Former Dutchbat commander Thom Karremans is happy with the apologies Prime Minister Rutte has made to his unit, but they come too late. He also would have liked to receive a personal apology, he says in an interview with The Telegraph.
“It is good for the men that it has been said now, but personally I feel it differently. For most it makes a difference, but not for me. I think it is too late now.” In 2015, 20 years after the fall of Srebrenica, Karremans already demanded an apology.
The excuse that Prime Minister Rutte made last Saturday in Schaarsbergen on behalf of the government, applied to the entire Dutchbat III unit. Karremans was present at the ceremony, but without a special role. His signature mustache had been replaced by a stubble.
Rutte, Defense Minister Ollongren and commander of the armed forces Eichelsheim did not think about the colonel or his deputy Rob Franken.
Cup of jut
“I’ve been the head of jut. I made mistakes, I made a few not too smart remarks,” says Karremans, about, for example, his meeting with the Bosnian Serb commander Mladic, from whom he received a business gift with the words: ‘Is this for my wife?’
“But despite my mistakes, what I have experienced in 27 years and in view of all the positive reactions from the Dutchbat soldiers and their home front, personal apologies would have been appropriate.”
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