All things Srebrenica (merged multi-thread)

[bossi]

Netherlands to release Srebrenica report

Reuters News Agency
Sunday, April 07 – Globe and Mail

Amsterdam — Reeling from charges that it failed to prevent the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia, the Netherlands is preparing to release a report into the bloodbath this week.

Up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the United Nations-designated "safe area" — Europe‘s worst massacre since World War Two — when the town fell to Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian war.

More than five years in the making, the 7,000-page report by the Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) is the official Dutch history of events in Srebrenica.

Tension is high ahead of Wednesday‘s publication, not least because of a damning report released two weeks ago.

That report, Srebrenica: The genocide that was not prevented, by domestic peace group IKV (Interchurch Peace Council), said Dutch UN troops, generals and politicians bore clear responsibility for failing to protect the Muslims.

The IKV wants a parliamentary inquiry and an official Dutch apology for events in Srebrenica, where some 110 lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers were stationed when the town fell without a shot being fired.

A French parliamentary report last November assigned wider blame, finding UN members including France and Britain shared responsibility for failing to stop the July, 1995 massacre, and cited a lack of political will to intervene.

France‘s report accused French General Bernard Janvier of an error of judgement for refusing to sanction air strikes, as the Dutch requested, to protect the enclave.

The IKV, whose sources included leaked cabinet meeting minutes, accused Dutch ministers of knowing the Muslims risked slaughter if the troops abandoned them but of doing nothing to prevent those fears being realised.

"For the Dutch government, the lives of the Dutch blue helmets were far more important than the safety of the Muslims, who depended on them," said the organisation.

The IKV accused the Dutch defence and foreign ministries of pulling in conflicting directions and said Prime Minister Wim Kok, still in power, sat on his hands.

Mr. Kok, who has called the IKV report "one-sided," is withdrawing from politics after next month‘s general election in which his Labour party aims to maintain its dominant place in the government coalition.

He had been keen to keep a lid on the debate until NIOD finally issued a report widely expected to contain criticism on many fronts, thus blunting the attack on any one player.

Some analysts say the blame was not all Dutch. UN errors lay at the root of the catastrophe, said **** Leurdijk of the Clingendael Institute in The Hague.

The UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a "safe area" without thinking through what that really meant, and then sent peacekeepers to a war scene, said Leurdijk, a UN expert.

"From the strictly military point of view, the Dutch mission in Srebrenica was a mission impossible," he said.

The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague last year jailed former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic for 46 years for genocide over the Srebrenica massacre. One of his subordinates arrived in The Hague last week to deny genocide charges.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic are also indicted for genocide in Srebrenica — the tribunal‘s most wanted men after former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic arrived in The Hague in 2001.

The Dutch government commissioned NIOD in 1996 to conduct an inquiry into events before, during and after the fall of Srebrenica, including policy- and decision-making at a national and international level.

 

[Jungle]

There was a CDN coy in Srebrenica at that time, "A" coy 1R22R. A good friend of mine was there as a section cmder and could not believe his ears when he received the order to pull out... he tried to argue but was issued a "formal" order. He still believes they abandonned these people to be massacred

 

[Harry]

Without getting into the semantics of the big picture, Srebrenica was the demise of the UN and Security Council resolutions. If one draws a time line, from initial involvement in the Balkans, Cambodia and the African Missions of the early ‘90’s. There is a clear and discernable rise in UN political involvement with a correlating failure to ensure that resolutions were administered, staffed and supported to accomplish the various Missions.

This reached full climax with the Srebrenica debacle. There was a television documentary on several months ago that followed the events leading up to the fall of Srebrenica and did not do the UN or Dutch any favors, especially the Dutch Col.

There has always been a disconnect in the UN WRT Security Council politicking and actual UN Mission Area reality. The politicians are very quick to formulate resolutions and whether through naiveté or incompetence, believe that the world is full of nice people who will respect their will. Then we have countries like the Dutch and ourselves who willingly take on the role of the worlds PK’ers. Yet we do not support our own troops with adequate numbers, equipment or support. Heck, when belligerents whom we portrayed as the good guys killed one of our soldiers, our government covered it up for a year, same with the Medac Pocket, not politically correct to paint the Croat’s as bad guys.

