Dutch UN peacekeepers ruled responsible for Bosnian deaths

Judges sitting in The Hague also ordered the Netherlands government to compensate the men’s relatives, possibly opening the way to other claims by relatives who say the victims should have been protected in the “safe zone” Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

The case was brought by interpreter Hasan Nuhanovic who worked for the Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica when the town was overran by Serbs and relatives of electrician Rizo Mustafic.

The court upheld their claim that the men should have been protected.

Nuhanovic asked the Dutch troops to protect his family inside their base but they forced his relatives out of the compound so his father and brother ended up among the over 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were executed by Serbian forces and ploughed into mass graves in what international courts have ruled was genocide.

An informant told Nuhanovic that Serbs arrested his mother Nasiha. Fearing torture, she slit her veins moments before soldiers entered her cell.

The decision could have wide implications for countries sending troops on UN peacekeeping missions, as it opens the possibility of national governments being taken to court for the actions of their troops even when they are under UN control.

The victims were among thousands of Muslims who took shelter in the UN compound as Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica on July 11 in what was to become the bloody climax to the 1992-95 Bosnian war that claimed 100,000 lives.

Two days later, the outnumbered Dutch peacekeepers bowed to pressure from Mladic’s troops and forced thousands of Muslim families out of the compound.

Bosnian Serb forces sorted the Muslims by gender, then trucked the males away and began executing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Those bodies were ploughed into hastily-made mass graves in what international courts have ruled was genocide.

The ruling said even though the Dutch soldiers were operating under a UN mandate, they were under the “effective control” of top Dutch military and government officials in The Hague when they ordered hundreds of Muslim men and boys out of their compound.

The ruling said the three men were among the last to be expelled and by that time the “Dutchbat” peacekeepers already had seen Bosnian Serb troops abusing Muslim men and boys and should have known they faced the real threat of being killed.

“Dutchbat should not have turned these men over to the Serbs,” a summary of the judgment said.

Sabaheta Fejzic, who lost her husband and her son in the massacre said the ruling opened “a path for 6,000 more victims who are holding the Dutch government and the UN responsible for what happened.”

“We really believed that they would protect us, but they did not even let us inside their base,” she added.

Dutch government lawyer Karlijn Teuben said she would have to study the decision before deciding whether to appeal.

The Hague court did not set a compensation figure, but victims’ lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said the sum would “not be in the millions”.