A great sense of powerlessness. A sigh for rehabilitation. And a desire to be able to close an extremely painful period
If there are three types of emotions those thirty years ‘Srebrenica debate’, then it is, it is, Arthur ten Cate, Dion Landstra and Jaus Müller wrote Monday in an article for the trade magazine Military spectator. If it is up to the three military historians, there will be a different concept for the officers they train at Defense: take responsibility, especially in today’s world.
The genocide on 8,400 Muslim men in Srebrenica, now thirty years ago, was largely the fault of the others, was the message for a long time. In changing forms it came back in it Fist thick report of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation in 2002, in the response from the Kok cabinet and in interviews With Srebrenica veterans themselves.
First of all, it was the Serbs themselves who slaughtered thousands of Muslim men, led by Ratko Mladic. But the mandate with which the United Nations had sent Dutchbat III on the road to prevent such slaughter, was ‘limited’, ‘vague’ and ‘not realistic’ said NIOD and the cabinet. Promised air support of allies for the plight Dutchbat did not happen, according to Defense Minister Joris Voorhoeve. “The UN has cheated on us, Dutchbat is cheated and ultimately me too,” said the same front farm in 2020.
Dutchbatters themselves also felt abandoned by the cabinet, including Minister Voorhoeve; Help for them only started late after return. The last Rutte cabinet recognized that. During a ‘day of recognition and appreciation’ for the veterans, July 2022, it apologized for this.
Mixed feelings
The three historians, they teach them at the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH) and at the University of Groningen, followed this with understanding, but more and more often with mixed feelings. The resignation of the Kok cabinet in 2002, just before the elections,, in their eyes, functioned primarily as a Zinoffer that had to close a painful period. “But of course that was not possible at all,” says Jaus Müller. “In recent decades, all documents were released – ministerial council pieces, international studies – that gave a different picture than what we were used to.”
“Look, here I have it,” says Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Dion Landstra. He takes his laptop in the Hague Café where NRC The three historians speak and starts reading. “In pieces that have been released in recent years, you see Prime Minister Kok making attempts to keep control. In the Council of Ministers he says he will use his contacts with the groups to ‘dampen’ the matter.”
What had to be ‘muted’, according to the three historians, was an uncomfortable truth that received little room in the official imaging. The United Nations had given the Netherlands enough room to offer armed resistance if necessary. The Ministry of Defense could have – and should do – to properly equip the Dutch batters with, for example, heavier equipment.
Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Dion Landstra, Lecturer Military History (NIMH).
Photo Maikel Samuels
Jaus Müller, Lecturer Military History at NIMH.
Photo Private Archives
Prof. Dr. Arthur ten Cate, special professor of military history at the University of Groningen.
Photo Private Archives
Prof. Dr. Arthur ten Cate, professor of Military History in Groningen, quotes UN resolution 836 of June 1993 once again: “The Security Council gives UNPROFOR the authority to take necessary measures, including the use of violence in response to bombing of safe areas.” And what did Voorhoeve say to his colleagues in the Council of Ministers a few months after the fall of Srebrenica, October 1995? The question whether the UN and Dutchbat could have done more, he answered ‘in the affirmative’ there. The decision became public after the removal of the confidentiality of these Council of Ministers in 2020.
Tanks
Foreign studies confirm the image of a nation “who do get the space for the use of violence, but not that space,” says Ten Cate. He refers to A piece from 2017 from a British think tank. It deals with the operations of ‘Nordbat II’, the UN unit of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish forces in 1993 and 1994. They operated in the same area with the same UN instructions. The Swedish Colonel Ulf Henricsson asked for Bosnia at the end of 1993, to write their will to write their will; He seriously took into account that the protection of the citizens in Bosnia would result in killing in his own ranks. Henricsson also demanded a “well -armed and well -protected unity.” With this, the Scandinavians saved a few Muslim nurses from a hospital that was attacked by Croatian militias.
Comparisons such as these raise the question of whether Dutchbat III and their superiors were not simply ‘cowardly’, as many relatives in Srebrenica soon asked. NRC spoke in main comments about ‘passivity’ and ‘anxiety hazerij’. Despite their reference to examples such as Nordbat, Ten Cate, Landstra and Müller point morally charged terms such as cowardly. “As historians, we want to analyze instead of moralizing,” says Müller. Moreover, Ten Cate adds: “There were also various moments of bravery at Dutchbat, for example with taking so -called ‘blocking positions’ between approaching Serbian troops and citizens they had to protect. That was not cowardly. One military even got a bravery award. “
Landstra prefers to speak of restraint. “The Netherlands – not only soldiers, but also the political top – was reluctant to use violence,” he says, nodding his two co -historians in agreement. As the causes for this, Müller calls “inexperience with peace missions, but also social pressure, also from the media, to have ‘our boys’ come home in a cloudy direction.
Ten Cate adds the lack within the armed forces of “traditions of leadership such as the French. When they were kicked out of their checkpoint by the Serbs – as previously happened with Dutchbat – the French started a counter -offensive and recaptured the Checkpoint.”
Survivors
All three historians in recent years went to Srebrenica – sometimes several times – to revive the painful history. They often did this in the company of military-in-training and students from Groningen. Ten Cate: “Through the stories of survivors, they see the consequences of military action. Inevitable discussions about their own choices and responsibilities, which is only good.”
Landstra signals during the ‘Battlefield Tours“To Srebrenica regularly shame,” both as a Dutchman and as a military. The realization that under the eyes of Dutchbat men, women and children are separated from each other, many seizes. It was exactly this tipping point that Minister Jan Pronk at the time said: “Dutchbat should never have been allowed to work on that.”
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The armed forces learned the necessary lessons after ‘Srebrenica’, they saw themselves closely during the mission to Mali (2014-2019). Landstra: “We learned to work with ‘escalation dominance’, which means that you have the means and will to keep the upper hand at every stage of a conflict. That is why we brought Apache helicopters to Mali.”
Learning was also drawn on ‘softer’ surfaces. Müller mentions the ‘Legal Advisor’ who often goes on missions. He has relevant legal documents at hand about, for example, UN mandate and explanation of the Ministry of Defense. There were also ‘diary writers’. These officers keep track of what happens within a mission. Their reports help with reconstructions – and if necessary parliamentary investigations – afterwards. All three historians held this function.
Finally, says Landstra, “Parliament is better informed in advance about the goals of the mission, what is needed to properly implement that mission and what the possible risks are.” This is done in the article 100 letters. NRC calls the recent report About the bloody bombing of Hawija in memory. Did that note that in the case of the mission to Iraq those risks did not come to the fore? In the Article 100 letter of September 2014, the Rutte cabinet did not or hardly mention the chance of civilian casualties in the intended air bombing.
Landstra closes his laptop, smiles, and says: “That again indicates how important it is to stop the debate about its own responsibility, but to keep it now.”