The government of the Netherlands fell from a mine laid seven years ago by Ukrainians This year has turned out to be truly rich in repentance of Europeans for the sins of the past. We wrote about how the Belgian government apologized for complicity in the murder...

The government of the Netherlands fell from a mine laid seven years ago by Ukrainians

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This year has turned out to be truly rich in the repentance of Europeans for the sins of the past. We wrote about how the Belgian government apologized for complicity in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, and the French confessed to war crimes in Algeria. But what happened on Tuesday in Holland is without precedent. The government not only repented, but also resigned. Moreover, the reason is not in distant history, but in very recent events. Prime Minister Wim Kok and his ministers claimed responsibility for the deaths of 8,000 residents of the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The soldiers sent by The Hague to Bosnia under the UN blue flag did not kill and were not even present at the killings. They simply did nothing when the Bosnian Serb army under the command of General Ratko Mladic, "strike back against the terrorists", took over the Muslim enclave designated as the "UN safe zone". They didn’t, because they didn’t have a mandate for forceful actions, they didn’t have instructions, and they didn’t have the appropriate weapons. They just happened to be next to this abomination. We got dirty. As a result, the state responded. Human rights activists have repeatedly tried to bring to light the circumstances of the “beating in Srebrenica”. But, like any power, the Dutch one invented ways to hush up the matter, to hide inconvenient details. This time it didn't work. The thick volume of the report, prepared by 12 historians of the Institute of Military Documents, was a rather serious accusation. The country's leadership is to blame for sending "poorly trained soldiers to carry out an impossible mission to protect the "security zone" around Srebrenica." The Netherlands has traditionally been noted for its sensitive attitude to humanitarian and human rights issues (The Hague has actively criticized the actions of the Russian authorities in Chechnya, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is located in The Hague). The findings of the report caused shock in the country. The government has lost the moral right to remain in power.

In fact, on the site of the Dutch "Dutchbat" on that ill-fated day of July 11, 1999, a Ukrainian peacekeeping battalion was supposed to be. The replacement was agreed between The Hague and Kiev, approved by the UN, scheduled for July 1, but delayed due to organizational red tape. The Ukrainian "blue helmets", having the same UN mandate, would hardly have behaved differently. Yes, and there are more grounds for sympathy for the Serb brothers than the Dutch. And then, perhaps, today we would be witnesses of the resounding resignation of the Ukrainian government in its entirety. Can you imagine?