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Bosnia Court Decision Sends Message To International Community

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA

By SETimes

September 16, 2013

By Drazen Remikovic

A court ruling that makes Dutch state responsible for the deaths of three Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 could impact future UN peacekeeping missions, as states could be held responsible for preventable situations that went wrong, experts told SETimes.

The Netherlands Supreme Court ruled on September 6th in favour of two Bosniak families who filed a lawsuit against the Netherlands. Hasan Nuhanovic and the family of Rizo Mustafic, who have been pursuing the case for the past 11 years, argued that the Dutch soldiers serving under the UN flag in Srebrenica in July 1995 did not do all they could to protect their relatives from the BiH’s Serb Army that overran the Netherlands-run UN safe area.

“The court has clearly established their [Dutch soldiers] responsibility,” Nuhanovic, a former UN translator, who lost his brother, mother and father in Srebrenica told SETimes. “The court also confirmed that no one can hide behind the immunity of the UN. And the other way around. I’ve heard other people that they would take my example and sue the Netherlands. I will be available to them, for all that it takes.”

”This is a great victory for the victims,” Kada Hotic, president of Mothers of Srebrenica Association, told SETimes. “These people were there to protect the lives of Srebrenica residents. And they pushed them to death. It is a crime. Mothers of Srebrenica have also filed a lawsuit against the Netherlands a few years ago. After this verdict, a lawyer who runs our case in the Netherlands said that this is the encouraging news for our common lawsuit.”

The Hague district court first ruled in July 2011 that the Dutch state could be held responsible for the deaths, but the country’s defence ministry appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the UN had ”effective control over the ‘Dutchbat’ forces, not the Dutch state.”

But the court rejected this, with Judge Floris Bakels ruling that clearing the Dutch state of responsibility would mean that ”justice would have almost no way to judge armed interventions.”

Experts said the ruling is significant for the international community.

“This ruling puts in to a focus the full engagement of the international community in BiH during the ’90s,” Bojan Vlaski, a professor at the law faculty in Banja Luka, told SETimes. “I think the experts, especially those who deal with the law and history, in the future to have a reason to put the international community in questioning and critical position, especially when it comes to peacekeeping missions around the world. Now there is a legal basis for such views.”

BiH’s Serb forces killed more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, an act that was declared genocide by the International Court of Justice and the UN. Several BiH’s Serbs were convicted in war crimes court for their roles in the deaths. It’s been called the worst crime on European soil since the World War II.

Visiting Srebrenica last year, Secretary General of United Nations Ban Ki Moon said the international community has learned the lessons of history in Srebrenica.

”We have to do all to protect civilians and to stop bloodshed particularly in Syria now, when we have learned the message of Srebrenica,” Moon told at Potocari Memorial Centre. “The international community must be united not to see any further bloodshed in Syria because I do not want to see any of my successors after 20 years visiting Syria apologising for what we could have done now to protect the civilians in Syria which we are not doing.”

There are 6,066 victims in the memorial centre and 2,306 still missing.