| PART THREE "The Dutch soldiers did not have an active role in separating men, but they didn't resist it either. The Dutch command thought that the people in the base faced a humanitarian catastrophe. 25,000 people were crammed in a very tight space. The temperature was high, there was no water, the hygiene conditions were very poor, an epidemic could have occurred. The Dutch thought this must be avoided, but at the same time they didn't want to provoke Mladic. Our troops thought that the separated men were going to be prisoners of war and that they would be treated according to world conventions. They believed there would even be some brutality, but they couldn't possibly think that a massacre would take place. The Dutch commander Karremans tried to negotiate with Mladic in an armored personnel carrier, but he was simply no match for Mladic. Besides, he didn't get enough support from the UN. Karremans was forced to accept Mladic's demand that the men be separated. What's more, Mladic started separating them without even asking anyone. Karremans didn't ask for permission from either the Hague or the UN, because everything happened so quickly. Mladic was assuring him that the only reason the men were being separated was to check if they had committed war crimes. But Mladic breached the agreement by transporting the men out of Srebrenica. That's when things got out of hand," said Blom, adding that the bad atmosphere in the Dutch camp command also contributed to the tragedy. When they came to Srebrenica, the Dutch soldiers thought they were coming to a safe area. But the enclave was not demilitarized, and contingents of weapons were being brought in. "Besides, the Muslim troops regularly provoked the Serb army, they attacked their villages and killed Serbian civilians. They would often attack from positions close to the Dutch soldiers so that the Serbs would be unable to retaliate. Intolerance prevailed in the enclave and it culminated with the killing of [Dutch] soldier Raviv van Renssen by the Muslims," said Professor Blom. Another big problem for the Dutch troops was their poor communication ability. The battalion command received a number of reports on the killings on 12 and 13 July, but it concluded that those were isolated incidents. The first serious indication that mass killings had taken place reached the government in the Hague and the UN on 15, 16, and 17 July, but even then, officials did not conclude that a massacre had taken place. Van den Berg reckons that the next Dutch prime minister should go to Bosnia, meet the survivors, and apologize on behalf of the Dutch people. He also urges more research on the role of Bosniak Muslim wartime leader Alija Izetbegovic and possible involvement of the authorities in Belgrade. Professor Blom agrees that both Dutch society and the Balkan peoples would benefit from the truth about Srebrenica. "But it is also important that while searching for the truth we deal with historical facts and not with political judgements and wishes, as the IKV report does. Their starting premise is that the Dutch troops are guilty for what happened. The truth is that Mladic is guilty for the massacre, while the behavior of the Dutch troops and the whole international community contributed to the tragedy. Once and for all, Srebrenica must become what it really is--a Balkan problem, not a Dutch one," said Blom. END Milorad Ivanovic is the foreign affairs editor of the Belgrade weekly, BlicNews. |