Relatives of the victims of Europe’s biggest massacre in decades won a landmark case, immense satisfaction and the likelihood of substantial damages on Tuesday, when a Dutch appeals court ruled for the first time that the Netherlands had to answer for the deaths of Muslim men at Srebrenica 16 years ago.
The verdict stunned the Dutch government as well as the plaintiffs who have campaigned on the issue for more than a decade and had almost given up.
If the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, there could be hundreds of claims for damages from relatives from some of the estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males butchered by the Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic, who faces charges of genocide for the crime in The Hague.
As well as finding the Netherlands responsible for the fate of some of the victims, the verdict also has international ramifications as it rejected the Dutch government’s argument that its troops stationed in Srebrenica were under UN authority.
“It has been established that states who take part in UN peacekeeping operations cannot not be responsible for their actions. It’s all about effective control,” said Liesbeth Zegveld, the lawyer for the two Bosnian plaintiffs.
Two relatives of some of the estimated 8,000 murdered, Hasan Nuhanovic and Rizo Mustafic, have campaigned for years to get the UN and the Netherlands bear partial blame for the atrocities on the grounds that at the time Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, was a UN-declared “safe haven” manned by Dutch troops serving with the UN.
A Dutch court rejected their arguments in 2008, ruling that the Netherlands could not be held responsible as the Dutch troops were under UN authority. A parallel case ruled that the UN was immune to prosecution.
Tuesday’s appeal court verdict stunned the Dutch government and even blindsided the litigants.
“This comes as a surprise. We will have to study the ruling and then decide on our next steps,” a Dutch defense ministry spokesman said.
Nuhanovic, the Bosnian Muslim who was the prime mover in the eight-year case, was taken aback.
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for this. I’ve had so many difficulties. The Dutch state completely denied responsibility.”
Nuhanovic was a translator for the Dutch troops in Srebrenica in July 1995 when the besieged Muslim enclave was overrun by Serbian forces under Mladic. Mustafic was working at the Dutch base at Potocari as an electrician.
About 5,000 people — including 239 adult males — had crowded into the Dutch Potocari compound seeking shelter.
Nuhanovic was allowed to stay on the base when the Dutch commanders ordered most to leave. He pleaded with Colonel Robert Franken to let his father, mother, and younger brother stay. The outcome was a heartrending Sophie’s Choice moment.
Nuhanovic’s father had been a member of a trio of Srebrenica Muslims negotiating with Mladic days earlier. Because of that, at the last minute as the buses were leaving, Franken told the father he could stay. “Can my younger son also stay?” the father asked. “No,” he was told.
The father went with his wife and son. None of them were seen alive again.
Nuhanovic is also mulling criminal charges against Franken and his superior officer in Srebrenica at the time, Tom Karremans.
The judges yesterday dismissed the argument that the UN alone was responsible and that the Dutch authorities had no liability.
“The Dutch state is responsible for the death of these men because [UN peacekeepers] Dutchbat should not have handed them over,” the judges found.
The relatives of the two plaintiffs were expelled from the Dutch military compound following days of Serbian marauding.
“The Dutchbat had been witness to multiple incidents in which the Bosnian Serbs mistreated or killed male refugees outside the compound. The Dutch therefore knew that ... the men were at great risk if they were to leave the compound,” the court said.
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