So far only Trouw and the Volkskrant have dedicated the editorial spot to the Srebrenica trial in which, earlier this week, the Dutch state was held accountable for the deaths of three Bosnian men.

Trouw’s editorial is headed ‘In those decisive days in July 1995 Dutchbat was being guided by The Hague’. This refers to the government’s defence that the Dutch soldiers were under a UN mandate which, it claims, effectively clears the Dutch state of any wrongdoing.
This civil case, brought by the descendants of three victims, has now ‘breached’ this stance, the paper says. The court has decided that the men were unlawfully sent off the UN compound, later to be killed by Mladic’ army.
The paper concedes that it was French general Bernard Janvier who was in command but says the judge rightly considered that after the fall of the enclave, the Dutch government did form part of the decision making process surrounding the evacuation of the refugees. ‘The Dutch government was in charge of Dutchbat, at least during those decisive days’, the paper concludes.
The Volkskrant – ‘Crime and punishment’- agrees that the government shouldn’t have hidden behind the UN mandate. ‘The Dutchbat soldiers sent these men away although they knew the danger they were in’, the paper writes.
Although the UN failed to give Dutchbat the support it needed, the paper also blames the politicians of the time: ‘They wanted to do ‘something’ about the Bosnian drama and sent in troops without a proper evaluation of the risks.’ According to the Volkskrant the state should not put the victims’ families through the trauma of another trial by appealing. Instead it should ‘wholeheartedly admit responsibility.’