Sharing The Blame

A government-commissioned report on the 1995 fall of Srebrenica blamed Dutch army officers on Wednesday for handing over Bosnian Muslim civilians to Serb forces despite their fears of widespread killing.

The report blamed the Dutch government for sending its troops into the maelstrom of the Bosnian war on an unclear mission to defend an undefined U.N.-declared "safe zone," and charged that the United Nations failed to give the troops the support they needed to defend the local population.

It also found no proof that orders for the ensuing slaughter came from Serb political leaders in Belgrade - a conclusion former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic could also use in his defense against genocide charges in Srebenica at a U.N. tribunal.

The document, running more than 7,600 pages, could have far-reaching consequences in the Netherlands, where the killings ingrained a collective sense of guilt and could rebound on national elections next month.

Just before the report's release by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, institute director Hans Blom said the government, which sent 200 ill-prepared troops to the enclave, and the United Nations disregarded the dangers once Srebrenica was overrun by Serb troops.

The report, by nine researchers working since 1996, was intended as an authoritative review of the events leading up to the worst massacre in Europe since World War II and the prominent role of the Dutch political and military leadership.

During one week in July 1995, about 7,500 Bosnian Muslims died in execution-like slayings after Serb forces overran the Srebrenica enclave, where the United Nations had pledged its protection to any Muslim who sought sanctuary there.

The Dutch soldiers were inadequate in number and armament, and had no clear instructions on how to carry out the pledge of safety to Muslim refugees.

The report acknowledged that the outnumbered Dutch battalion, hindered by crowds of Muslim civilians in the compound, had no option of fighting off the Serb army. "It was essentially a hostage situation in which any violent resistance would have provoked a blood bath," it said.

The soldiers were authorized to open fire only if fired upon, and were under a mandate "to deter by presence" rather than force. The Bosnian Serb army was careful to avoid directly threatening the U.N. force, the report said.

Still, the Dutch force expected "robust action" and air strikes if needed, but the U.N. command had ruled out air action for fear of the safety of hostages held elsewhere by the Serbs. "It hereby crushed the Dutchbat illusion and the enclave became an easy target" for the Serb army, it said.

Blom, citing the report, put the primary responsibility for the massacres on Bosnian General Ratko Mladic, who ordered and supervised the evacuation of Muslim men from the enclave, and later oversaw the murder of thousands.

"The events that occurred cannot be described as an act of vengeance that got out of hand. Although they occurred rapidly and in an improvised way, the scale and course of the murders clearly indicate they were organized. Places of executions were sought, transport was arranged and troops were ordered to carry out executions," he said.

But he said no evidence was found that Milosevic had a direct role in the massacre, and the involvement of Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic was not clear.

"No evidence had been found that suggests the involvement of the Serbian authorities in Belgrade."

But Blom blamed Milosevic's unbridled ambitions to remain in power for the disintegration of Yugoslavia that led to the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Milosevic is on trial by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Karadzic and Mladic, who remain fugitives, also have been indicted by the court for genocide.

At Mladic's insistence, the thousands of Muslims who took refuge with the Dutch battalion, known in the report as Dutchbat, were separated by gender. The men were taken away to camps where they were killed, and the women and children were deported.

The Dutch soldiers, Blom said, "did not oppose the separation of men from women outside the compound gates," but did not participate in it.

"It was also clear to Dutchbat that the Muslims had only one choice: to leave as soon as possible. It was the natural task of Dutchbat to supervise that and to collaborate with it, even though in the given circumstances it was tantamount to collaborating with ethnic cleansing."

Dutch commanders had "recognized the danger of excesses" once Serb troops had begun the evacuation, but had not anticipated mass murder.

Failures at Srebrenica were "more the fault of the inadequate resources and the policy of the United Nations," said the report.