Dutch army chief of staff resigns

The chief of staff in the Dutch army resigned over the report into the massacre of 7,500 Muslims men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica seven years ago.

He follows the example of his government who also resigned over the report.

General Ad van Baal was under increasing pressure to resign after the report found that the Dutch Government and the United Nations were partly responsible for the slaughter.

The report said the Dutch soldiers who were assigned to protect a safe haven for Muslim refugees in Srebrenica were sent into the region without a proper mandate and without the weapons needed

to fend off Bosnian-Serb forces.

In July 1995, the peacekeepers handed over the refugees to the advancing Serb forces, who proceeded to massacre all the men and boys and bury their bodies in mass graves.

The Dutch cabinet resigned en masse yesterday after accepting responsibility for the botched

peacekeeping mission.