HOLLAND: The resignation of the entire Dutch cabinet may have had as much to do with the country's imminent general elections as the shouldering of collective responsibility for last week's report into the Srebrenica massacre, which held political leaders partly responsible for the worst single atrocity of the Bosnian War.
As a jaded electorate prepares - according to opinion polls based on results of recent local elections - to wreck heavy losses on the ruling coalition partners the PvdA (Labour Party) VVD (Liberal Right) and D66 (Liberal Democrats) the Dutch government yesterday announced its resignation three days before the recess of parliament in advance of the May 15th elections.
After leading two successive governments, the Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok (64), told the nation in a televised address that the Netherlands was bearing its share of international responsibility for failing to protect Muslims in the UN declared safe zone of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Mr Kok, one of the most popular and competent prime ministers of the century here, and on the brink of retirement, was left without any choice but to announce the mass resignation.
Two of his most senior ministers, his own party colleague, Mr Jan Pronk, and the Defence Minister, Mr Frank de Grave, had threatened to quit after the report's release.
Calling the cabinet together a decision was taken that if two were to go then all the ministers and state secretaries should resign.
Described as a ploy to avoid taking difficult decisions in the last weeks of its four year term by political opponents, the government crisis sent shock reverberations throughout the normally stable Dutch business and industrial sectors. A number of important cabinet decisions were awaiting approval.
According to the FNV, the largest trade union group, sensitive socio-economic decisions concerning privatisation and wage issues would now be averted.
There was dismay too in the aeronautical industry as a huge deal with the US government on the development of the JSF (Joint Strike Fighters) needed to be finalised by the end of this month and must now wait for a new government to take office.
The Srebrenica report compiled by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation over a 5½-year period, had been described by political observers in the Netherlands as a Sword of Damocles hanging over the government. Over the years its findings were again and again delayed.
The report harshly criticised the Dutch government, also headed by Mr Kok at the time and senior military officials for failing to prevent the genocide of thousands of Muslims. It concluded that the Dutch military deliberately withheld necessary information about the humanitarian atrocities committed by Serbian Gen Ratko Mladic and his troops.
Yesterday Mr Kok said he could "look the nation squarely in the face" concerning his own and the government of the day's honesty about its obligations with the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
While the "international community" was to all effects faceless, the Dutch government must be seen to bear its part of responsibility for what happened in Srebrenica, said Mr Kok.