Ah ****. Dutch government collapses over Bosnia

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I think one of the serious posters has the Wiggy DL to blow off steam, maybe Imran?

I blow off steam through spam!

Ok! Just checking... (But then you wouldn´t admit it if you really were Wiggy... )

[Saint Marcus]

what is the electoral system in your countries?

Coalitions are required. No party since ww2 has ever gotten the majority in the parliament. After these elections it's likely we'll get a 4 or 5 party governement (which hasn't happened in decades).

Not true. The Dutch troops maintained their outpost for as long as they could under a heavy barrage by tanks and artillery, waiting for the air support that was promised to them.

True, but still they didn't fire a single shot. The battle was already lost long before that.

How is it that the Serbs knew they could safely attack the enclave that time? They had been in the hills for quite a while without trying.

1. They held dutch and french hostages. In/before the battle of Sbrenica they said "if we see one plane we'll shoot all the hostages" or something along those lines.
2. They knew that many dutchbatters were on leave at that time.

How come the American fighter planes, that had patrolled the area often enough, reported that they "could not find the target" after (due to political pressure?) the command to respond finally came?

That I certainly agree with. The French & Americans almost deliberatly didn't send in airstrikes.

AFAIK, the problem was that the Dutch soldiers were not combat troops and had terrible rules of engagement (from the viewpoint of someone who thinks they shoulda been there at all, anyway - I think their RoEs were just peachy ), not that they wittingly allowed a massacre.

The RoE were way to restrictive, that is certain. However, even if dutchbat had been allowed to fully engage the serbs, they wouldn't stand a chance anyway. The main problem wasn't the RoE as such, but the combination of the RoE, the number of dutch troops and the armament of the dutch troops. Of course, the organisation to blame is the UN in the first place, and not the dutch governement. I hope some top UN officials will resign after this, as well as some NATO/French/American officials.

Are Dutch soldiers ever combat troops?

We shot down a serbian MiG during the Kosovo war. Though that weren't groundforces.

It doesn't seem like they would really need them.

That's why some politicians favor doing away with the army (and airforce), and put that money in the navy (all within a European defense structure)

[Seeker]

Are Dutch soldiers ever combat troops? It doesn't seem like they would really need them. Or are they going to fight off "ze Germans?"

They know that the Germans have just been trying to catch Europe off guard by lulling them into a false sense of security all these years so they're prepared.

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Of course, the organisation to blame is the UN in the first place, and not the dutch governement. I hope some top UN officials will resign after this, as well as some NATO/French/American officials.

Yes. A clear statement from the UN and France is called for, leading to the kind of steps that you mention. The resignation of the Dutch cabinet should never obliterate the fact that the ultimate responsibility lies with the UN, and that it's the Bosnian Serb army (and possibly the Serbian government) who are guilty of the genocide. The only Dutch sin in this drama is utter stupidity (which is bad enough).

[Saint Marcus]

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (Reuters) -- Popular Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok bowed out of government on Tuesday along with his entire cabinet after a foreign policy scandal irreparably damaged his reformist three-party coalition.

Kok -- sober, hardworking and informal -- enjoyed broad popularity across the Dutch political spectrum after slashing unemployment and boosting prosperity during his eight years in power and was feted by fellow European centre-left leaders.

But a government-ordered report last week sharply condemned his cabinet for failing to prevent the most notorious massacre of the Bosnian war in 1995, when Dutch peacekeepers stood by as Bosnian Serbs massacred about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica enclave.

Kok, 63, who headed the PvdA Labour Party, forged strong friendships with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Bill Clinton during a time when they were hailed as pioneers of the moderate centre-left "Third Way."

High office did not dent his down-to-earth enjoyment of football, camping and hearty food.

He hated black-tie formality, shunning ostentation in his public and private life. His ordinary ways were extraordinarily attractive to the Dutch.

Kok, tipped as a potential successor to Romano Prodi as European Union president, was not regarded as a mover and a shaker in power.

But his skill at settling conflicts and hammering out compromise earned him respect at home and abroad.

Pro-European in outlook, former trade unionist Kok won widespread praise for helping to seal European economic and monetary union at the Amsterdam summit in 1997.

