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| Dutch defence minister honours Srebrenica troops |
Dutch defence minister honours Srebrenica troops
By Nicola Leske and Nedim Dervisbegovic
AMSTERDAM/SARAJEVO, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp on Monday awarded medals to soldiers whose withdrawal from the U.N. enclave of Srebrenica in 1995 led to the massacre of 8,000 Muslims, Europe's worst killings since World War Two.
In Bosnia the awards were met with incomprehension, and the presidency said it had summoned the Dutch ambassador to lodge an official protest.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague calls the massacre an act of genocide and has charged 20 people in connection with the killings.
The Dutch government led by Wim Kok resigned in 2002 after a report on the massacre blamed politicians for sending the Dutch U.N. troops on an impossible mission.
"All of you receive today a special insignia as a visible acknowledgement...that in Srebrenica you had an extraordinarily difficult task," Kamp told 500 members of the "Dutchbat" battalion at a ceremony in the northern city of Assen.
"And also to acknowledge the fact that Dutchbat has for years wrongly been held responsible for what happened in the enclave," he said, according to the text of his speech.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Srebrenica became a supposed safe area guarded by a Dutch army unit operating under a United Nations mandate.
The lightly armed Dutch soldiers, lacking air support, were forced to abandon the enclave to Bosnian Serb forces, who took away and massacred some 8,000 Muslim men and boys relying on the protection of the Dutch troops.
"This black page in the post-war history of Europe will always be connected with the mission of Dutchbat III," said Kamp, who unveiled a commemorative plaque at barracks in Assen.
Official inquiries cleared the Dutch troops of blame. A total of 850 Dutch soldiers served in the enclave.
In Srebrenica Zumra Sehomerovic, who lost her husband in the massacre, expressed her astonishment at the awards. "...my memories are still very alive, memories of the hope and trust we had in Dutch soldiers," she said.
"Instead of the 'monument of shame' we see rewards today in Holland for the soldiers serving the UN troops in Srebrenica."
Of the 20 people charged by The Hague tribunal, the most important since the death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic are Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic -- both still on the run.
They are charged with genocide for orchestrating the massacre.
"Today we have this recognition for the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica by the Dutch government. What does it mean?" asked Haris Silajdzi, a Muslim member of the Bosnian presidency.
"It looks like Milosevic is dead but his project is going on, the legalisation of the project," he added.
Alertnet
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