Speech held in reserve by Caspar ten Dam, chairman of the Dutch action group Political Commitee ‘Stari Most’ (PCSM), at the 9thcommemoration of the fall of Srebrenica on 11 July 2004 in The Hague, in front of the Dutch Parliament and Ministry of Defence

Note: the enclave of the town of Srebrenica and surroundings the UN designated as a ‘safe area’ in mid 1993, during the height of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. In mid-July 1995 the Bosnian-Serb forces overran the enclave without much opposition from the few hundred strong UN-contingent called ‘Dutchbat’. The Bosnian-Serb (para)militaries under general Ratko Mladic (indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal on the former Yugoslavia) massacred at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys during those sweltering summer days, the worst butchery in Europe since the end of the Second World War.

See further Speech11july004forICHI.pdf