The Netherlands has apologized to the relatives of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre, but only to the extent that it is responsible for the lack of reaction of the international community to the largest mass killing of people on the Old Continent since the Holocaust.
“The international community has failed to provide adequate protection to the people of Srebrenica, and as part of that community the Dutch government shares political responsibility for the situation caused by that failure,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said in a memorial speech she gave in the village of Potokari in Bosnia.
“We express our deepest apologies for this,” he said.
The Srebrenica massacre, one of the deadliest war crimes in Europe since the end of World War II, was committed in July 1995 by Serbian forces.
About 400 Dutch soldiers guarding the area as a UN peacekeeping mission were unable to prevent the atrocity in the predominantly Muslim Bosnian town, which had been declared a safe area by the United Nations.
In 2019, the Dutch cabinet acknowledged the country’s “partial” responsibility for the massacre.
For her part, Minister Ollongren said today that only the Bosnian Serb army can be blamed for the “genocide”.
It is noted that last month Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized to the Dutch soldiers who had been sent to defend Srebrenica, for the “impossible mission” they had to carry out.
Source: Capital
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