Srebrenica was literally the straw that broke the camels’ back. After this fiasco, many nations questioned the viability of the UN; it’s integrity and ability to conduct PKO’s. The US quickly escalated SFOR crushing UN involvement in the Balkans. Too date the UN’s role in direct high intensity PKO’s is dwindling. A large part of the very UN body has come to the realization that the UN has lost it’s credibility and is only willing to support involvement in backwater, soft Missions.

If anyone wants to go into the UN web site and look at the current missions and numbers deployed, you might be surprised at how little is really going on. The UN has some very sensitive situations that it has been forced to keep the lid. Case point, UNOMIG, the Republic of Georgia and it’s breakaway region of Abkazia. The Abkaz won their independence like many other break away regions, but as this area is where the majority of Russian Dachas are, (not kidding) guess which member of the Security Council is against the UN formally giving them recognition. The PK force there is made solely of Russian Airborne with a very small contingent of International UNMO’s who do not move without Russian approval...(?) The Abkaz have been in a political vacuum for ten years with a self declared state, that has been held by UN inaction in abject poverty, decay and isolation. Where is Canada’s voice on this matter?

The UN demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubts that it could not protect non-combatants or maintain lines of separation between belligerents. The UN proved ineffective; the US tired of trying to get any form of commitment from the Security Council, and used Srebrenica as the justification to break with and override the Security Council mandate and to set the benchmark that enough was enough.

Anyone notice whether the US got the UN okay to go into Afghanistan?

 

[Sapper Bloggins]

interesting how the blame is being shifted, will they blame the Vandoos next? What a shame, somewhat typical. :rocket:

 

[Harry]

In light of Srebrenica, to bad the government doesn‘t dust off the UN report on the Rwandan Genocide, read it and then fall on their sword like the Dutch. :fifty:

Also, did anyone else catch the bleats and blurts of the Auditor Generals Report. Hmm, amazing how she honed in on the way the Grits have been funneling Billions outside of proper channels.

Not to mention that the DND mandarins and Generals got a poke in the eye for the way the Department is being run, spending habits and personnel problems. :rage:

Too bad nothing will come out of it. To bad we can’t send them a NON CONFIDENCE message.

 

[JRMACDONALD]

To bad we can’t send them a NON CONFIDENCE message. HEY STUPID! who did you vote for in the last federal election

 

[Harry]

Easy there Mac, if you haven‘t noticed, the Grits have been acting with impunity. JC hasn‘t been listening to the commoner of late, heck, when was the last time he mentioned his homeless friend?

 

[Yard Ape]

Staff shortage may require 30 years to fix
Engineers, doctors needed: Lack of trained sailors has kept one warship docked for two years

Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief
National Post
17 Apr 02

OTTAWA - Canada‘s Armed Forces are facing such a critical shortage in key military occupations that it is unable to deploy one of its frigates because there are not enough qualified sailors, Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, said yesterday.

The army is short of weapons and fire-control technicians, and engineers and mechanics to maintain combat capabilities, while the Air Force does not have enough experienced fighter pilots.

The shortages could take 30 years to fix, Ms. Fraser predicted.

"The most serious shortages are in the common occupations that account for almost 40% of the Canadian Forces population. Of the 55 occupations common in the navy, army and air force, 40 are short of trained people," she said in a quarterly report to Parliament.

The severe shortages come at a time when Canadian Forces have added combat roles in Afghanistan to an already busy schedule of peacekeeping missions.

Since 1994, Jean Chrétien‘s government has reduced defence spending by 23% and cut the size of the Forces‘ regular personnel to 60,000 from 75,000.

The last budget provided $1.2-billion over five years for the military, but the Prime Minister has rejected major funding increases.

The Senate Defence Committee and other experts have said the defence department needs an increase of $4-billion annually, but Mr. Chrétien denies the Armed Forces are underfunded and ill-equipped. He blames lobbyists for the armaments industry and generals with a 1939 mentality for creating a false impression of Canada‘s combat readiness

However, the Auditor-General also levelled criticism at military officers for not taking new technology into account when handling the defence budget.

