Thom Karremans

Thomas Jakob Peter Karremans (born 29 December 1948) is the former commander of Dutchbat troops in Srebrenica at the time of the Srebrenica genocide during the Bosnian War. Dutchbat had been assigned to defend the Bosniak enclave made the U. N. "safe area", but it failed to prevent the Serbs from taking the city.

Karremans received his military training at the Royal Military Academy in the Netherlands, and he was part of the 1979 1980 UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon. In the 1980s, he was stationed at the NATO Headquarters for SHAPE in Mons, Belgium, where he was involved in 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.

In 1999, the United Nations admitted its error in expecting a small number of troops to protect the Srebrenica Safe Area. Karremans has always denied that he was aware of the fact that thousands of Muslim men and boys he saw being taken away by Bosnian Serbs were going to be murdered. At least one Dutchbat member, former Dutch army surgeon Ger Kremers, has stated that he and Karremans watched the men being taken away by Serb forces. Karremans is alleged to have said, "It will not end well with them." Kremer also has accused Karremans of lying under oath to the UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal and a Dutch parliamentary inquiry. Also, the Dutch military historian Christ Klep has disputed the commander's account. Klep interviewed dozens of former Dutchbat troops who said they were aware "about the impending genocide." At a press conference in Zagreb, Karremans stated that there were no "good guys and bad guys" in this conflict. He also praised the strategic qualities of Mladic. His statements got Dutch secretary of Defence Joris Voorhoeve into political trouble.

Shortly after his return to The Netherlands Karremans was promoted to full colonel, which caused controversy. The Public Prosecution Service first concluded in a Nolle prosequi decision that Karremans and the other persons were not culpable. Through a special procedure (Dutch art. 12 Wet strafvordering), this decision was brought to court. On 29 April 2015, the court in Arnhem confirmed that Karremans and his secondants should not be prosecuted. Directly after the ruling, the lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld announced an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

After retiring from the army, Karremans and his wife moved to Spain, partly because of death threats in his native Netherlands. He wrote of his experiences at Srebrenica in Een puzzel van de werkelijkheid. He describes problems and dilemmas for him and his men during six months in Bosnia and six days of war. In the book, Karremans gives his view on the lack of support from the Dutch politicians at the time. He felt that he was forced by the Dutch politicians to fight with his hands behind his back.