Fallout from Srebrenica massacre in Netherlands

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=285850

The Independent (London), 17 April 2002

Dutch cabinet resigns over Srebrenica massacre

By Stephen Castle in Brussels

Seven years after Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War, the
Dutch government resigned en masse yesterday after a report blamed it for
failing to halt the slaughter of more than 7,000 people at Srebrenica in
1995.

In a day of high political drama the entire Cabinet quit, led by the
long-serving Prime Minister, Wim Kok, who has been in office since 1995 and
was premier when the killings took place, despite the presence of Dutch UN
peace-keepers.

In many countries a report by an historical institute into events seven
years ago would hardly impinge upon political life, let alone provoke the
downfall of a government. But the Dutch do things differently.

The mass resignation in The Hague follows days of media soul-searching over
the detailed investigation into the role of the Netherlands in the massacre.

As he addressed the Dutch parliament yesterday afternoon, Mr Kok gave a
display which would scarcely be recognised by politicians in Britain.

"The gravity of the report's conclusions cannot be without political
consequences," he said. "These consequences are not the result of a specific
incident, but an accumulation of events involving successive cabinets."

The immediate effects of yesterday's events are limited. Elections were
already due in the Netherlands next month and Mr Kok had already announced
he will not seek a third term in office. But the fall of the government
reflects the potent legacy of an event which seared itself on Dutch
consciousness, provoking a powerful collective sense of national guilt.
Campaigners will also hope that the government's decision sets a precedent
for future inquiries.

In 1995 Bosnian Muslim victims were sheltering in a UN "safe haven" under
the protection of around 120 lightly-armed Dutch peace-keepers. They failed
to prevent the men and boys being separated from the women and younger
children by Bosnian Serbs who moved them to makeshift detention centres,
from which thousands were taken away.

Subsequent testimonies have revealed how teams of soldiers worked through
the night under the light of vehicles to shoot their victims. Around 7,500
people went missing and more than 6,000 are known to have been murdered.
Women and children were deported.

Hans Blom, director of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation which
produced the report, argued last week that the "events that occurred cannot
be described as an act of vengeance that got out of hand". He said:
"Although they occurred rapidly and in an improvised way, the scale and
course of the murders clearly indicate they were organised. Places of
executions were sought, transport was arranged and troops were ordered to
carry out executions."

Other governments might have avoided commissioning a inquiry which was
inevitably going to be damaging. After all, there is a judicial process
under way at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague which has indicted key
Serb figures and already convicted Radovan Krstic, a Bosnian Serb general,
for his role in the atrocities. But the Dutch government went ahead,
commissioning the institute, which took six years to do its work, conducting
more than 900 interviews.

Its conclusions, published last week, blamed politicians for sending
ill-equipped Dutch soldiers into an ill-defined mission with inadequate
intelligence, insufficient support and no exit strategy. The 7,000-page
document said: "Humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the
Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace
mission."

Other bodies were criticised including the UN itself. But the document added
that the Dutch Cabinet, the Defence Ministry and parliament "adopted an
anti-intelligence attitude", refusing to accept help from the US because of
"lack of interest" of the military and political leadership.

For days the Dutch media has focused on the government's refusal to take
responsibility for the findings, prompting very public soul-searching on the
part of a number of cabinet ministers. By yesterday morning two ministers
had already announced that they might resign: Jan Pronk, the Environment
Minister who was in the government with responsibility for international
development in 1995; and Frank de Grave, the Defence Minister, who said he
felt a responsibility on behalf of his department even though he was not
given the post until three years after the massacre.

All the main parties are implicated. Mr Kok is a social democrat but his
predecessor Ruud Lubbers, who is now the UN High Commissioner for refugees
and who took the decision to send Dutch troops in, comes from the centre
right. Meanwhile, Mr de Grave and his predecessor are Liberals.

Thus, after a meeting of the Cabinet yesterday, Mr Kok and all his ministers
and state secretaries submitted their resignations to Queen Beatrix. Mr de
Grave said that "the decision was unavoidable after the report". With the
established political elite facing a new challenge from the maverick,
populist right-wing, anti-immigration campaigner, Pim Fortuyn, Mr de Grave
may be right. The Cabinet seems to have judged that the fractiousness of the
electorate, which seems profoundly disenchanted with the big parties, would
be fuelled without a big gesture.

Mr Fortuyn, a shaven-headed millionaire and former academic who made huge
inroads in recent local elections in Rotterdam, was poised to exploit that
discontent. He had publicly and pointedly demanded the early resignation of
Mr Kok. As one official put it: "If they had not taken this decision Pim
Fortuyn could have had a field day arguing that the no one can take
responsibility even for a devastating report like that."

It remains to be seen how yesterday's convulsions will influence the
elections. In the interim little will change because ministers will remain
as caretakers until polling day on 15 May

One of the few concrete effects will be felt close to the source of the
convulsions which have gripped the Netherlands ­ the Balkans. Until
yesterday Dutch soldiers were expected to take over from German troops at
the head of a Nato-led peace-keeping force in Macedonia. That idea, one Nato
official said yesterday, has now been put on hold.


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Stock for $4
and no minimums.
FREE Money 2002.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/ySSFAA/B140lB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and 
dirt."
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

Community email addresses:
  Post message: marxist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subscribe:    marxist-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Unsubscribe:  marxist-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  List owner:   jplst15+@xxxxxxxx

Shortcut URL to this page:
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist

Also take our one-question survey at
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/polls 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/