She noted, for example, that DND paid $174-million for a military satellite communications system that is now in storage.

"The system was completed and delivered in 1997-98, but by that time the department had developed a lower-cost alternative and could not afford to operate the system," she said.

"It took delivery of the system and placed it in storage, where most of it remains."

Today, the Armed Forces total 57,600 men and women, but when retirement, sick leave and disciplinary measures are considered, the number of effective members is just 52,300.

Rather than look for qualified personnel, the Armed Forces continue to accept people it does not need, such as cooks, stewards and communication researchers.

"Over 3,000 positions are vacant, many of them in key occupations such as engineers, vehicle and weapons technicians and doctors and dentists," Ms. Fraser said.

The lack of skilled personnel means the navy has only about 80% of the electronic technicians it needs to run it ships and submarines.

It is also short of naval weapons technicians, communicators and engineers.

"Any shortages in just a few skills can mean that a ship may have to deploy without enough people or enough fully trained people or that it may not be able to deploy at all," she said.

"For example, HMCS Huron has been tied to the dock since October, 2000, partly because the navy cannot provide it with enough skilled sailors to put to sea."

With more officers approaching retirement, the military is also facing a shortage of candidates for promotion.

Gaps in the higher ranks are difficult to correct if there are not enough people moving through the system.

As a result, Ms. Fraser said, it could take 30 years to fix the gap in the military population.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

Dutch Citations Irk Srebrenica Survivors
Arthur Max, Associated Press, 8 Nov 06
Article Link

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The Dutch government plans to give a citation to troops who served as peacekeepers in Srebrenica but failed to stop the massacre of Bosnian Muslims 11 years ago in what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected safe haven.

The plan to award a unique insignia for duty at Srebrenica outraged survivors and victims' families Wednesday, who called it an insult to those who died.

The award was meant to heal a painful wound in the military, which felt unfairly blamed for the massacre and its reputation unjustly tarnished.

Defense Minister Henk Kemp said in a letter to parliament dated Nov. 3 that he would present the insignia to 850 troops of Dutchbat III at a ceremony on Dec. 4. He said the jacket pin "recognizes that they had to work under extremely difficult circumstances and did so honorably."

Kemp cited independent investigations exonerating the undermanned and ill-equipped Dutch battalion, which concluded the peacekeepers were powerless to halt the slaughter.

But survivors and families of victims said the troops should not receive the award.

"This is shameful. We wonder how far can the humiliation of our victims can go," Hajra Catic, president of the Srebrenica Women's Association, a leading survivors' group, said in Sarajevo.

Bosnian Serb troops overran the eastern Bosnian enclave in 1995, which the United Nations had declared a safe zone. They separated women from men and boys, and went on a shooting rampage that lasted for more than a week, killing an estimated 8,000 Muslims in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

The humiliated Dutch troops returned home to scathing charges of cowardice and incompetence. Many soldiers required long-term trauma therapy.

The National Institute for War Documentation blamed the debacle on the Dutch government and the United Nations for sending the troops without a clear mandate, inadequate strength and for refusing to send reinforcements when the Serbs attacked.

The report prompted the Dutch government to resign in 2002.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said Wednesday the troops themselves had asked for some form of recognition to compensate for the perceived abuse from the media and some politicians after the event.

"This is not a medal for courage or for special services," said the spokesman, speaking under ministry rules barring use of his name. "It is recognition that they were unrightfully judged."

Kemp's decision aroused little comment in the Netherlands.

Dion van den Berg, of the Interfaith Council for Peace, wrote in an opinion piece in the daily Trouw on Wednesday that the award was "a slap in the face" to the people of Srebrenica.

"I don't want to judge individual soldiers," she wrote, "but it's clear that Dutch politics failed in those days in July 1995, and that commanders in Srebrenica made mistakes."

In Sarajevo, Amor Masovic, the head of the Bosnian Federation Commission for Search of Missing Persons called it "a mockery of victims."

"Soldiers carried out the orders of their superiors and they should not be specially punished but most surely must not be awarded for what they did in Srebrenica," Masovic said.

Fadila Efendic, who lost her husband and 15-year-old son in Srebrenica, said peacekeepers "did nothing," to protect civilians in Srebrenica. "In fact, they handed our men and boys to the Serbs," said Efendic, whose son's body is still missing.

