The public inquiry that has just begun in the Dutch Parliament into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre is unlikely to come to any conclusions different from the Dutch government inquiry published last April. It accepted that 110-strong Dutch UN contingent had failed to protect the 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered by Serb forces after the town was overrun, although it also said that Dutch peacekeepers had been sent on an impossible mission and that blame had to be shared with the UN and even with the Bosnian Army, which, it claimed, had provoked some of the attacks. This judgement is unlikely to be challenged. What this present inquiry seeks is to investigate individual failings — of officers, government officials, even politicians — and to substantiate or lay to rest allegations that there was an attempted cover-up after the massacre.
If individuals are found to have failed to prevent the massacre there will be grounds for legal claims by Srebrenica survivors against the Netherlands. But this process cannot be about money — though, sadly, governments too easily think that they can wipe the slate clean by paying blood money after some avoidable tragedy. Equally too, more and more victims’ families these days are all too willing to join in the treasure trail, eagerly seeing lives in cash terms. However much compensation ends up being paid out, it will not bring back the dead; it will not wipe away the stain on the Netherlands’ reputation; and it will not achieve the justice that Srebrenica cries for. That can only happen when all those responsible have been brought to account; so far only one man, Radislav Krstic, who led the Serb forces, has been sentenced for his involvement — to 46 years in prison. Just four other senior Serb soldiers accused of involvement have been arrested; their trials are still to come; in the meantime one of them is free on bail. Justice is taking a long time to happen. Cash aside, whatever the findings, the inquiry will be far more important for the Netherlands than for Bosnia — because Srebrenica has stripped the Dutch of an innocence they cherished.
For years they have fondly imagined that their government and society were somehow more moral, more ethically conscious and honest than almost elsewhere else. It is a dangerous illusion to hold, although there is no denying that ethical issues regularly top the Dutch political agenda, no matter how incomprehensible some may seem, notably euthanasia and legalized brothels and drug taking. Yet they were the first in the West to start taking the Palestinian cause seriously despite being staunch supporters of Israel’s right to exist.
The expectation that government and morality go together was the reason why, when the April Srebrenica report came out, the then government of Wim Kok resigned: a brave and honorable decision. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to imagine the French or British, or indeed any other European government, doing the same in similar circumstances; the current belief in most of the West seems to be that resigning is for wimps. Nonetheless, the Dutch have had their fond illusions shattered, which may explain why so many of them subsequently opted to vote for the unethical far right. This second inquiry could be cathartic if it shows that individuals were to blame rather than something being fundamentally wrong with Dutch institutions — although that must be more hope than reality. The fact remains that Srebrenica has cast a long shadow over the Dutch view of themselves. It will not be easily lifted.
