UN says it has immunity in Srebrenica suit

UN says it has immunity in Srebrenica suit

Thousands of survivors of the Srebrenica genocide sued the United Nations and the Dutch government Monday for their failure to protect civilians in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN safe haven in 1995 and killed up to 8,000 persons.

UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Friday that the United Nation had just received the legal documents relating to the case.

She said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joins the survivors in demanding justice and that "the international community should not rest" until Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and his wartime military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladić, are apprehended and brought to justice.

The UN will not rest, she said, "until it's fully equipped to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future the midst of its peacekeepers'."

When asked whether that meant that the United Nations would not assert immunity and have the case against the organization dismissed, Okabe said that the fact that the UN was immune from the legal process under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations “in no way diminished the UN's commitment to assist the people of Srebrenica in the aftermath of this tragedy."

The 1948 convention states that the UN and its property "shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process except insofar as in any particular case it has expressly waived its immunity."

Since the legal papers just arrived, Okabe said, "I don't know what the next step is."

The degree of culpability of the UN and its Dutch soldiers in the killings is fiercely debated.

During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, the UN declared Srebrenica -- which had been besieged by Bosnian Serb forces -- a safe area for civilians. But around 450 Dutch soldiers on peacekeeping duty stood by helplessly as thousands of Bosnian Serb forces stormed the area in July 1995.

In the chaos, Dutch soldiers even assisted in separating the women from the men, who were taken away in buses by the Serb forces and killed, their bodies plowed into mass graves.

An independent study by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation cleared the Dutch troops of blame, noting they were outnumbered, lightly armed, undersupplied, and under instructions to fire only in self-defense.

However, the institute's 2002 report assigned partial blame to the Dutch government for setting the troops up to fail, prompting the Cabinet of Prime Minister Wim Kok to resign.

In evidence-gathering civil hearings in 2005, a lawyer for the Dutch state argued that compensation claims should be directed at the perpetrators of the massacre: allegedly Mladić and Karadžić.

About 200 survivors from the group known as the Mothers of Srebrenica accompanied lawyers as they delivered the civil summons at the Dutch Supreme Court Monday, where claims against the state must be filed.

The case will eventually be heard by the Hague District Court. Dutch authorities are expected to pass on details to the UN, and must file a written reply within several months.

A report commissioned by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted to "errors of judgment" regarding Srebrenica in 1999 and highlighted a series of UN reforms to prevent similar incidents.

The Dutch government has accepted "political responsibility" for the mission's failure, and gives around US$ 20mnin aid to Bosnia annually, a third of which is reserved for projects related to rebuilding Srebrenica.