 

[geo]

Well.... from one country that was up the creek without a paddle to another country that was up the creek without a paddle, let me be the 1st to say:

Chimo!

 

[3rd Horseman]

I wonder if they will send the award to the non dutch forces that were sent to help them defend the town and fought along side them but did not surrender with the Dutch, instead choosing to continued to fight and lead the refugees to Zepa?

I have mixed feelings about this award, the Dutch do need to  do some healing on this issue. Most important point that needs to be continually illuminated is that the troops fought well during the battle and had no hand in the surrender. This brings up an important issues. If the troops do well but poor command decisions cause a failure do you make the soldiers suffer the humiliation or do you praise them and condemn the leadership.

To the Dutch troops and in particular the CO, I salute you on a well fought battle. You won the battle that week and fought very valiently but you lost the vital ground when a superior commander failed to support your further effort. That failure to provide needed ammunition, reinforcements and medi vac of the wounded was your undoing.

 

[geo]

The failure of boots on the ground can easily be traced to political decisions......

To all the troops with the boots; Well done!

 

[The Bread Guy]

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

Srebrenica massacre: UN not immune
A surprise decision by a Hague-based district court rules that the UN does not have legal immunity in a lawsuit filed by the victims of the 1995 massacre in Bosnia and may have to answer for its failure to prevent genocide.
Anes Alic, ISN Security Watch, 5 Dec 07
Article link

On 27 November a district court in The Hague, Netherlands unexpectedly dismissed the UN's legal immunity in the case of more than 6,000 families of the victims of the 1995 massacre in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica who were suing the world body and the Dutch government for failing to protect them.

The ruling represents a legal and historical precedent in the first ever lawsuit against the UN and will presumably initiate additional lawsuits from former war zones around the world in which the UN operated peace missions.

The court also dismissed the Dutch government's demand that the case be dropped after the UN invoked its legal immunity and said it would not take part in the proceedings.

UN representatives failed to appear before the court in June, claiming immunity, though the world body did acknowledge the survivors' right to see justice served. Still, the UN has rejected the court's 27 November decision.

Semir Guzin, a Bosnian lawyer representing the victims of Srebrenica, told ISN Security Watch on Tuesday that he was surprised by the decision, as he had expected his clients would be forced to withdraw the case against the UN.

"For the first time in history, the UN will be involved in a process in which they will have to explain their moves and actions, which were plenty bad in Srebrenica," Guzin said.

Munira Subasic, from the Srebrenica Mothers Association, expressed disbelief as well, telling ISN Security Watch that she had not expected justice to win out over politics in this case.

"The UN has a duty to prevent genocide. An appeal to immunity in a case of genocide, as in the Srebrenica drama, is irreconcilable with the UN's own objectives, and its international obligations," a member of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, Marco Gerritsen, told local media.

In April 1993, Srebrenica was demilitarized and placed under UN protection.

As Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic attacked the town in July 1995, only 450 lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers were in place to protect civilians.

A Dutch battalion serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was sent to Srebrenica in 1993 to protect the populace there. On 11 July 1995, they were easily disarmed by the Bosnian Serb army.

Women and children found shelter at the Potocari UN compound near Srebrenica, and were later transported to territory controlled by Bosnian Army, while some 13,000 men and boys fled to the forests in an unsuccessful attempt to reach territory controlled under Bosnian Army control. The failure enabled Bosnian Serbs to capture and slay up to 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.

In it for the long haul

In 2004, the Srebrenica victims' families handed Dutch authorities a proposal for an out-of-court settlement of €2 billion (US$2.9 billion). During evidence-gathering civil hearings in early 2005, the Dutch government rejected a share of the responsibility.

After several years of attempting to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the Dutch government and the UN, 14-strong Bosnian and Dutch legal team representing the victims' families filed a civil lawsuit in June this year against the Dutch government and the UN, seeking compensation for failing to prevent genocide.

The 228-page complaint accuses Dutch troops mandated by the UN to secure Srebrenica of abandoning their positions when Bosnian Serb paramilitary forces approached on 11 July 1995 and handing thousands of men and boys over to be executed.

