DUTCHBAT MEMORIES (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2008)

Dutchbat, the Dutch battalion of UNPROFOR, the peacekeeping force for the former Yugoslavia, will always be remembered for their connection with the deaths of 7500 Muslim men. Overrun by Ratko Mladíc’s Bosnian-Serb troops and limited by an inadequate mandate, in the ‘safe’ enclave of Srebrenica Dutchbat collaborated with the separation of Muslim men and women. After their deportation, the men were murdered by Mladíc’s troops. More than a decade after the fall of the enclave, Sake Elzinga photographed the deserted buildings of the former Dutchbat base in Portocari, near Srebrenica. These are quiet images – serene, but with an undertone of a guilty past.