Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized to his country's peacekeepers deployed to defend the UN's '
safe area
' in Srebrenica, Bosnia in 1995, saying there were lessons to be learned from the response of the world in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Weakly armed, the Dutch peacekeepers were overwhelmed and helpless before the conquest of Srebrenica (northeastern Bosnia) by Bosnian Serb forces led by their military leader Ratko Mladic in July 1995.
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Nearly 8,000 men and teenagers were killed after the Serbian conquest of the city.
These killings, the worst committed in Europe since the end of the Second World War, have been qualified as genocide by the justice of the UN.
Mark Rutte told veterans of the Dutchbat III force at a military base in Schaarsbergen in the eastern Netherlands on Saturday that “
almost 27 years later some words have still not been spoken
”.
“
Today, on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologize to all the women and men of Dutchbat III.
To you and to those who are not here today
,” said Mark Rutte.
The prime minister added that the blue helmets had "
always tried to do the right thing in difficult circumstances, even when it was no longer possible
".
The force's failure to prevent the Srebrenica massacre has since tainted Dutch national consciousness.
“Lack of support” from the government
Mark Rutte also apologized for the "
lack of support
" from the government when Dutch soldiers returned to their country.
Dutch veterans were right to ask “
where was the world
” when the Srebrenica massacre happened, added Mark Rutte.
“
And of course today we also think: where are we now, now that the Ukrainian people are suffering from brutal Russian aggression
,” he said.
"
How painful it is that there is war again on our continent and that war crimes are being committed again just a few flying hours away
," he said.
Russia has been accused of war crimes in Ukraine, including in towns around kyiv where hundreds of bodies have been found.
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The Dutch state was found partly responsible for the massacre by Serb forces of 350 Bosnian Muslims in July 1995, by the country's Supreme Court in 2019. These men had sought safety in the peacekeepers base of Potocari in Srebrenica, but they were later expelled from there before being taken away and killed by Bosnian Serb forces.
Dutch peacekeepers were overwhelmed at their base in Potocari by the massive influx of locals seeking protection from UN soldiers.
Peacekeepers closed the gates of their base to new arrivals before allowing Mladic's forces to evacuate the refugees.
The men and teenagers were separated from the women and taken in buses to the execution sites, and their bodies thrown into mass graves.