The lawsuit, prepared over the past six years, alleges that although the UN was aware of a pending Bosnian Serb military offensive at least two weeks before it began, neither the Dutch forces nor the UN took steps to save the local population of some 40,000, and were instead concerned only about the well-being of their own forces and had been instructed to use weapons only in self-defense.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs are basing their case on Dutch, French and UN reports on the Srebrenica massacre. The lawyers say they will prove that the Dutch state and the UN were responsible for the fact that the enclave fell to Bosnian Serb forces and genocide indeed took place and therefore liable.

Lawyers say the purpose of the lawsuit is to establish the responsibility of the Dutch government and the UN in the Srebrenica genocide. If the responsibility is proved, lawyers will start the process of setting the sum for the damages, a proposed amount of €2 billion from both the UN and the Netherlands.

After the filing of the lawsuit in June, the UN claimed immunity from legal action, citing Article 2 Section 2 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN.

"The survivors of the Srebrenica massacres are absolutely right to demand justice for the most heinous crimes committed on European soil since World War II […] but this immunity in no way diminishes the UN's commitment to assist the people of Srebrenica," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe told a press conference earlier this year.

Okabe also said that the UN was learning from its mistakes and would not rest "until it's fully equipped to prevent such tragedies from occurring in future within its peacekeepers' midst."

Transferring blame

In the meantime, Dutch officials have transferred the blame to the UN, which allegedly failed to provide sufficient support to defend the town, saying that compensation claims should be directed at the perpetrators of the massacre, Bosnian Serbs, whose several high-ranking officers have been sentenced for their roles in the Srebrenica massacre. Dutch military personnel complained that they had taken on the mission when no one else would, and that they were out armed and outnumbered.

Dutch authorities argue that the UN abandoned the peacekeepers by failing to give them air support when their observation post near Srebrenica was attacked, despite the fact that the soldiers stationed there had requested air support on nine occasions. The UN claims that its office in Sarajevo refused air support in Srebrenica because the Dutch commander there failed to fill the request form correctly.

Still, lawyers representing the victims say this claim is false and that they have evidence that then-UN chief of staff Dutch General Cees Nicolai turned down the offer of air support, and that his decision was backed by Joris Voorhoeve, the Dutch defense minister at the time.

Nicolai served as a witness in late November at the trial of seven Bosnian Serb military and police officers charged with crimes in Srebrenica and the nearby town of Zepa. Nicolai said the UN leadership had hesitated too long in approving the use of the NATO air force.

He also said that after the Bosnian Serb army in late May 1995 took some 350 Dutch peacekeepers hostage around Sarajevo in response to NATO air strikes against Serb ammunition depots, the UN command introduced restrictive guidelines for air support.

According to Nicolai's testimony, the guidelines specified that it was better for the blue helmets to withdraw if the UN checkpoints came under attack than to call in NATO air strikes. Nicolai said that General Ratko Mladic threatened to attack the Dutch battalion compound where thousands of civilians had already gathered if NATO launched air strikes.

General Rupert Smith, the commander of UN forces in Bosnia, and Ratko Mladic signed an agreement in Belgrade on 19 July 1995, at a time when thousands of Bosniak men had already been slaughtered, giving the Dutch soldiers a guarantee that they could safely withdraw from the enclave with all of their equipment and weapons, which happened two days after the signing.

The victims' lawyers say that air support was obstructed for fear that troops could fall victim to friendly fire and because of information that Bosnian Serb forces had already disarmed and captured 15 Dutch soldiers days before the offensive. The lawyers also said that the Dutch public would not have accepted causalities in a country where their presence was dubious.

The air support eventually arrived, but too late. NATO sent two planes to shell the Bosnian Serb positions, and according to Guzin, successfully targeting only one abandoned tank.

However, a previous Dutch administration accepted blame for the failed Bosnian peacekeeping mission. The entire government of former prime minister Wim Kok resigned in April 2002 following a report by the national Institute for War Documentation, which placed partial blame for Srebrenica with the government.

