The day when 400 Dutch cowards with guns, who claimed to be soldiers, cried rather than fight and watched 8000 unarmed Muslims be killed.
There is a reason why the phrase “Dutch courage” means the bravery you get only when drunk.
Amsterdam (dpa) - The scar left by Srebrenica in the collective soul of the Netherlands runs deep. “There is but one word for the behaviour of the Dutch soldiers in Srebrenica: Cowardice,” a war correspondent at the time said as the 10th anniversary approached.
Writing in the respected NRC Handelsblad, Raymond van den Boogard said his countrymen had lost all will to fight in battle.
In an interview marking the anniversary, the defence minister at the time, Joris Voorhoeve, said: “I should really have resigned the day after the Serbs overran the enclave.”
But it was almost seven years before the government of then prime minister minister Wim Kok resigned in response to an independent Dutch inquiry into the conduct of the troops.
Families of the victims of the massacre are still pursuing a case through the Dutch courts in pursuit of their claim that the 400 men of “Dutchbat” had failed in their duty to protect the enclave.
Sociologist Herman Vuijsje described the men as “typical Hollanders”, who had taken the individualistic attitude: “None of my business.”
Vuijsje noted scornfully that the U.S.-led alliance in Iraq had created a kind of “milksop” role for the Dutch troops. “We patrol and make ourselves liked through sweet talk, but we are not called on when the real work has to be done.”
Several publications have hauled out for reprinting the notorious photograph of Dutchbat commander Colonel Ton Karremans raising a glass with Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic in Srebrenica on July 12, 1995, a day after the Dutch surrendered their positions and a day before the killings began in earnest.
**And the words of the French commander of UNPROFOR, General Bernard Janvier, are being quoted anew: "With 400 French troops it would have been a different story, because we would have fought. **
**“The Dutch had the order to fight. When one gets an order to fight, one fights,” Janvier told the French National Assembly in 2001. **
There is scorn over the way the military tried to pass the buck to UNPROFOR command, accusing it of failing to provide air suppport.
And there is scorn over the failure of the politicians to take full blame. On resigning Kok accepted “co-responsibility” as part of the international community.
The country’s intellectuals are caught up in soul-searching over whether there is something in the national identity that shies away from conflict. Parallels have been drawn with its record during World War II, when there was little resistance to the deportation of the Jews.
Among the questions being asked are: “Will Dutch troops ever be taken seriously again on international peacekeeping operations?” and “Can the Dutch play their full role in fighting international terrorism?”
It will be many years before the guilt over the massacre is finally laid to rest.
