THE NETHERLANDS has lambasted a US former commander of Nato for claiming that Dutch peacekeepers failed to prevent the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia because there were gays in their ranks.
Gen John Sheehan told a US Senate committee that the presence of openly gay soldiers in the Dutch military was one of the reasons the UN “safe haven” of Srebrenica was overrun in July 1995 by Serb forces who then massacred some 8,000 Muslims who had taken refuge there.
Speaking in opposition to proposals from US president Barack Obama to allow openly gay people to serve in the US armed forces, Gen Sheehan criticised post-cold war efforts in European countries to “socialise” the military and allow gays and lesbians to sign up.
“That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war. The case in point that I’m referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs,” he said.
“The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them.”
Investigations into the Srebrenica massacre have found that the Dutch battalion’s efforts to protect the enclave were fatally hampered by a lack of troops and weapons and the United Nations’ failure to give it adequate terms of engagement or the air support that it urgently requested.
Gen Sheehan said Dutch leaders had told him that having gays in the military was “part of the problem” at Srebrenica, but officials in the Netherlands condemned his comments.
“The remarks were outrageous, wrong and beneath contempt,” said Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende.
“Toward Dutch troops – homosexual or heterosexual – it is way off the mark to talk like that about people and the work they do under very difficult circumstances.”
Dutch defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop described Gen Sheehan’s comments as “disgraceful and unworthy of a soldier”, while Gen Henk van den Breeman, who was Dutch chief of staff at the time of Srebrenica, called his claims “complete nonsense”.
The Dutch ambassador to the US, Renee Jones-Bos, said she was proud “that lesbians and gays have served openly and with distinction in the Dutch military forces for decades, such as in Afghanistan at the moment”.
The head of the Senate committee, Democrat Carl Levin, said Gen Sheehan’s remarks were mystifying and “totally off-target”.