The UN also admitted its failure to protect the Bosniaks of Srebrenica as well in a 1999 report released by then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. "The UN Security Council should have approved more decisive and forceful action to prevent the unfolding horror in Bosnia and that 'safe areas' should never be established again without credible means of defense," the UN's report said.

The 155-page report said the UN had been wrong to declare it would only use NATO air strikes against the Serbs as a last resort. Annan criticized the Security Council staff at the UN headquarters and UN peacekeepers in Srebrenica.

A lucrative tragedy

The Srebrenica tragedy has become a very lucrative business, especially for lawyers. A Sarajevo-based lawyer told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity that dozens of Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian lawyers as well as attorneys from western Europe have opened offices in Bosnia to represent Srebrenica victims.

A few years back, the most sought-after case by lawyers was defending war crimes indictees at the UN's Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) - cases that brought in sizable incomes. However, the ICTY trials have lost their initial luster with only four more war criminals pending arrest - among them Karadzic and Mladic, whose arrests are less and less on the international community's agenda.

In Sarajevo alone, where during the 1,425 days of siege when 11,000 civilians were killed and 50,000 wounded, there are hundreds of individual lawsuits against Republika Srpska, Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity. According to the unnamed lawyer, plaintiffs usually demand €120,000 (US$176,000) for each case against individual civilian death.

Srebrenica lawsuits remain a major market, especially since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in February that the mass killings of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica was an act of genocide and named the Republika Srpska police, army and political structure as perpetrators. The ICJ gave the Srebrenica survivors more legal weight and a stronger case, especially as both the UN and the Netherlands have admitted to their mistakes.

Since then, there have been several major cases and countless individual ones regarding the reimbursement of Srebrenica victims' relatives, suing Republika Srpska, the Dutch government and the UN.

In March this year, Bosnia's top human rights court ordered Bosnian Serb authorities to pay more than US$2 million in compensation to victims of the massacre.

Anes Alic, based in Sarajevo, is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in Southeastern Europe and the Executive Director of ISA Consulting.

 

[The Bread Guy]

As opposed to all the heterosexual Dutch troops who, ignoring UN orders, did something different than the gay ones?  Riiiiiiiiiight - this, from Voice of America:

A former top U.S. and NATO commander says the Netherlands' inclusion of gays in their military rendered Dutch peacekeeping troops unable to prevent the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.

Retired U.S. Marine General John Sheehan led the U.S. Atlantic Command and served as the top NATO commander in the mid-1990s,  the height of ethnic cleansing in former-Yugoslavia.

He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. military would breed friction and undermine unit cohesion in the armed forces.  Asked by Senator Carl Levin whether other nations, like Britain and Israel, had suffered as a result of ending their nation's bans on gay military service, the general said "yes."

Sheehan pointed to the Netherlands, which he said embarked on a process of social engineering in the Dutch military once the Cold War ended. "They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military.  It included open homosexuality.  That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war," he said.

In fact, the Netherlands was among the first nations to end discrimination in the military based on sexual orientation, affirming the right of gays to serve years before the fall of the former Soviet Union.

Sheehan backed his contention that gay soldiers undermined Dutch combat readiness by pointing to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.  Four-hundred Dutch peacekeepers protecting the area were overwhelmed by Serbian forces, which killed an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Linking the massacre to the Netherlands allowing gays in the military prompted this exchange with Senator Levin, who seemed perplexed by Sheehan's assertion.

SHEEHAN: "That [Srebrenica] was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II."
LEVIN: "And did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?"
SHEEHAN: "It was a combination ..."
LEVIN: "Did they tell you [that gay soldiers were to blame], that is my question."
SHEEHAN: "Yes."
LEVIN: "They did?"
SHEEHAN: "They included that as part of the problem."

Asked for comment, Dutch military officials expressed astonishment.  The spokesman for the Netherlands Ministry of Defense, Roger van de Wetering, told VOA Sheehan's assertions are "total nonsense" and that he "cannot believe that a man of that rank is stating such a thing."  He added that he had never heard Sheehan's allegation before from any source in the Netherlands or anywhere else ....

 

[northernboy_24]

Apparently the Dutch don't agree with the account of the US general.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100319/dutch_anger_100319/20100319?hub=World

Dutch officials are reacting angrily to a retired U.S. general's assertion that having gays in the military led to Dutch forces being overrun in 1995, leading to the massacre at Srebrenica.

