Writ of summons - Van Diepen Van der Kroef

51. The training of Dutchbat was seriously inadequate. There were waiting lists for certaincourses and training. That meant that not everyone could pursue the required instruction.It was often the case that elements of the instruction programme had to be skipped.These problems were greater in the case of Dutchbat II and even greater in the case ofDutchbat III (see page 135 et seq. of the Summary of the NIOD Report). Consequently, aconsiderable time was required to get suitable professional soldiers. Moreover, themilitary was assembled from as many as 80 different support units, with a resultingabsence of any esprit the corps. In addition, the soldiers were very young and had ‘lifeexperience 0.0’, in the words of Dutchbat III Commander, Karremans. Moreover, nolessons were drawn from the start-up problems of Dutchbat I and use was not made ofthe experiences better to prepare the succeeding battalions (see page 137 of theSummary of the NIOD Report).52. The training and instruction that Dutchbat did get appeared to be of a particularlypeculiar standard. An attempt was made in the final exercise conducted by Dutchbat III,by the name of Noble Falcon, to simulate the situation in the Safe Area as far aspossible. The report thereof in the NIOD Report reads as follows (see page 138 of theSummary of the NIOD Report):‘In order to be true to the reality of the situation it was required of those who playedthe role of the local population during the final exercise that they so fully play theirpart (for example, by much begging), that the members of Dutchbat III becameseriously annoyed by it. This picture fits seamlessly, though, with what this battalionwas told during the training by Major De Ruijter of the Military Intelligence Service:that the civilian population consisted of ‘pure scum’.’53. It cannot be determined to what extent the prejudice expressed during the trainingcontributed to allowing an anti-Bosniac attitude to exist amongst the Dutch soldiers (seepage 165 of the Summary of the NIOD Report). What has subsequently been establishedis that elements of Dutchbat III were associated with rightwing extremist behaviour.This was extensively investigated by the Military Intelligence Service of the RoyalNetherlands Army (a highly-ranked officer of which service had described the civilian© Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten 2007www.vandiepen.com32