US General Apologises for Gay Dutch Troops Slur
By Bruno Waterfield
The Telegraph, March 30, 2010
"John Sheehan, a former US General and Nato commander, caused outrage two weeks ago when he alleged that open homosexuality in the Dutch ranks had so damaged military morale that the country's army was powerless to prevent genocide in Bosnia. He claimed, before a US Senate hearing, that Henk van den Breemen, the Dutch chief of the defence staff in 1995, had told him of problems related to gay troops. 'I am sorry that my public recollection of those discussions of 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues on the military,' he wrote in a letter to the Dutch general. Without explicitly referring to gay Dutch military, General Sheehan acknowledged that a weak United Nations mandate for troops was the problem facing peacekeepers. 'To be clear, the failure on the ground in Srebrenica was no way the fault of individual soldiers,' he wrote. A spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry of Defence said General Van den Breemen was satisfied with the apology. Up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces after Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to prevent the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995, a legacy that has continued to haunt the Netherlands. Following the apology, the 'Pink Army,' a group representing gay Dutch soldiers, has withdrawn its threat to take Gen Sheehan to court for slander. 'It is quite something for a senior military man to admit he was wrong and say sorry,' said a spokesman. [...]"
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