The Fall of Srebrenica and the Attitude of Dutchbat from an International Legal Perspective

Abstract

In the introduction to their bookSrebrenica: Record of a War Crime, political scientists Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both write: ‘“Srebrenica” has become synonymous with such an extraordinarily horrific crime that exceptional explanations have been proposed. Stories of conspiracy and betrayal abound. The most popular theory is that Srebrenica fell as the result of a plot involving senior UN personnel, the French government and the Serbian government. Others place the blame firmly on the Dutch UN soldiers, whom they accuse of cowardice during the Serb offensive against the safe area. We reject these explanations. Conspiracy theories tend to be neatly constructed so that every decision, or failure to decide, seems to stem from sinister ulterior motives. They leave no room for the dilemmas of real life, nor for miscommunication or outright failure. As such, they rarely bring us closer to the truth, and more often create a fertile breeding ground for dangerous stab-in-the-back myths’ Honig and Both claim that final culpability should, without a doubt, be attributed to the highest Serb officials and officers who organised the crime and gave the orders for its perpetration. The systematic manner in which the crime was committed, the evidence that detailed plans had been drawn up and that procedures established earlier had been painstakingly carried out — all this points to the direct responsibility of the Bosnian Serb leadership in Pale. Moreover, the Serbian leadership in Belgrade had given, if not the order, then still its tacit consent.