Thom Karremans

Colonel (ret.) Thomas Jakob Peter (Thom / Ton) Karremans (born December 29, 1948 in Apeldoorn) was the commander of Dutchbat troops in Srebrenica at the time of the Srebrenica massacre during Bosnian War. Karremans had been assigned to defend the Bosniak enclave made the U.N. "safe haven", but he failed to prevent the Serbs from rounding up and killing 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in 1995.

Military career

Karremans followed his military training at the Royal Military Academy in the Netherlands, and subsequently he was part of the 1979-1980 UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon. In the eighties he was stationed at the NATO Headquarters SHAPE in Mons (Belgium), where he was involved in the subject of arms control. In 1991, Karremans had his first experience in Bosnia as liaison officer to the EC observation committee. He then became commander of an infantry battalion in Assen.

Mass killings in Srebrenica

In 1994 Karremans was appointed as commander of Dutchbat III battalion that was sent to the Srebrenica enclave. On 11th, 12th and 13th July this battalion had to deal with the capture of the enclave by Serb soldiers. Karremans requested NATO air support to defend the enclave, which arrived too late and was too little to stop the Serbian advance. After Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, Karremans met with Serb General Ratko Mladić. During the meeting Karremans was defensive and submissive, excusing himself from ever requesting air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces, claiming the decision was made by higher authorities based on information he provided. This is in sharp contrast with facts - it was determined that it was Karremans who requested air strikes several times, but they were first denied, then delayed, and later granted by UN General Janvier. After this Karremans was filmed raising a glass with war crimes suspect and Serb General Ratko Mladić.

Following negotiations between UN and Bosnian Serbs, on Friday, July 21st, 1995, lieutenant-colonel Karremans and Dutch UN soldiers were allowed to leave Srebrenica. On the farewell, Colonel Karremans accepted gifts from General Mladić, smiled, shook his hand and departed. Shortly after his return to The Netherlands Karremans was promoted to full colonel.

Karremans himself has said a Serb blockade had left his soldiers desperately short of food and fuel. He told the Hague ICTY tribunal in 1996 that when his requests for NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops were finally granted, they were "too late and too little."^[1] In 1999 the United Nations admitted its error in expecting a small number of troops to protect the Srebrenica Safe Area.

After retiring from the army, he and his wife moved to Spain, partly because of death threats in his native Netherlands.^[2] He wrote of his experiences at Srebrenica in Srebrenica, who cares?: Een puzzel van de werkelijkheid (A puzzle of reality).

In 2010 the interpreter Hasan Nuhanović and the relatives of the murdered Muslim electrician Rizo Mustafić (formerly employed by Dutchbat) made a legal complaint of genocide and war crimes against Karremans, his former deputy Major Rob Franken, and Human Resources manager Berend Oosterveen, for their transfer of the Muslim families to the Serbs.^[3]

References

1. ^ http://www.un.org/icty/transe33/000524it.htm Transcript from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Retrieved on 15 July 2007
2. ^ Taylor, Rachel S. (2004). "Karremans Recalls Srebrenica Fall". Tribunal Update. Institute for War & Peace Reporting. http://www.iwpr.net/?p=tri&s=f&o=165055&apc_state=henitri2004. Retrieved 2006-07-02. 
3. ^ legal complaint against Dutchbat-commanders due to Genocide - NRC Handelsblad, 6 July 2010 (Dutch)

• Jones, Graham (2006). "Srebrenica: 'A triumph of evil'". World News. Cable News Network LP, LLLP.. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/22/warcrimes.srebrenica/. Retrieved 2006-07-02. 

Further reading

• Karremans, Thomas (1998) (in Dutch). Srebrenica, who cares?: Een puzzel van de werkelijkheid. Arko. ISBN 90-72047-54-0. 

Persondata
Name	Karremans, Thom
Alternative names	Karremans, Thomas Jakob Peter
Short description	Dutch military commander
Date of birth	December 29, 1948
Place of birth	Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Date of death
Place of death