In Europe

are known around the world as excellent peacekeepers, better than anyone else at bringing calm to a population – but they are not fighters. The documents released afterwards show that the Dutch gave the highest priority to getting their own troops out safely. In the directives from the Hague given to Commander Karremans on 13 July for his negotiations with Mladić, there is absolutely no mention of protecting refugees: the demands had only to do with Dutch personnel and Dutch material, and with the evacuation of the few locals who worked for the UN.
    On 9 July, just before the fall of the enclave, when an American representative at NATO headquarters in Brussels proposed sending in air support for Srebrenica, the Dutch ambassador refused straightaway: to do that, he said, would be ‘counterproductive’ and ‘dangerous’. In his memoirs, Richard Holbrooke remarks: ‘The first line of opposition [to air strikes] was formed by the Dutch government, which refused even to consider air strikes until all its soldiers had been withdrawn from Bosnia … The Serbs knew that, and held hostage a considerable portion of the Dutch troops … until they had completed their dirty work in Srebrenica.’
    On the morning of 11 July, when the definitive attack on Srebrenica began, NATO planes finally dropped a few bombs on Serb troops around Srebrenica: one tank was probably hit. On behalf of the Serbs, one of the Dutch officers being held hostage immediately phoned his commander: if the air strikes were not stopped immediately, the Serbs would not only shell the refugees and the Dutch compound, but would also kill theirDutch hostages. Without any consultation with NATO or the high command of the UN peacekeeping forces, the Dutch defence minister, Joris Voorhoeve, then called the NATO base in Italy: ‘Stop, stop, stop!’
    The Dutch – with a few exceptions – therefore played a fairly uncourageous role at Srebrenica. The only question is whether, by that point, they could have done otherwise. After all, looked at in the cold, clear light of day, it would have been madness to send only 150 troops into a battle which 4–5,000 motivated and seasoned Muslim fighters no longer dared to enter. The Dutch government found itself trapped – partly by its own doing – in an almost unsolveable deadlock. The Dutch soldiers on the spot were desperate. Some of what happened was not pretty – the mentality was pronouncedly anti-Muslim, the Serbian troops were seen as fellow soldiers – but there is little else for which they can be blamed. During those last few days they helped hundreds of wounded people, and did their best to save what could still be saved.
    Furthermore, at the moment itself no one knew what it would all lead to: a massacre the likes of which Europe had not seen since 1945. The testimony of Serb officers present at Srebrenica, given later at the Yugoslavia Tribunal, showed that it was only after the enclave was taken that they hit upon the idea of killing all the men, in order to avoid the bother of guarding prisoners or dealing with guerrilla fighters. The orders for the massacre were given by Ratko Mladić himself.
    Many of the Muslims killed were not buried. When Dutch journalists Bart Rijs and Frank Westerman visited the area almost a year later, in May 1996, they found at least fifty skeletons, ‘like monstrous marionettes’, still wearing the clothes they had on, on a hillside close to the ruined Muslim village of Islamovici. The possessions of the murdered boys and men were still strewn out across the fields: ‘a rucksack made of flour bags sewn together, a plastic water bottle, an empty wallet, a school ledger full of notes on home economics, a pile of stuck-together colour photos … an identity card with the number BH04439001, registered to Nermin Husejnovic, born 9 June, 1971, in Srebrenica’.
    The three bookshelves full of reconstructions make one thing crystal clear: in summer 1995, all parties – with the exception of the local population – wanted to be shot of Srebrenica. No one was prepared to lift afinger to help. For the Serbs, it was a matter of prestige, an account to be settled, no matter the cost. The Dutch blue helmets wanted only one thing: to get home safely. The UN high command wanted nothing more than to put an end to the chaos surrounding the enclaves in eastern Bosnia. After the fall of Srebrenica – and, a little later, that of žZepa as well – their negotiators were finally able