"Work, work, work and more work," was what Kok promised from the seemingly unwieldy first coalition his party wove with junior partners from the Liberal VVD and D66 centrists in 1994.

And work was what it helped deliver. During his first term, the economy went from strength to strength as the Netherlands created jobs at about the same pace as neighbouring Germany was losing them.

Unions were encouraged by the government to accept wage restraint in return for jobs.

But Kok also drew fire for cutting spending on health, pensions, education and child benefits to use the money to create employment.

Austere childhood

Born in the village of Bergambacht near Rotterdam on September 29, 1938, the carpenter's son was shaped by his childhood experience of the hunger and austerity of Nazi occupation.

After completing his schooling he studied business and went on to join an Amsterdam trading firm.

His early ambition was to become a foreign correspondent but he got a job trading green beans before finding his niche as a union leader.

He was appointed as an assistant international officer at the Netherlands Federation of Trade Unions -- the country's biggest union grouping -- in 1961 and steadily rose through the ranks.

Eight years later he became its secretary.

"I didn't move to the union out of passion for the principles of socialism. I was bored stiff with green beans. The union was all about people," Kok said.

After 25 years as a union activist Kok was elected to parliament in The Hague on a Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) ticket in 1986. He became party leader the same year.

From 1989 to 1994 he served as finance minister in Ruud Lubbers's centre-right coalition.

By the time Kok became premier in 1994 he already had a solid reputation as a straight talking, hard working pragmatist.

While in power, the economy grew steadily and unemployment dwindled.

Neighbouring countries watched enviously as the Dutch combined flexibility in the job market -- many workers took on part-time and short-term employment -- with robust welfare provisions.

It was a radical transformation from the 1980s when the economy was in poor shape and government finances in a mess.

In 1998 the coalition returned to power for another four-year term.

But the government's success in driving unemployment to its lowest point in almost 30 years -- from 7.5 percent when it took power in 1994 to about 2 percent in 2001 -- was gradually overshadowed by dissatisfaction with public services.

Austerity measures to wipe out the national debt by 2025 provoked angry calls for more money to be pumped into hospitals, schools and the country's commuter services.

Kok told his party last year he would bow out as leader after a characteristically modest bed-and-breakfast holiday touring England with his wife Rita in their brown Ford.

The trip, very much to Kok's taste, had been incognito.

His high standing at home and abroad was eclipsed, however, by his government's role in failing to prevent the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

The Srebrenica massacre plunged the Netherlands into soul-searching over the role of its peacekeepers in allowing Bosnian Serbs to capture Srebrenica and massacre the Muslims.

Kok, credited with having his finger on the pulse of the Dutch national mood, may have wished to depart on a high note after May's general elections.

Instead he leaves under the long shadow of a tragedy played out far from the placid corridors of the Hague government building where his career came to a bleak close on Tuesday.

[Saint Marcus]

Dutch general quits over massacre

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The Dutch army's top general has quit as another spectacular casualty after a damning report into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The defence ministry also announced an inquiry into other military staff who may have misled ministers and the public.

Dutch media said Defence Minister Frank de Grave had been pressuring Gen. Ad van Baal, the army chief of staff, to accept responsibility for mistakes made by military commanders during the previous Cabinet under Prime Minister Wim Kok.

At lunchtime on Wednesday it was announced that van Baal had followed the example of Kok's government -- who resigned en masse on Tuesday -- and quit.

The report from the Netherlands' Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) had concluded that van Baal's predecessor intentionally withheld information from government officials during the Srebrenica massacres to preserve the army's reputation.

The largest union in the Dutch military said it would demand a criminal investigation into the finding.

Kok and his entire Cabinet resigned on Tuesday over the NIOD report.

They took responsibility -- but not the blame -- for the peacekeeping mission that ended in the murder of some 6,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops under Gen. Ratko Mladic, an alleged war criminal who remains at large.

Later on Wednesday, Kok faces questioning in parliament about his decision to resign.

His government will carry on as caretakers until after elections previously scheduled for next month -- though Kok had already said he would stand down then.

