A former top U.S. and NATO commander says the Netherlands' inclusion of gays in their military rendered Dutch peacekeeping troops unable to prevent the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.
Retired U.S. Marine General John Sheehan led the U.S. Atlantic Command and served as the top NATO commander in the mid-1990s, the height of ethnic cleansing in former-Yugoslavia
Sheehan pointed to the Netherlands, which he said embarked on a process of social engineering in the Dutch military once the Cold War ended. "They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military. It included open homosexuality. That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war," he said.
In fact, the Netherlands was among the first nations to end discrimination in the military based on sexual orientation, affirming the right of gays to serve years before the fall of the former Soviet Union.
Asked for comment, Dutch military officials expressed astonishment. The spokesman for the Netherlands Ministry of Defense, Roger van de Wetering, told VOA Sheehan's assertions are "total nonsense" and that he "cannot believe that a man of that rank is stating such a thing." He added that he had never heard Sheehan's allegation before from any source in the Netherlands or anywhere else.