Dutch state to pay historic Srebrenica compensation

Dutch state to pay historic Srebrenica compensation

 

The Dutch government said Thursday it would pay 20,000 euros to relatives of three Bosnian Muslim men murdered after peacekeepers expelled them from a UN compound at Srebrenica in 1995.

 

The announcement follows a Dutch court's landmark ruling last year that the state was liable for the deaths, the first time a government has been held responsible for the actions of peacekeepers operating under a United Nations mandate.

 

"We deeply regret what happened to them and their family members and we hope that this can help them towards dealing with their loss," defence ministry spokesman Klaas Meijer told AFP.

 

The compensation is for the psychological damage suffered by the four relatives of the three dead men, with another possible sum to be awarded for "material" damage, such as loss of earnings, because of the killings, Meijer said.

 

The compensation will be paid to former UN interpreter Hasan Nuhanovic whose father, mother and brother were killed by Bosnian Serb forces after Dutch peacekeepers expelled them from the UN base.

 

Rizo Mustafic, an electrician at the base, was also killed after being sent to certain death at the hands of Bosnian Serb forces. His widow, son and daughter will each receive 20,000 euros ($27,700).

 

Their lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld, slammed the payout announcement as "disrespectful" because the Dutch government had never sought to discuss the compensation with the relatives.

 

"It means but one thing: the state never had the intention to involve the relatives, it just wanted to get the case over and done with," she told AFP.

 

"It's disrespectful, firstly because of the amount offered, although that's not the most important issue, but also because the relatives were never approached during the talks."

 

- Further litigation? -

 

Zegveld said the families had not yet decided whether they would persue further litigation over Dutch involvement in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

 

Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by troops commanded by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who brushed aside lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers and overran the supposedly safe enclave in July 1995, during Bosnia's brutal three-year civil war.

 

Rights group Amnesty International hailed the ruling last year as "the first time an individual government has been held to account for the conduct of its peacekeeping troops under a UN mandate".

 

An appeals court in 2011 found the Dutch state responsible for the trio's deaths, the first time it was held accountable for the Dutch UN battalion's actions.

 

But the state then appealed, saying it believed the UN controlled the Dutch battalion in Bosnia.

 

Mladic, dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia", and former Bosnian Serb political chief Radovan Karadzic are currently facing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity before the Yugoslav war crimes court in The Hague.

 

A Dutch court on Monday began hearing a civil suit brought by Srebrenica relatives against the Dutch government, saying its peacekeepers should have helped prevent the massacre.

 

The Mothers of Srebrenica, representing some 6,000 widows and victims' relatives, have been seeking justice for several years for the massacre, which the UN's highest International Court of Justice has ruled was genocide.

 

Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 10 Thursday April 2014 The Roman)