15-07-2024 — A memorial with a monument has been erected for the relatives of MH-17. That is important, but where is a memorial to commemorate the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica? The Netherlands is connected to this horrific history. After almost 30 years and promises made, there is an urgent need for a public memorial.

A permanent national monument for the 298 victims of the downed MH-17 has existed in Park Vijfhuizen since 2017. There are now also calls for a memorial center. This is a good plan. It is a way for the bereaved to better process this sudden loss of their loved ones and to provide context for this 2014 attack by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.

But why is there not yet a national public monument to the genocide in Srebrenica? Not insignificant for the approximately 63 thousand Bosnians in the Netherlands. It has been requested for almost thirty years. Recently, the United Nations decided to make July 11 an “International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide". This is a boost for the survivors and relatives of the 1995 killing of more than 8,300 Bosniaks by the Bosnian Serb army. The first post-World War II genocide on European soil.

Srebrenica was a safe area in Bosnia, protected by the UN battalion Dutchbat that consisted of only 470 soldiers. The extreme-nationalist Serb army, led by Ratko Mladić, had surrounded this area after the wider area had already been occupied and “cleansed". There was no international response. This passive attitude allowed the siege to erupt into an outbreak of widespread violence on July 11, 1995. The army expelled and killed thousands of Bosniaks, mostly male Muslims.

Because of the presence of the Dutch UN army unit Dutchbat in this horrific tragedy, the Netherlands is linked to the history of Srebrenica regardless. Although the massacre was committed by the Bosnian Serbs and Navo air support failed to materialize, the Dutch state was partly liable for the murder of the 350 men who stayed in the Dutch compound, according to the Supreme Court in 2019.

According to the Supreme Court they were “denied the 10 percent chance of not being exposed to the inhumane treatment and executions by the Bosnian Serbs". Dutchbat should have allowed the men the choice to stay at the compound. They didn't. They were killed en masse a short time later. The ruling was very painful for the Netherlands and traumatic for the Dutchbat veterans.

Every year the National Srebrenica Commemoration is held in The Hague, but a permanent National Monument, let alone a memorial center, for the victims in the Netherlands is lacking. Yet promises have been made about this. In 2021, Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld said at the commemoration in The Hague that the arrival of a national monument was a step closer.

After Prime Minister Rutte apologized to 350 Dutchbat III veterans on June 18, 2022 in Schaarsbergen, apologies from Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to the victims' relatives followed at the commemoration in Potočari on July 11. She explicitly promised that there would be a national monument in The Hague. At that time, Hague alderman and former Dutchbatter Anne Mulder confirmed that promise.

But the monument is still not there after 30 years. Nor has the wish of the survivors and relatives to establish a Srebrenica museum and research center near the building of the former Yugoslavia Tribunal been met. There, people could receive proper education about the Srebrenica genocide, the victims, the role of NATO and Dutchbat.

A temporary monument “Srebrenica is Dutch History,” a circular display of 25 portrait photographs of Bosnian Dutch youths, stood on The Hague Square in 2020. The photos symbolized their dual national identity: the connection to Bosnian and Dutch history. That's where it ended.

Last week, State Secretary of Defense Gijs Tuinman attended the commemoration on the Lange Voorhout that was preceded by a peace march. Again, after two minutes of silence and the Last Post, and the names of the fourteen newly identified victims buried in Potočari that day were read aloud. Not a word about a monument. That was done by alderwoman Saskia Bruines of The Hague. She spoke at the building of the former Yugoslavia Tribunal about the genocide in Srebrenica and again promised a dignified monument in memory of the victims in 1995.

As for the MH-17 victims, a permanent national Srebrenica memorial in the Netherlands is urgent. Unfathomable is the grief for those who were murdered or disappeared. However, the disturbing thing about a genocide is also that the history of a population group, deliberately dehumanized and murdered, whose dead disappeared in mass graves without name or identity, seems to have been wiped out.

This fact makes the need of relatives of the Srebrenica genocide for a visible reminder in public spaces in the Netherlands more than understandable. It is also a sign of respect and recognition by the Dutch government of that connection to Srebrenica, and a permanent warning to all Dutch people that this could happen so close by.

This translated opinion, initially published in De Volkskrant on July 15th 2024, has been published with permission from the writer, Prof. Dr. Maria Grever.

Source (Dutch): www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-de-tijd-dringt-voor-nationaal-monument-voor-de-slachtoffers-van-srebrenica~b8e6d1cf/