Bosnian Anger Over Dutch Srebrenica Medals

The leadership of Bosnia protested bitterly to the Netherlands today over the award of medals to Dutch peacekeepers who stood by idly at the infamous 1995 massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.

Haris Silajdzic, a member of the three-man Bosnian presidency and a former prime minister, said he had called in the Dutch ambassador in Sarajevo to demand an explanation for the military ceremony at a barracks in the east of the Netherlands on Monday.

Henk Kamp, the Dutch defence minister, unveiled a plaque praising the troops who stood by at Srebrenica when the Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic, seized the enclave, separated the men from the women and children and then organised the mass murder of almost 8,000 men over 10 days in July 1995.

The shocking episode constituted the worst single atrocity of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and the only event in the 42-month conflict that the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague has categorised as genocide. Gen Mladic has been charged with the crime, but has been a fugitive for 11 years.

The Dutch were shamed and traumatised by their role. An official inquiry in 2002 cleared the troops of complicity, but criticised the Dutch authorities, triggering the symbolic resignation of the Dutch government.

Families of the victims have been trying to sue the Dutch state for alleged co-responsibility for the massacre in the courts. Mass graves containing the remains of victims are still being discovered and exhumed.

But on Monday in Assen, Mr Kamp handed out medals to 500 members of the Dutch battalion stationed at Srebrenica, which was a so-called UN "safe haven", ostensibly under UN protection when it was overrun by the Serbs.

"We are doing this to support our people," said Mr Kamp. "These people are in the military ... It is difficult for them and we want to support them."

The medals were to acknowledge that the Dutch troops had "for years wrongly been held responsible for what happened in the enclave," said Mr Kamp.

Tom Karremans, the Dutch commander at Srebrenica and who was present at Monday's ceremony, was photographed socialising and drinking with Gen Mladic. The Dutch were said to have obtained the release of 14 kidnapped peacekeepers in return for not obstructing the Serbian operation.

Protests were staged in Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns denouncing the military decorations as "scandalous". There were also protests in the Netherlands, but Bosnians who sought to travel to there to demonstrate were denied visas.