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THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- The Dutch government has resigned over a report condemning its failure to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war.
Prime Minister Wim Kok's coalition government met earlier on Tuesday for a crisis meeting to discuss the fallout from a damaging report into the massacre last week.
"(We) are going to visit the Queen. I will offer her the resignation of the ministers and junior ministers," Kok told reporters.
The resignation comes less than a month before The Netherlands holds general elections and is the second time the coalition government has stepped down during nearly eight years of power.
The report, issued last week by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), blamed politicians and top military officials for the failure of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the massacre.
It criticised the Dutch army and politicians for giving their peacekeepers an "impossible" mission to defend the U.N.-designated safe area of Srebrenica.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said a lot of "soul searching" was under way in The Netherlands and that Kok had reportedly read the document with a "heavy heart."
Many soldiers who had become embroiled in the Srebrenica tragedy have said they may never get over the "shame and pain" of what happened, Amanpour added.
The troops had called for greater military protection from the U.N. at the time, which was denied.
"It is remembered with great bitterness that they asked for help but were not given any mandate," she said.
The 7,000-page NIOD report found no evidence linking ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- currently on trial in The Hague for alleged Balkans crimes -- or Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic with the slaughter.
It said the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica stood by while Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic evacuated thousands of men from the Dutch camp and drove them off to their deaths.
The troops should have supervised the evacuation themselves, but the Dutch soldiers were hindered by an inadequate mandate from the United Nations and by their own government, and had been sent on an impossible mission, the report said.
"Humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission," the report said.
The report criticised Dutch politicians, saying the cabinet, defence ministry and parliament "adopted an anti-intelligence attitude," refusing U.S. intelligence help because of "lack of interest and the negative attitude" of the military and political leadership.
Defence Minister Frank de Grave and Environment Minister Jan Pronk indicated last week they wanted to resign to appease calls for the government to take responsibility for not preventing the Bosnian atrocity, Dutch media reported.
Pronk was development minister at the time. De Grave was not a member of the cabinet at the time but was reportedly deeply disturbed by the report.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague has indicted Mladic and Karadzic on genocide charges related to the events of 1995. Both remain at large.
The largest union in the Dutch military said it may demand a criminal investigation into the report's finding that vital information about the massacre was withheld from the government by the army, which was trying to protect its image.
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- The Dutch government has resigned over a report condemning its failure to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war.
Prime Minister Wim Kok's coalition government met earlier on Tuesday for a crisis meeting to discuss the fallout from a damaging report into the massacre last week.
"(We) are going to visit the Queen. I will offer her the resignation of the ministers and junior ministers," Kok told reporters.
The resignation comes less than a month before The Netherlands holds general elections and is the second time the coalition government has stepped down during nearly eight years of power.
The report, issued last week by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), blamed politicians and top military officials for the failure of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the massacre.
It criticised the Dutch army and politicians for giving their peacekeepers an "impossible" mission to defend the U.N.-designated safe area of Srebrenica.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said a lot of "soul searching" was under way in The Netherlands and that Kok had reportedly read the document with a "heavy heart."
Many soldiers who had become embroiled in the Srebrenica tragedy have said they may never get over the "shame and pain" of what happened, Amanpour added.
The troops had called for greater military protection from the U.N. at the time, which was denied.
"It is remembered with great bitterness that they asked for help but were not given any mandate," she said.
The 7,000-page NIOD report found no evidence linking ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- currently on trial in The Hague for alleged Balkans crimes -- or Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic with the slaughter.
It said the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica stood by while Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic evacuated thousands of men from the Dutch camp and drove them off to their deaths.
The troops should have supervised the evacuation themselves, but the Dutch soldiers were hindered by an inadequate mandate from the United Nations and by their own government, and had been sent on an impossible mission, the report said.
"Humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission," the report said.
The report criticised Dutch politicians, saying the cabinet, defence ministry and parliament "adopted an anti-intelligence attitude," refusing U.S. intelligence help because of "lack of interest and the negative attitude" of the military and political leadership.
Defence Minister Frank de Grave and Environment Minister Jan Pronk indicated last week they wanted to resign to appease calls for the government to take responsibility for not preventing the Bosnian atrocity, Dutch media reported.
Pronk was development minister at the time. De Grave was not a member of the cabinet at the time but was reportedly deeply disturbed by the report.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague has indicted Mladic and Karadzic on genocide charges related to the events of 1995. Both remain at large.
The largest union in the Dutch military said it may demand a criminal investigation into the report's finding that vital information about the massacre was withheld from the government by the army, which was trying to protect its image.
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I thought your DL was Albert Speer...
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