Dutch Peacekeeper Recalls ‘Terrified’ Srebrenica Captives

The Bosnian prosecution on Tuesday read out a statement to the Hague Tribunal by Laan Van Duin, a former member of the Dutch UN peacekeeping battalion, at the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb soldier Aleksandar Cvetkovic.

Van Duin testified that Bosniak civilians arrived in nearby Potocari, where the UN peacekeepers’ base was located, after the Bosnian Serb Army took the ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.

He sais that a Serb soldier called “Captain Mane” told him on July 12 that the civilians would be taken away on buses.

Van Duin said he noticed that the men were separated from the women and children, and that Mane told him that was done in order to verify if anyone was on a list of war criminals.

The men were taken to a building known as the ‘White House’ in Potocari the following day. After one of the Dutch battalion told him that it was overcrowded with men, Van Duin said that he went to help and that he saw men “looking very scared and terrified”.

He said that he saw discarded documents near the White House, and told ‘Captain Mane’ that the men would the papers if they were going to be put on trial as suspected war criminals.

“Basically, he smiled and said that they wouldn’t need them anymore,” Van Duin said.

Men who were held at the White House were later killed.

Cvetkovic, a former member of the 10th Commando Squad of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with participating in the killings of at least 900 men and boys from Srebrenica at Branjevo farm on July 16, 1995.