LONDON — “Scandalous,” declared one. “Way off the mark,” fumed another.
Top Dutch leaders ditched their usual diplomacy Friday in an angry reaction to suggestions by a retired U.S. general that allowing openly gay soldiers to serve in their military was partially to blame for Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.
The statement was made by John Sheehan, a former Marine general, before a Senate hearing Thursday on the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays and lesbians in its ranks. Sheehan opposes President Barack Obama’s pledge to lift the ban on openly homosexual soldiers, and tried to cite the Dutch as an object lesson.
But he triggered outrage on both sides of the Atlantic with the suggestion that incorporating openly gay troops had helped dilute the Dutch army’s battle-readiness, which in turn facilitated the mass killing of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys by Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995, during the war in the Balkans. The massacre came to symbolize the barbarity of the conflict.
Dutch troops were part of the inadequate U.N. peacekeeping force stationed in Srebrenica. Plenty of critics have found fault with the conduct of Dutch operations there, but not while citing the Dutch military’s liberal outlook on gay troops.
In his comments before the hearing, Sheehan said the Netherlands’ decision to “socialize” its military by, in part, allow gays to serve “led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war. The case in point that I’m referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs.
“The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them.”
Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, asked: “Did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?”
“They included that as part of the problem,” Sheehan told the committee.
On Friday, Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop labeled Sheehan’s comments “scandalous, and unworthy of a soldier.”
“I have nothing more to say about it,” van Middelkoop added.
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