- Title: BOSNIA: REACTIONS TO DUTCH REPORT ON SREBRENICA.
- Date: 10th April 2002
- Summary: (U5) SREBRENICA, BOSNIA (APRIL 10) (REUTERS) 1. TV: WIDE SHOT OF SREBRENICA 0.05 2. GV: PEOPLE IN STREETS 0.11 3. GV: DAMAGED HOUSES 0.17 4. GV: THREE MOSLEM WOMEN WALKING DOWN STREET BY DAMAGED HOUSES 0.23 5. MV: SOUNDBITE (BOSNIAN) MUSLIM WOMAN SAYING "We are not going to return here, we want a better life and security." 0.31 6. GV: WOMEN WALKING DOWN THE STREET 0.37 7. GV: DAMAGED HOUSES (2 SHOTS) 0.48 8. GV/MV: UNITED STATES (U.S.) PEACEKEEPING TROOPS OBSERVING SREBRENICA FROM THE HILL (2 SHOTS0 0.59 9. TV: U.S. TROOPS PATROLLING STREET OF SREBRENICA 1.05 10. GV/MV/PAN: MUSLIM WOMAN CENGIZ ZEJNEBE WALKING TO HER HOUSE (3 SHOTS) 1.28 11. MCU: SOUNDBITE (BOSNIAN) CENGIC ZEJNEBE SPEAKING ABOUT MASSACRE IN BOTOCARE SAYING "They were treating us like animals when we arrived in Botocare, then some (Serb paramilitary troops) arrived so they mixed with U.N. troops and they took weapons from them [the Dutch U.N. troops], then they put the uniforms on and the helmets and then they came in the night and took our men from us and all we could hear was shooting." 1.59 11. GV: ZEJNEBE IN FRONT OF HER HOUSE 2.04 12. MCU: SOUNDBITE (BOSNIAN) CENGIC ZEJNEBE SAYING "They couldn't do anything, it was the people from the U.N. who were responsible because they did not order the bombing of Serb forces to prevent massacre." 2.22 14. CU: SOUNDBITE (BOSNIAN) SALIHOVIC MUSKA, MUSLIM WOMAN, SAYING "They could have done much more if they wanted to but may be they did not want to. We know they had an agreement with them, they drank with them, they were treated like guests by the Serbs." 2.45 (U5) BOTOCARE, BOSNIA (APRIL 10, 2002) (REUTERS) 15. LV: FACTORY IN BOTOCARE, WHERE MASSACRE TOOK PLACE 2.51 16. GV: DESTROYED FACTORY 2.56 17. GV: MONUMENT OPPOSITE FACTORY READING SREBRENICA 1995, WHICH MARKS THE PLACE WHERE MOST OF THE MASSACRE TOOK PLACE 3.01 18. GV: MONUMENT, U.S. MILITARY VEHICLES PASSING DOWN ROAD IN BACKGROUND 3.09 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 25th April 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SREBRENICA AND BOTOCARE, BOSNIA
- Country: Bosnia
- Reuters ID: LVADYKAZ3OBP70LP2J4Q6P9A70PZ
- Story Text: The Netherlands has released a report investigating
haunting allegations that a contingent of its United Nations
peace keeping troops failed to prevent the massacre of 8,000
Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. Many of the town's residents
have harshly criticised the peacekeepers saying they did not
do anything to prevent the massacre.
A long-awaited report on Wednesday (April 10, 2002) into
the Dutch role in Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World
War Two, slammed its military and politicians for giving
peacekeepers a "mission impossible".
Bosnian Serb forces overran a supposedly United Nations
(U.N.) - protected eastern enclave in 1995 and murdered up to
8,000 Muslim men and boys, practically under the noses of
Dutch U.N. troops.
The official Dutch account, by the Netherlands Institute
for War Documentation (NIOD), largely blamed political pride
for sending the peacekeepers on the ill thought-out task.
"Humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the
Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually
impossible peace mission," said the almost 7,000-page report,
eagerly awaited since the government commissioned it in 1996.
It said army leaders misrepresented the reality in
Srebrenica to preserve their troops' image.
In summer 1995, Bosnian Serbs steadily tightened their
siege of Srebrenica, which was crammed with tens of thousands
of Muslim refugees. In vain, the few hundred Dutch troops
stationed there repeatedly requested air support.
Finally taking control of the town, Serb forces ferried
women and children to Muslim territory on Serb buses and from
July 13 systematically executed Muslim males, mostly by
shooting.
The lightly armed peacekeepers were effectively exonerated,
a sharp contrast to a recent Dutch peace group report that
found the troops, along with Dutch generals and politicians,
bore clear responsibility for failing to prevent the massacre.
NIOD found the battalion, known as Dutchbat, was sent with
an unclear mandate to a ill-defined "safe area", and lacked
adequate training, resources or intelligence-gathering
capacities.
Many of Srebrenica residents accused the U.N. peacekeepers
of not doing anything to prevent the massacre.
"They could have done much more if they wanted to but may
be they did not want to. We know they had an agreement with
them, they drank with them, they were treated like guests by
the Serbs, "one elderly Muslim woman resident of Srebrenica said.
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