At a U.S. congressional committee meeting on Thursday, John Sheehan, a former NATO commander who retired from the military in 1997, spoke out against the proposal to get rid of the controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the military.

Bosnian Serb forces overran light-armed Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica, and killed more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys.

Sheehan said the Dutch were overrun because of European efforts to "socialize" their militaries in the 1990s and "that includes the unionization of their militaries, it includes open homosexuality."

"That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war. The case in point that I'm referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs," he said.

"The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them."

Dutch Defence Ministry spokesperson Roger Van de Wetering called the retired general's claims "nonsense."

"For us it is unbelievable that a man of this rank is stating this nonsense, because that is what it is," Van de Wetering told The Associated Press.

"The whole operation in Srebrenica and the drama that took place over there was thoroughly investigated by Dutch and international authorities and none of these investigations has ever concluded or suggested a link between homosexual military personnel and the things that happened over there. I do not know on what facts this is based, but for us it is total nonsense."

Renee Jones-Bos, the Dutch ambassador to the United States, also said in a statement, "I couldn't disagree more" with Sheehan.

American politicians also criticized Sheehan.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin told Sheehan he was "totally off-target."

He said that while it may be the case that some militaries suffered from a focus on peacekeeping, that had nothing to do with homosexuals serving their countries.

"But I think that any effort to connect that failure on the part of the Dutch to the fact that they have homosexuals, or did allow homosexuals, I think is totally off-target," Levin, who wants gays to serve openly, said.

"The Dutch military, as you point out, were peacekeepers and not peace-enforcers. I agree with that," he added. "But what the heck that has to do with the issue before us is what mystifies me."

Dutch officials also noted that the U.S. military works successfully with the Dutch military in Afghanistan. Canada, one the U.S.'s most active partners in the war torn country, has allowed gays to serve openly in the military since 1992.

The Srebrenica massacre remains a sensitive issue in the Netherlands. In 2002, a six-year investigation into the genocide led to the government's fall.

Comments are now closed for this story

 

[CougarKing]

An update:

Sheehan apologizes for Dutch gays slur
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A retired Marine general has apologized for a remark to the U.S. Senate suggesting that gay Dutch soldiers were partly to blame for the Srebrenica massacre by Serb soldiers in Bosnia, according to the Defense Ministry.

The comment by retired Gen. John Sheehan during testimony opposing a proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the U.S. military caused an uproar in the Netherlands, where discrimination against gays is outlawed, including in the military.

The Defense Ministry released an e-mail Tuesday from Sheehan, a former NATO commander who retired from the military in 1997, to retired Dutch Gen. Henk van den Breemen saying he is sorry for his statements to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 18.

In the e-mail, Sheehan says the 1995 murder of some 8,000 Muslim men in Bosnia’s Srebrenica enclave “was in no way the fault of individual soldiers.”

read more at...

The Army Times link

Stars and Stripes link

 

[Greymatters]

Sounds like the Bread Theory of Crime (false logic joke):

- Studies indicate that over 90% of convicted criminals ate some form of bread poduct prior to commiting a crime, therefore bread was the major cause of crime...

 

[The Bread Guy]

- Studies indicate that over 90% of convicted criminals ate some form of bread poduct prior to commiting a crime, therefore bread was the major cause of crime...

When bread is outlawed, only outlaws will have bread...

 

[Greymatters]

Another ill-informed opinion:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100319/dutch_anger_100319/20100319?hub=World
Comment from 'Jim' in Ottawa:

While I complete disagree with the former commander's comments about gays in the Dutch forces, the fact remains that the Dutch peacekeepers, regardless of their orientation, completely and utterly failed to defend the defenceless Bosniak civilian population of Srebrenica from the murderous Serbs and were thus complicit in the genocide. I don't want anyone out there to lose sight of that fact. The Netherlands does have blood on their hands for which they have never publicly apologized.


No doubt 'Jim' probably also blames the Belgian commandoes for failing to stop the massacre in Rwanada...

And why do so many persons on that comment list think that this is a typical 'conservative' comment?

 

[tomahawk6]