US general: Gay Dutch soldiers responsible for Srebrenica massacre

Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred, when Bosnian Serb forces overran lightly-armed Dutch soldiers in the United Nations-designated enclave in July 1995.

The incident has been the worst mass killing in Europe since World War Two.

Gen Sheehan said that after the end of the Cold War, European militaries changed and concluded "there was no longer a need for an active combat capability."

"That 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," Gen Sheehan said.

"The battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them."

Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee, asked: "Did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?"

"Yes, they did. They included that as part of the problem," Sheehan said, according to a webcast on the website of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"That there were gay soldiers?" Levin then asked.

"That the combination was the liberalization of the military, a net effect was basically social engineering."

Gen Sheehan's remarks provoked angry reactions from military unions and gay military groups.

The Dutch government rejected the claim.

"It is astonishing that a man of his stature can utter such complete nonsense," said Roger van de Wetering, the Dutch defence ministry spokesman. "I have never heard of a single statement by a Dutch political or military leader that drew a link between the fall of the enclave and the fact that there were Dutch homosexual soldiers."

The Dutch Defense Ministry said that gay Dutch soldiers routinely cooperate with the U.S. military in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen called the claim "the bizarre private opinion of someone without an official function".



[Source: Yahoo! News, Telegraph]