h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Most of us know of the massacre of hundreds of Muslim men inside the U.N. “safe haven” that will say; a designated United Nations Safe Area.
General Mladic and his soldiers (Serbia) stood at the gate of the official U.N. declared “safe haven” in Srebrenica at July 11 in 1995.


It was a common feeling in the Western world, that an official declaration by the United Nations about seven safe havens in former Yugoslavia, would be enough to keep Bosnian people safe, who suddenly had to live with only Servian peoples around their village, during a civil war.

Well, the Serves had their own standards in this war and entered the save haven of Srebrenica, because they appeared to totally ignore the status of any “U.N. safe havens”.

The U.N. military in that safe has asked for air strike by U.N. and NATO, for the whole area of that haven, but they did not get it.
Furthermore, the U.N. soldiers were heavily undermanned and under armed, because, as I said, the U.N. believed that the status of that area would be enough to protect these people.

All these facts became parts of a chain of disasters with its horrible results.

These people did flee and seek safety in the U.N military compound in Srebrenica, hoping that there they would be safe at last.
So there they stood at the Gate of the U.N. compound within a safe haven and they were permitted to enter the compound. All of them.

Well, the Serves had their own violent goals and told the U.N. soldiers to push these people from their compound.
And they did.
Yes, they did.
Even the military translator was handed over to the Serves.

All refugees were executed within an hour.Total of eight thousand men and boys !!

There have been some incidental brave actions by a handful of U.N. soldiers, but for the main part; they just let the Serves do what they wanted; murder civilians because of their ethnic identity.


We did not even protest, neither even symbolically.
Who is “we”?
U.N. soldiers.
Dutch soldiers.
The U.N. colonel was so emotionally bullied by the Serbian general Mladic, that this colonel accepted a gift and had a drink with him and asking him if the gift was for his wife or for himself.


Apparently we were more concerned about the safety of our own soldiers than about the safety of those we were sent by the U.N. and NATO.

In the Netherlands we never came really in terms with the drama and so we never fully anticipated the sadness of family members.
A couples of years ago there was also a remembrance at Srebrenica,
But our prime minister did stay at home, “because the Serves are fully to blame the massacre and not the soldiers in the compound, and as far as our soldiers is concerned, they were U.N. soldiers under U.N. command.


Well, I believe one thing very, very surely.
If these U.N. Military were really concerned about the fate of these people, these soldiers – in one way or another – at least would have behaved very differently as they did at that day.

Even delivering the U.N. translator...

It’s a say with some truth in it; “when the war is over, the Dutch come in”.

P.S.
I admit that we show now these days in 2007 a different behaviour in Afghanistan. NATO as well as our militairy did learn from the U.N. safe haven formula.

And it’s also very true, that every etnic group in former Yougoslavia committed the same crimes as the Serves did.

http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/analysis/details.php?content=2005-06-23-01&page=1&menupage=

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=srebrenica&uri=%2Fh2g2%2F

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jp0Hjqg_A


James Blunt, no bravery

These things often go on for ever.

Only today the Austrian government announced a €50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of one Doktor Heim (I think that's the name) aged 95 who allegedly injected 1,000s of victims with a fatal dose of something or other at Mauthausen during the Herrenvolk era. The Nazi doc is believed to be resident in Chile.

Another criminal, an SS officer under Eichmann, aged 93, and believed in a safe haven in Syria also has a €50,000 bounty on his head.

Readers will remember Idi Amin (if not, watch The Last King of Scotland in your local cinema) who retired to Saudi Arabia and died quite recently, unlike 300,000 of his fellow citizens.

The rusty scales of justice often need a little oil. However there's more often a reluctance to apply it.