Klerk risks repeating Netherland’s criminality on Srebrenica genocide

 By dismissing the horrendous rights violations of Sri Lanka in the safety zone of Mullaiththeevu as "not applicable" to providing favorable tariff treatment to Sri Lankan textiles under the GSP Plus Program, Pieter de Klerk, Netherland’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN, is in danger of repeating Netherland Government’s history of criminality on Srebrenica genocide again on the genocide currently taking place in Vanni, Sri Lanka, a legal scholar in the U.S. pointed out. Inner City Press which carried the Dutch Representative’s statement, mused, "[i]f the killing of thousands of civilians, hundreds in the last weekend alone, does not implicate the EU’s [European Union] notions of human rights, perhaps these notions are bankrupt."

At a panel discussion Tuesday on the European Union and Human Rights, at the United Nations in New York, Inner City Press asked the Netherlands’ acting Permanent Representative, Piet de Klerk, what the EU is going about following up on its favorable tariff treatment to Sri Lankan textiles under the GSP Plus program, on which the EU purportedly considers human rights. DPR de Klerk said he didn’t think that human rights were "applicable to this sort of situation."

"The Dutch Government was criminally responsible for the genocidal massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in July of 1995 by Serbia. So of course it comes as no surprise that the Dutch Government has no problem with the Srebrenica-style genocidal massacre of 10,000 Tamils in Vanni by Sri Lanka in 2009. History is repeating itself," said University of Illinois law professor, Francis Boyle, who was a key player in bringing indictment against Slobodan Milosevic for committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The criminal complaint for the Srebrenica massacre included the Dutch nationals, Joris Voorhoeve, Dutch Minister of Defense, Dutch General Cees Nicolai, in the UN Chain of Command and reporting to Voorhoeve as well, and the Dutch Colonel Thomas Karremans, in charge of Srebrenica at the time of the massacre.
The Dutch government resigned on 16 April 2002, a week after a report on the 1995 fall of Srebrenica held political leaders partly responsible for failing to protect Muslims in a UN safe ‘haven’ in Bosnia.
Full text of the criminal complaint against United Nations’ officials follows:

 

    MOTHERS OF SREBRENICA AND PODRINJA ASSOCIATION
    v.
    UNITED NATIONS OFFICIALS AND OTHERS
    (CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FOR THE SREBRENICA MASSACRE)
    UNITED NATIONS, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS.
    The Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja Association, headquartered in Vogosca, Bosnia and Herzegovina file a Criminal Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Madame Carla Del Ponte, on Friday, February 4 against the following Officials of the United Nations Organization and others for the role they played in the fall and genocidal massacre at Srebrenica in July of 1995: BOUTROS BOUTROS-GHALI, KOFI ANNAN, YASUSHI AKASHI, BERNARD JANVIER, RUPERT SMITH, HERVÉ GOBILLIARD, JORIS VOORHOEVE, CEES NICOLAI, THOMAS KARREMANS, ROBERT FRANKEN, THORVALD STOLTENBERG, CARL BILDT, DAVID OWEN, MICHAEL ROSE, THEIR SUBORDINATES, SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, RADOVAN KARADZIC, AND RATKO MLADIC.
    The genocidal massacre at Srebrenica was the single greatest human rights atrocity perpetrated in Europe since the genocidal horrors inflicted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Approximately 10,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically exterminated during just a few days by the Bosnian Serb Army under the direct command of Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic. During this time, the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates deliberately and maliciously refused to do anything to stop this genocidal massacre at the U.N.-declared "safe area" of Srebrenica despite having the legal obligation, the legal and political authority, and the military power to do so.
    The Complaint accuses the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates of planning, preparing, conspiring, instigating, complicity, and otherwise aiding and abetting, in the planning, preparation, conspiracy, complicity, and execution of crimes referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the ICTY Statute: Article 2–Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949; Article 3–Violations of the Laws or Customs of War; Article 4–Genocide; and Article 5–Crimes against Humanity.
    Under ICTY Statute article 18(1), this Complaint establishes a "sufficient basis to proceed" toward the investigation and indictment of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates by the Prosecutor. Pursuant to article 18(4) of the Statute, the Complaint requests that the Prosecutor prepare the appropriate indictments against the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates, and transmit these indictments to a Judge of the ICTY Trial Chamber for confirmation. If confirmed by the Judge, theComplaint requests that pursuant to Statute article 19(2), the Prosecutor request the Judge to issue international warrants calling for the arrest, detention, surrender and transfer to the Tribunal of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates. The Complaint also requests that the Prosecutor ask the confirming Judge to freeze the worldwide financial assets of the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates so that the Mothers of Srebrenica and Podrinja Association might receive some small degree of reparations for the terrible harm that the above-named United Nations Officials and their subordinates deliberately and maliciously inflicted upon them and their deceased next-of-kin at Srebrenica and its environs during July of 1995.
    WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL JUSTICE IS DONE!
    Mothers of Srebrenica & Podrinja
    Sakiba ðere 9
    Vogosca
    Bosnia & Herzegovina
    Professor Francis A. Boyle
    Attorney for the
    Mothers of Srebrenica & Podrinja

[Full Coverage]

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow TNN on Facebook and Twitter )

Published
Categorised as News