dutch state was responsible for the deaths of three Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

The Dutch were in charge of the UN "safe area" in July 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces overran it and killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

The Dutch government has always said its troops were abandoned by the UN.

The ruling was unexpected, and may open the way for other compensation claims.

"The court ruled that the Dutch state is responsible for the death of these men because Dutchbat [Dutch UN troops] should not have handed them over," a spokeswoman for the court in The Hague said.

See the rest at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14026218
 
When your country's military participates in a UN exercise, whose responsibility is it to ensure the appropriate amount of response in terms of manpower and weaponry - yours, or the UN's? If it's yours, then the Dutch must take full responsibility for the outcome of their action, good or bad. If it's the UN's, then surely the case is against that body, not the Dutch?

It sounds just like the dreadful Rwandan massacres, where the UN forces failed to protect enough people from tribal atrocities happening right under their noses. They were no better in the Belgian Congo at the time of its independence and the assassination of electee Patrice Lumumba, among other savageries.

Is it time to rethink the remit of the UN, if all it does is stand by helplessly, always bleating about not having enough men or materiel, when serious and protracted brutalities break out?
 
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Well, it's not that easy, but in terms of 'honour', I'm thinking the Dutch let themselves down and badly so.
They had a fair idea of the probable fate of their charges; not nice to put yourself in the firing line, of course.
If they'd used their heads, they'd have known the bad guys wouldn't have shot them up ... 'a poor show' says the least.
 
Okay... so your post says that if the Dutch had thought about it, they would have known that the bad guys (your phrase) would not have shot the three Bosniaks. But they handed them over to what you call bad guys, and they were shot. I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say, SS.
 
They were handed over, presumably on the basis of the Dutch not getting "shot up". I believe that Soary Stars is suggesting that no such thing would have occurred regardless of whether they had handed them over or not.

I would disagree with that view and sympathise both with those whose lives were taken, but also with those who are being made scapegoats - they, after all, didn't do the shooting.
 
Simmo's correction to my ill-phrased post is correct.
Had the Dutch reasoned correctly, they would have come to the conclusion they could have refused to hand over those in their protection because Mladic's men would not have attacked the Dutch.

That they didn't (refuse) shows they really weren't led by men who belonged in the Dutch Army - for some very obvious reasons.
 
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