A black page in Dutch history and a tragedy for Bosnian Muslims. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre is back in the news. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague has launched a criminal inquiry which could end in charges being brought against two Dutch military commanders.

July 1995. Four months before the end of the Bosnian civil war. Four hundred Dutch soldiers are forced to withdraw from their UN peacekeeping base in Srebrenica by heavily armed Bosnian Serb forces. The ‘safe area’ falls, and in the following days over 8,000 Muslim men and boys are murdered and dumped in mass graves.

The fact that the Dutchbat (short for Dutch battalion) soldiers withdrew to safety while mass murder took place remains a trauma for both the victims and those who were there to protect them. A trauma that is being raked up by the current criminal inquiry.

Formal complaint
The inquiry follows a formal complaint against former Commander Thom Karremans, who led the Dutchbat forces, his deputy Major Rob Franken and a Dutch army personnel officer. The complaint has been filed by two Bosnian Muslims who accuse the Dutch soldiers of handing over their relatives to the Bosnian Serbs just before the fall of Srebrenica.

The complainants are Hasan Nuhanovic, who was an interpreter for the Dutchbat forces, and Alma Mustafic, whose father worked as an electrician for the Dutch. Rizo Mustafic and various members of Mr Nuhanovic’s family died in the massacre after the fall of the ‘safe area’. They are being represented by the lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld:

“This is a very serious case which should have been brought by the prosecution authorities themselves. They should not have waited for complaints to be filed. It’s a shame they failed to act, but I’m extremely pleased that a first step has now been taken.”

Possible charges
The victims’ relatives accuse the Dutch commander and his deputy of sending the men away from the UN safe area.

“I expect the judicial institutions in the Netherlands to do their job, to be unbiased and professional,” Hasan Nuhanovic said in response to the news that a criminal inquiry had started. He had wanted to bring the case years ago and regrets being persuaded not to do so by lawyers. He was finally spurred into action by his anger at a comment made by the Dutch Attorney-General in the civil case brought in 2007.

Nerve
Mr Nuhanovic says that, during a sitting, the Attorney-General denied that the Dutch soldiers had sent refugees away from the base. Such an assertion would have contradicted the conclusions of the National Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in a government commissioned report on the Srebrenica debacle. Mr Nuhanovic says the Attorney-General had a nerve making the statement.

“They don't even follow the line of the NIOD report. The NIOD report actually admits that there was this moment when the refugees were ordered out by the Dutch battalion deputy commander. But the state actually denies that this ever took place. So this gives me an additional incentive or inspiration to actually try through these criminal proceedings to get some justice.”

Guilt denied
The 6,600 pages in the NIOD report led to the fall of prime minister Wim Kok’s cabinet in 2002. His government took “responsibility”, while denying “guilt” for what happened at Srebrenica. Now, Dutch prosecutors have launched a criminal inquiry which could result in the trial of two Dutch army officers. NIOD’s David Barnouw, however, doubts the inquiry will come to any new conclusions.

“I can’t imagine that new facts will come to light. It’s a reappraisal of responsibilities and of the facts detailed in the report. Say that a notebook surfaces, in which Commander Karremans the week before wrote: ‘It’s clear: if we withdraw, all the Muslims will be killed’. Then, that would be something new. But I rate the chance of that sort of thing happening very small.”