March 29, 2010
March 29, 2010 Gen. John
Sheehan, the former NATO commander, told a Senate committee this month that
part of the blame for one of the last half-century's most famous atrocities --
the massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war -- rested on gays in the
Dutch military. By Boris Dittrich
Homosexuals in the Dutch military had depleted the forces' morale, he argued to
the senators, and made them "ill-equipped to go to war." And that was
in part why they failed to prevent Bosnian Serbs from massacring more than
8,000 civilians in the former haven of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) seemed incredulous at the testimony. "Did the
Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?" he
asked.
"Yes," Sheehan said. "They included that as part of the
problem." He even claimed that the former Dutch commander of the U.N.
peacekeeping force had told him this was true.
As a former member of the Dutch parliament and a spokesman for the
parliamentary investigation into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, I know
the history that the retired U.S. Marine Corps general tried to rewrite, and I
was astonished by his homophobic concoctions.
During two weeks of public hearings on the massacre, Dutch parliamentarians
heard many expert witnesses. Not one hinted at sexual orientation as a relevant
factor. Srebrenica was no moment of pride for the Dutch military. But soldiers'
sexuality had nothing to do with the failure to protect.
The Dutch parliamentary investigation placed blame squarely on Ratko Mladic for
the mass killings of Muslim men and boys. Mladic was the Bosnian Serb military
commander during the war in Bosnia. A fugitive, he has been indicted by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on charges of
genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the massacre after
Srebrenica fell. It was arguably the worst atrocity on European soil since the
Holocaust.
But Sheehan uttered no word about Mladic and expressed no outrage that he is
still at large while thousands of men and boys have been consigned to mass
graves. Instead, he put the blame on the sexuality of Dutch troops.
After the general's statement, the Dutch prime minister and the ministers of
Defense and Foreign Affairs issued statements of disbelief and shock. Former
Dutch Defense chief of staff Gen. Henk Van den Breemen, who was supposedly
Sheehan's source, dismissed his testimony as utter nonsense.
Sheehan's remarks insult not only the Dutch military but lesbians and gays
around the world -- men and women perfectly capable of defending themselves,
their comrades and their countries.
Since 1974, the Dutch military has recruited soldiers based on their physical
and mental capability, irrespective of race, sexual orientation or religious
belief. The Dutch army was the first in the world to open its military formally
to gays and lesbians. Now it holds this policy in common with many countries,
including Britain, Canada, Israel, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, the
Czech Republic and Australia.
As a member of the Dutch parliament's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
Defense, I visited Dutch troops in Afghanistan in 2004. In Kabul, the Dutch
worked closely with American forces. Not one American commander had a word of
criticism for their Dutch comrades because some were gay or lesbian. They were
jointly fulfilling a U.N. mandate to combat the Taliban. On the ground, as
everyone knows, only performance counts.
Since 2006, the Dutch have been the lead nation in the NATO strategy for the
southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, and more than 20 Dutch soldiers have died
in Afghanistan. Disagreement over a plan to pull out of Afghanistan at the end
of this year led to the collapse of the Dutch government.
The Dutch army is no less competent because it respects nondiscrimination and
equality, principles dear to the American public.
Sheehan seems to think Congress will be distracted from the need to end
"don't ask, don't tell" by hearing outrageous lies about Dutch
soldiers and one of the worst war crimes in recent history. Let's hope he is
wrong.
His surreal testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee showed that
the die-hard defenders of the discredited policy have run out of ammunition. It
is past time for a policy founded on fantasy and fear to go.
Leonard Matlovich, whose Air Force service in Vietnam earned him a Purple Heart
and a Bronze Star, was later discharged for his homosexuality. After his death
in 1988, he was buried in Washington's Congressional Cemetery, where his
gravestone reads: "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for
killing two men and a discharge for loving one."
Sheehan's false testimony shows the hypocrisy of such a policy. The U.S.
military should focus on its real challenges. Let "don't ask, don't
tell" die.
Boris Dittrich is advocacy director in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch.