Munira Subasic, the President of the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica, said after the Dutch Supreme Court found the Netherlands partially responsible for the death of 300 Srebrenica civilians during the Srebrenica genocide, on Friday, that percentage to which they are responsible is irrelevant, but what is relevant is the fact that they were found responsible.
“The percentage to which they were found responsible is not important to us. What's important is that they were responsible. I'm very sorry the Dutch soldiers weren't allowed to testify because they told us, victims, that they could have done a lot more had their government and the Defence Ministry allowed them to,” Munira Subasic said, asking have they not learned anything from the Second World War then 110,000 Dutch Jews were killed?
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The Supreme Court of the Kingdom of the Netherlands confirmed on Friday a 2017 ruling which said that the Netherlands is partly responsible for the deaths of 300 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The court determined that the Dutch battalion could probably not have prevented the Bosnian Serb soldiers from arresting the Bosniak men.
The Dutch Battalion was in an extremely difficult position, as the Dutch stood lightly armed against a stronger adversary and the heavily armed Serbs, the decision said.
In April 1993 the UN had declared the besieged enclave of the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica a safe zone under the UN protection. However, in July 1995 the Dutch battalion failed to prevent the town's capture by the Bosnian Serb forces and the massacre that followed.
More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the genocide committed in the days after 11 July 1995, and so far the remains of more than 6,600 have been found and buried.
The Association's deputy president Kada Hotic said the Netherlands was responsible for only 10 percent or 300 men but asked what about the rest of the victims.
“We were cheated and this court didn't bring justice. This was a circus, not a court. I hope some other court will bring justice to this issue in the next 100 years,” Hotic said.
The Canada Genocide Research Institute said they were disappointed with the Thursday decision.
“It is immoral, inhumane and unjust that the previous court determined the Dutch responsibility at 30 percent and that the Supreme Court determined the responsibility at only 10 percent. That is humiliating for the victims and doesn't contribute to the truth, or justice,” Head of the Institute, Emir Ramic said.
According to him, the international community and world powers did not adequately answer for the aggression against the sovereign, independent and internationally recognised Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
That is why the Srebrenica genocide will haunt man, mankind, the international community and especially the United Nations because the Dutch battalion was part of the UN's peacekeeping force and they did nothing to save the victims, Ramic noted.
The former Srebrenica mayor, Camil Durakovic, said the “verdict is more an insult than satisfaction to genocide victims.”
“The Netherlands, that had its battalion in July 1995 here, did nothing to protect the civilians of the then UN's safe zone. Their attempt to take partial responsibility is an insult for us in the sense that they are bidding with the number of victims,” Durakovic said and added:
“After diminishing their total responsibility, the number came down to 350 and after that, even that number was brought down to percentages. That is mocking us as survivors.”
He concluded that modern countries are not ready to take responsibility for the events in Srebrenica.