Officials said Romano Prodi, the head of the European Union executive Commission, has already cancelled a meeting with Kok to discuss the Middle East.

Ironically, Kok had been seen as a possible successor to Prodi as head of the European Commission but analysts said the manner of his departure now made this unlikely.

It is second time Kok's three-party coalition quit since sweeping to power in 1994.

Kok said on Tuesday the international community "is anonymous and cannot take responsibility" for botching its Bosnia peacekeeping operation. "I can and I do," he said.


Mladic, left, drinks with Dutch Colonel Ton Karremans, second right, in the village of Potocari, in July 1995
However, he said the Netherlands did not "accept blame for the gruesome murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in 1995, only partial political responsibility for the circumstances in which they happened."

Blame lies with Mladic, who was the head of the Bosnian Serb forces then, Kok said.

The 7,000-page NIOD report said the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica stood by while Bosnian Serb forces under 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.

Defence Minister 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.

There will likely be a full parliamentary inquiry at which former ministers and commanders will be called to testify under oath. No date has yet been set.

"I see a parliamentary inquiry as an instrument to find the truth," said Ad Melkert, Kok's successor as Labour Party leader.

Pim Fortuyn, a popular political newcomer with anti-immigrant views, criticised Kok for "walking away from responsibilities."

[Saint Marcus]

More resignations to follow probably

[Hueij]

Wow... Just heard there's going to be a parliamentary inquiry on this one... Heads are gonna roll (Dutch expression )

[Mercator]

Heads are gonna roll my ass. I think this is all a pretty stupid situation. They're all just trying to look politically correct and pretend this actually matters.
The massacre happened two governments earlier, and there will be elections next month anyway. Sure, it looks like a nice gesture, but beyond that.
The Dutch government was too eager to show off back then, the UN hadn't thought out their plans very well at the start, the Dutch soldiers didn't care, the military top tried to cover-up and the French/Americans/UN didn't do **** to try and prevent this while it was happening.
And would the Serbs really have attacked UN soldiers, if they would have needed to?

There are plenty of people responsible, lots of people in high positions and not just the Dutch ones. So what on Earth can a parliamentary inquiry do about this? Write a 5000 page report about stuff everybody already knows, and then do absolutely nothing (after all what can you really do now).
What could really be the worst case scenario for the results of such an inquiry?

[Hueij]

I think you are wrong here... There will be a lot of changes in the top of the Dutch military. After all, we are not a banana republic. The "generals" kept information from the democratic elected politicians in charge, managed to "loose" an incriminating film roll (sp?) and, most important, when the government decided (before the massacre) that everything should be done to save the the muslims they "forgot" to relay that to the troops in Bosnia...

The more I think about it the angrier I get... Those ***** are paid from my money

[Mercator]

I hope I'm wrong. Some changes in the military top would be nice, well probably, I don't have any idea what it looks like now. Some changes in the organisational structure of the UN would be nice too.
But I guess most generals have already retired anyway, and what can really happen besides a few people getting fired. I think that's a pretty funny way of dealing with a problem like this.
But well, those 7000 men aren't coming back, no matter what, and waiting 7 years before anything happened wasn't very nice either.

[Hueij]

and waiting 7 years before anything happened wasn't very nice either.

I agree with you on that, but don't forget that Srebrenica has been a real topic over here for all of these seven years. We wanted to be real players and we ended up with 8,000 dead men...

[Ned]

I only half recall the facts from that time, but I believe the United States was trying to stay out of conflict and let the Europeans take the lead. After Srebrenica, there was increasing pressure on Clinton to do something.

He finally acted. When he unleashed American airpower, the conflict ended.

The Europeans should have handled this. The fact that they didn't speaks volumes.

Ned

[Spiffor]

Yep. For now, Europe is unable to speak with one voice. Non-Euros put (past tense) much expectations on Europe as a whole, while there wasn't any serious thing to have an harmonious foreign policy. Right now there still isn't. That's not a surprise : when you have UK and France in the same thing...

[Saint Marcus]

The Europeans should have handled this. The fact that they didn't speaks volumes.

Bull****. It was an UN mission, not an EU mission.