United Nations and the Netherlands sued for complicity in crazed Genocide of 8000 "undesirables"; Execution pending?

[CanOWorms]

I posted about this some time back. It looks like the lawsuit is going forward. The United Nations is being sued for its lack of action, and the Dutch are being sued for their participation in the Srebrenica genocide.

Dutch soldiers actively collaborated with the Serbs, welcomed them, gave them uniforms, celebrated with them, and helped separate males from females to be massacred. Many of the Dutch soldiers were recently awarded medals by their government for their participation in the massacre.

Families of Srebrenica victims to sue Dutch, U.N.

AMSTERDAM, June 1 (Reuters) - Families of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia will sue the Dutch state and the United Nations, which they blame in part for allowing the killings to happen, lawyers said on Friday. The law firm representing a group of about 6,000 family members said it would file a civil suit in the Netherlands on Monday.

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.

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.

"In the past three years, a strong case has been built against the Dutch state and the United Nations, who are held to be partially responsible for the fall of the enclave and the genocide that followed," law firm Van Diepen Van der Kroef said in a statement.

"The case must lead to the surviving relatives of this drama finally receiving recognition and redress."

The office of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was not immediately available for comment.

What I find interesting is that, quite conveniently, a man with involvement in the genocide (Zdravko Tolimir) has recently been arrested. He is being imprisoned by the United Nations in the Netherlands. Conflict of interest? He's being held by his partners in crime!

He's being held in the same prison where so many prisoners have conveniently committed suicide. I wonder if he is going to conveniently disappear as well.

Hopefully he can shed more light on the role of the UN and the Dutch in the genocide and give more weight to those seeking justice.

U.N. holds Serb genocide suspect

A former Bosnian Serb general was taken into custody at the U.N. detention center Friday to face charges of genocide for his alleged role in the massacre at Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995.

Zdravko Tolimir was a senior aide to the Bosnian Serbs' wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, during the slaughter of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica -- the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II.

AP correspondents outside the detention center in The Hague suburb of Scheveningen saw Tolimir enter the facility in a black Mercedes.

It seems a little like France and the lawsuits against the government for its participation in the Rwanda genocide.

 

[CanOWorms]

Some more background info on the situation that I've gathered which may be interesting/useful to people learning about the topic.

Bosnian anger over Dutch Srebrenica medals

Tom Karremans, the Dutch commander at Srebrenica and who was present at Monday's ceremony, was photographed socialising and drinking with Gen Mladic. The Dutch were said to have obtained the release of 14 kidnapped peacekeepers in return for not obstructing the Serbian operation.

Protests were staged in Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns denouncing the military decorations as "scandalous". There were also protests in the Netherlands, but Bosnians who sought to travel to there to demonstrate were denied visas.

Outrage at medals for Dutch in Srebrenica

The thousands of victims boarded buses that suddenly arrived the day the Dutch commander had toasted Srebrenica's new overlord, General Ratko Mladic, at the UN base in the village of Potocari.

Srebenica Widows Sue UN, Dutch Government

Some of the Dutch United Nations soldiers who failed to prevent the massacre of Srebenica in July 1995 gave the Serbs a back-slapping welcome, handed over their uniforms and even actively helped to separate Bosnian men from their families, say relatives of the 8,000 men and boys who were murdered.

...

And then Sabaheta saw something she still can barely believe: A group of Serbian soldiers ran across some Dutch troops - and the soldiers greeted one another happily. They threw their caps in the air and some even hugged one another. "We were shocked," said Sabaheta Fejzic.

It was then that many refugees suspected what would happen to them, because they no longer had protectors. The next evening, the Serbs arrived, said recalls Sabaheta, and indiscriminately took girls, boys and men out of the camp. She told a Dutch soldier about the deportations but he only pushed her away. The Serbs also took her husband, and literally tore her son from her arms. Sabaheta Fejzic never saw either of them again.

...

But Hagedorn also knows he will have to convey the full horror of what happened in order to win, because the government of the Netherlands is trying "to keep a lid on it".