Writ of summons - Van Diepen Van der Kroef

‘militairement avait mal conduit.’[Lawyer’s translation:in military terms had failed.]445. The then Cabinet under the premiership of Prime Minister Kok resigned following thepublication of the NIOD Report in April 2002. In his explanatory memorandum to thedecision to resign Kok stated that the Government wished ‘to manifest the politicalcontributory responsibility’ for the situation. Kok also stated that the internationalcommunity had failed in the protection of the persons in the Srebrenica Safe Area(statement of Kok of 16 April 2002 to the Speaker of the Lower House). In Kok’s viewthe international law apect of the case exonerated The Netherlands (it was not the stateproviding troops that was responsible but the UN). It has already been addressed abovethat The Netherlands itself repeatedly exercised effective control and that the questionwho officially exercised command and control is irrelevant. That Kok’s internationallaw approach is incorrect follows, for example, also from the earlier statement ofMinister Voorhoeve (see, page 2283 of the NIOD Report):‘The Minister of Defense, Voorhoeve, adopted the position with NIOD that these rulesrelating to Command and Control in The Netherlands, and the question where theindividual responsibilities lay, was more or less clear, but that in practice it transpiredthat it was not possible to separate these sorts of matters, with the result that theybecame entwined. In his view, it was possible to argue logically in pure publicinternational law terms that The Netherlands had placed contingents at the disposal ofthe UN, and that The Netherlands only retained the right to recall those contingents butthat otherwise everything was a matter for the UN. To this The Hague would say: thesesoldiers are now UN blue helmets, and consequently this is not our problem. But that’snot how matters were in practice, said Voorhoeve.’446. In a letter of 30 September 2004 to the Bosnian lawyers of Plaintiff, the State of theNetherlands maintained the position that the premises underlying the UN resolutions didnot reflect reality. In particular, the VRS would not be overly concerned about its© Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten 2007www.vandiepen.com185