Thom Karremans - Srebrenica Massacre

Srebrenica Massacre

In 1994 Karremans was appointed as commander of Dutchbat III battalion that was deployed to the Srebrenica enclave as a part of the peacekeeping mission, under command of the United Nations in operation United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). On 11th, 12th and 13th July, the enclave was captured by Serb soldiers, while the dutch battalion was stationed there. Karremans requested NATO air support to defend the enclave, which arrived too late and was too little to stop the Serbian advance. After Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, Karremans was interrogated by Serb General Ratko Mladić (video of the interrogation is available on Youtube). During the interrogation, Karremans was confined against a wall and surrounded by Serb soldiers, defensive and submissive, excusing himself from ever requesting air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces, claiming the decision was made by higher authorities based on information he provided. This is in sharp contrast with facts - it was determined that it was Karremans who requested air strikes several times, but they were first denied, then delayed, and later granted by UN General Bernard Janvier.

Under pretext of evacuating the Bosniak population to a sheltered city, Serbs transferred most of the women and children by bus to a zone under Bosnian-Serb control, assuring that the men would be transferred later. After this Karremans was filmed raising a glass with war crimes suspect and Serb General Ratko Mladić.

Following negotiations between UN and Bosnian Serbs, on Friday, July 21st, 1995, lieutenant-colonel Karremans and Dutch UN soldiers were allowed to leave Srebrenica. On the farewell, Colonel Karremans accepted gifts from General Mladić, smiled, shook his hand and departed. Shortly after his return to The Netherlands Karremans was promoted to full colonel.

Karremans himself has said a Serb blockade had left his soldiers desperately short of food and fuel. He told the Hague ICTY tribunal in 1996 that when his requests for NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops were finally granted, they were "too late and too little." In 1999 the United Nations admitted its error in expecting a small number of troops to protect the Srebrenica Safe Area.

After retiring from the army, he and his wife moved to Spain, partly because of death threats in his native Netherlands. He wrote of his experiences at Srebrenica in Srebrenica, who cares?: Een puzzel van de werkelijkheid (A puzzle of reality).

In 2010, a survivor of the Srebrenica genocide, Hasan Nuhanović, and the relatives of the murdered Muslim electrician Rizo Mustafić (who was employed by Dutchbat during the genocide until he was turned over to the Serbs and executed) made a legal complaint of genocide and war crimes against Karremans, his former deputy Major Rob Franken, and Human Resources manager Berend Oosterveen, for their transfer of the Muslim families to the Serbs.