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Bereta_Eder
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THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after Prime Minister Wim Kok's cabinet resigned en-masse over a report condemning the Netherlands' failure to prevent the worst massacre of the Bosnian war.
Photos
Reuters Photo
Kok's coalition stepped down after a crisis meeting to discuss the fallout from an official report last week which blamed politicians and military top brass for the failure of its U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
In Srebrenica, a Bosnian town close to the Serbian border, 110 lightly-armed Dutch troops from the multinational U.N. force were assigned to protect Muslim residents and refugees in what had been designated a "safe area" for them. In the event the Serbs took the town without a shot being fired.
The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) report, commissioned by the government five years ago, condemned the Dutch troops for unwittingly assisting in "ethnic cleansing" by helping the Serbs organize the final exodus of thousands of Muslims from the town -- women and children to Muslim territory but men to their deaths, mostly by shooting in fields and barns.
But it reserved its harshest criticism for the political and military leadership for sending the troops to Srebrenica with ill-defined goals and a weak mandate.
"I will go to the Queen and hand over the resignation of all ministers and junior ministers," Kok told journalists.
He said he would announce the government's dissolution to head of state Queen Beatrix before going to parliament to say his 29-member coalition was resigning over the embarrassing foreign policy crisis.
The chaotic end to Kok's three-party coalition cast a long shadow over the career of a popular prime minister, credited with slashing unemployment and creating prosperity, less than a month before the country goes to the polls on May 15.
The government was sent reeling last week by the long awaited NIOD report, which caused a heated political debate about Dutch accountability at Srebrenica, prompting speculation from senior political sources that a number of top ministers were ready to resign to appease public disquiet.
Queen Beatrix is expected to oversee the formation of a caretaker government until a new government is formed in the wake of the May general elections.
CARETAKER CABINET
"Assuming the cabinet resigns, the Queen will ask ministers if they want to take care of day-to-day business (until a new cabinet is formed)," VVD leader Hans Dijkstal told reporters before Kok announced the end of his government.
Kok's coalition -- an alliance between his PvdA Labour Party and the centrist VVD and D-66 parties -- was struggling in opinion polls ahead of elections next month.
Polls indicate his center-left government is set to lose out if a center-right alliance is formed after the elections. Dutch parties traditionally jockey for position in talks to form coalitions after an election.
Defense Minister Frank de Grave and Environment Minister Jan Pronk precipitated a cabinet crisis last week by indicating they wanted to resign to appease calls for the government to take responsibility for not preventing the Bosnian atrocity, Dutch media reported.
Pronk was development minister at the time of the massacre. De Grave was not a member of the cabinet but was reportedly deeply disturbed by the Srebrenica report.
The 7,000-page document said misconceived humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Dutch to engage in a virtually impossible and ill-conceived mission.
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Jon Miller
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all of europe is going italian
Jon Miller
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Bereta_Eder
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blah
fact is there IS a sort of a spill - over effect in the EU.
Remember some years back when all of the EU was socialist.
Now it takes a serious swing to the right.
More right - wing countries spill over (somewhat not much) to other EU countries and they elect right wing too. Vice versa too.
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Bereta_Eder
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I'd rather cut my right hand off than do that.
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Saint Marcus
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Scio Me Nihil Scire
Jan 1970
time: 06:18
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We made CNN:
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- The Dutch government has resigned over a report condemning its failure to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war.
Prime Minister Wim Kok's coalition government met earlier on Tuesday for a crisis meeting to discuss the fallout from a damaging report into the massacre last week.
"(We) are going to visit the Queen. I will offer her the resignation of the ministers and junior ministers," Kok told reporters.
The resignation comes less than a month before The Netherlands holds general elections and is the second time the coalition government has stepped down during nearly eight years of power.
The report, issued last week by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), blamed politicians and top military officials for the failure of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the massacre.
It criticised the Dutch army and politicians for giving their peacekeepers an "impossible" mission to defend the U.N.-designated safe area of Srebrenica.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said a lot of "soul searching" was under way in The Netherlands and that Kok had reportedly read the document with a "heavy heart."
Many soldiers who had become embroiled in the Srebrenica tragedy have said they may never get over the "shame and pain" of what happened, Amanpour added.
The troops had called for greater military protection from the U.N. at the time, which was denied.
"It is remembered with great bitterness that they asked for help but were not given any mandate," she said.
The 7,000-page NIOD report found no evidence linking ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- currently on trial in The Hague for alleged Balkans crimes -- or Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic with the slaughter.
It said the Dutch battalion in Srebrenica stood by while Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic evacuated thousands of men from the Dutch camp and drove them off to their deaths.
The troops should have supervised the evacuation themselves, but the Dutch soldiers were hindered by an inadequate mandate from the United Nations and by their own government, and had been sent on an impossible mission, the report said.
"Humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission," the report said.
The report criticised Dutch politicians, saying the cabinet, defence ministry and parliament "adopted an anti-intelligence attitude," refusing U.S. intelligence help because of "lack of interest and the negative attitude" of the military and political leadership.
Defence Minister Frank de Grave and Environment Minister Jan Pronk indicated last week they wanted to resign to appease calls for the government to take responsibility for not preventing the Bosnian atrocity, Dutch media reported.
Pronk was development minister at the time. De Grave was not a member of the cabinet at the time but was reportedly deeply disturbed by the report.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague has indicted Mladic and Karadzic on genocide charges related to the events of 1995. Both remain at large.
The largest union in the Dutch military said it may demand a criminal investigation into the report's finding that vital information about the massacre was withheld from the government by the army, which was trying to protect its image.
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16-04-2002 19:57
maybe I'll just vote Communist
)
I thought your DL was Albert Speer...
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