27 Years After the Srebrenica Genocide, the Netherlands Apologizes to Bosnian Muslims

The Netherlands has made an official apology for the first time to Bosnian Muslims for the Srebrenica genocide on the 27th anniversary of its perpetration by Serb forces in 1995.

This came in the words of Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren during her participation in the commemoration of the massacre on July 11, saying that Srebrenica has embraced terrifying memories for 27 years.

She added that the failure of international organizations to provide security for the innocent Bosnian people as they had previously promised, including her country, the Netherlands, led to the storming and destruction of Srebrenica. She stressed, "The international community could not protect the people of Srebrenica."

The Dutch minister claimed that her country's soldiers did everything in their power to fulfill their mission to defend the innocent people of Srebrenica. However, she emphasized that only one party was to blame for the horrific genocide: the Bosnian Serb army. 

 

Unforgettable Pain

Ollongren said, "We cannot relieve your pain, but there is nothing we can do but look into the eyes of history," explaining that it was the Bosnian Serbs who committed it and that many of them were tried at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

She emphasized that international organizations should have provided security for the people of Srebrenica and that the Netherlands was a part of that failure, offering a profound apology to the city's people for that.

On July 11, 1995, Serbian forces led by Ratko Mladic entered the city after declaring it a safe area by the United Nations. Within days, they committed a massacre that killed more than 8,000 Bosnians after Dutch operating there handed over tens of thousands of Bosnians to Serb forces.

Annually on July 11, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina holds a burial ceremony for the remains of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre in the Potocari cemetery, whose remains were found in the search for victims of mass graves.

The Srebrenica genocide is Europe's most heinous war crime since World War II.

 

Impossible Mission

The Dutch government has rehabilitated its former soldiers accused of complicity in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It said that they were subjected to a storm of unfair criticism while serving with the United Nations forces.

"I apologize on behalf of the Dutch government to all the women and men working in the Dutch battalion," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at a ceremony in June 2022 in honor of these soldiers.

Rutte believes that the Dutch soldiers were sent on an "impossible mission." He added that the Dutch soldiers received little support from the Ministry of Defense and politicians at the time "in the face of a storm of unfair criticism, and the soldiers were not given enough attention."

During the ceremony, the Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren presented medals to the members of the Dutch Battalion. The government has officially apologized to the Dutch (European) Battalion members.

It is noteworthy that the Serbian forces led by Ratko Mladic stormed Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, after declaring it a safe area by the United Nations, and committed a massacre over days, killing more than 8,000 Bosnians, ranging in age from 7 to 70 years.

The Dutch soldiers stationed in Srebrenica with the United Nations did not offer any resistance.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands held its soldiers partially responsible for the killing of some 350 civilians by Bosnian Serb forces during the massacre.

The court said at the time that the Dutch Battalions were responsible for not allowing these Muslim civilians to take shelter in a compound that was guarded by the battalion, which led to their death.

The court also concluded that Dutch soldiers helped deport Muslim civilians, despite knowing that they were at risk of execution and abuse by Serbian forces.

 

Unlike Ukraine

In an interview with Al-Estiklal, the researcher at Sabahattin Zaim University Hamza Guenouni said: "What happened in Bosnia is horrific and very painful. The Serbs killed innocent people, systematically raped women, and prevented them from having an abortion to give birth to Serb children and replace the Bosnian with the Serb race. For three years since 1995, human tragedies that are difficult to describe and believe have occurred."

The war in Ukraine witnessed rapid and strong Western reactions, unlike in Bosnia, according to an article published by the British Guardian newspaper by Ed Vulliamy, a war correspondent during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The article's author compared international and Western interest in the ongoing war in Ukraine with what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina 30 years ago.

And on April 6-7, three decades ago, when the United States and the European Union recognized the nascent Republic of Bosnia, Serbian snipers, Bosnian Serbs, and Russian-backed artillerymen opened fire on the capital, Sarajevo, committing the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, according to the Guardian.

There are baffling differences. As much of the West's rallies around Ukraine, the cyclone of violence against Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats has been met with bewilderment and indifference. Some have appeased and even supported the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian aggressors among the so-called international community.

"While the West has armed the Ukrainian resistance, the arms embargo has shackled the young Bosnian irregular army and given the aggressor a lethal military advantage," she explained.

The article's author explained, "Most of the 100,000 dead and two million displaced in Bosnia were Slavic Muslims, and some survivors think the west's connivance was because they are just that—Muslims."

The writer concluded by asking: "Why didn't and doesn't Bosnia matter, as Ukraine absolutely does? The question has baffled—and the answer evaded—me ever since April 1992."