Speech by former Dutch minister Jan Pronk at the 25th yearly Srebrenica commemoration in The Hague, July 11, 2020
Srebrenica: truth, justice, recognition
Twenty-five years ago the genocide that we commemorate every year took place around Srebrenica, as we do today. Ten years ago you invited me to speak here on the theme: Srebrenica: the book isn’t closed. Indeed: the book wasn’t closed, because new chapters were added again and again. While many in our country tried to forget Srebrenica, Srebrenica was not history, but everyday reality. This applies to the relatives who could not bury their loved ones until years later, to all those who still haven’t found their loved ones, to anyone who fears the genocide being repeated, in Bosnia or elsewhere in the world, and for all those people who are confronted with repeated denials of Dutch co-responsibility.
Today the theme of the commemoration is truth, justice and recognition. Recognition begins with no denial, but denial still takes place. Last year, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands wrote a new chapter in the book. We were just home a few days after the commemoration, here on the Square in The Hague. We had listened to the names of the victims who had been reburied. Those names still echoed in our heads, yet the Supreme Court thought it was a good time to state that Dutchbat’s supervision of the evacuation of refugees who had sought protection was not unlawful. The choice of the Supreme Court for that time and day alone marked the indifference of Dutch authorities for the fate of the victims of the genocide. According to the Supreme Court, it would have meant nothing to the fate of the refugees if Dutchbat had ended its cooperation in the evacuation. How did those judges know that with so much certainty?
A few years ago, things turned out very differently in South Sudan. There the gates of the compounds of the UN peacekeepers in Juba and Bor were opened when refugees took refuge there, during a mutual genocide between Dinka and Nuer. Everyone was admitted, nobody was left out for fear that the camp would become too full. The murders continued outside the enclosure. The situation within the compound was dire and cholera was on the verge of breaking out. The situation was appalling, but it was no reason for the UN military to lift their physical protection. No war situation is completely equal to another, but how did the Supreme Court judges know for sure that the situation in Potocari was unsustainable and that it would have been just as bad for the refugees outside the gate if they had been allowed in the compound and protected there?
Just like last year ICHI participated as a co-organiser of the yearly Srebrenica commemoration in The Hague, the Netherlands (
Over the years, the International Committee for Humanitarian Intervention (ICHI) has participated, out of solidarity, empathy and interest in the tragedy concerned, in the yearly Srebrenica commemoration in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the 11th of July, organised amongst others by our ‘sister organisation’ the Political Committee Stari Most (PCSM).