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ANOTHER SAD ANNIVERSARY
Monday, July 11, 2005
ANOTHER SAD ANNIVERSARY
Not just the Rainbow Warrior. Today it will be ten years ago that the UN (by way of Dutch and French incompetence) walked away from Srebrenica and enabled the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian men and boys. Here's some background on the Dutch role which led to a parliamentary investigation and the fall of Wim Kok's second coalition cabinet in the spring of 2002. It's one of these issues that awoke Dutch politics and society from its comfortable 1990s slumber of unprecedented growth and budget surplus after budget surplus. The idea that war and evil would come calling this close to home left many perplexed and that attitude played a significant part in the cluelessness of the Dutchbat forces on the ground and of the politicians back home who worked hard to put a palatable veneer on the entire episode. Guilt was of course never apportioned, but that hasn't stopped some surviving family members to sue the Dutch state, I translate: Two Bosnian families of Srebrenica victims will start legal action against the Dutch state. They argue The Netherlands is complicit in the murder of their family members after the muslim enclave fell in 1995. Their Dutch lawyer reported this. Since Dutchbat operated under the UN umbrella I would think that legal action against that institution would yield better results, but I am no expert on this to be frank. The Dutch government is taking no chances however and refuses to make any apologies and restricts its actions today to meet with some survivors and to express its sympathy. Again, another sad anniversary. NOTE: In the meantime the Dutch Left knows exactly who is guilty, from the blog of the Dutch member of parliament for the Socialist Party Jan Marijnissen we learn that the failure was that of the US and Britain who unduly influenced UN operations. Of course. 
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