Mali war US ammunition kills Dutch soldiers

This Dutch 28 September 2017 TV video is about a war game by Dutch soldiers in Mali on 6 July 2016. A malfunctioning Dutch grenade, bought in the USA, killed two soldiers and severely injured a third one.

An official investigation has now said that the Dutch government knew these grenades were faulty and dangerous, but sent them with the soldiers to Mali anyway, because they wanted to start their Mali military mission as soon as possible.

In 2011, NATO waged war on Libya. This ‘humanitarian’ war (for oil) caused extremely unhumanitarian bloodbaths, still continuing; brought back slavery, abolished in Libya in the nineteenth century, into the twenty-first century; completely ruined healthcare; ruined Libyan women’s rights, and made Libya the country with the world’s worst child abuse.

That war also caused a chain reaction of bloodbaths in other African countries. Like in Mali: in 2012, an army officer, trained by the United States AFRICOM armed forces, did a military coup d’état. The new regime killed many people who they dumped in mass graves. More bloodbaths: the French Foreign Legion arrived, infamous from colonial wars in Algeria and elsewhere. So did armies from other NATO countries. There are many minerals in Mali which may boost profits of multinational corporations. The German armed forces arrived for the German Big Business share of Mali’s neocolonial booty.

And the Dutch armed forces arrived for the Dutch share of Mali’s neocolonial spoils. The officers (some of them rather controversial) came. The privates came. And the guns and ammunition came. The Dutch government was so scared that the Dutch soldiers would arrive in Mali too late for the scramble for neocolonial spoils that they ‘forgot’ to check the quality of the firearms and ammunition.

That had consequences.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Mother of killed soldier is angry: “Heads should roll here”

Today, 16:37

“What I most annoyed about is that they knew,,” says Greetje Groenbroek, the mother of one of the two soldiers who died in Mali last year through a mortar grenade. “The research report had only red crosses, it was mistake afer mistake, and they had three years to check the mortars when they returned from Afghanistan. That never happened. I think it’s unimaginable.”

The son of Greetje Groenbroek died on July 6 last year, just outside the Dutch military base in Mali. During an exercise a grenade exploded. He and another mortar shooter were killed. “I’m enraged”, Groenbroek said in an interview with RTV Noord regional broadcaster. …

The [government in The] Hague knew this. This is gross negligence.
Greetje Groenbroek, mother of dead soldier

The research report of the Netherlands Security Council (OVV) shows that the Defense Department has been severely deficient in caring fpr the security of Dutch military personnel in Mali. According to the OVV, the ammunition was not safe and the acute medical care was not sufficient.

Groenbroek thinks Defense knows what kind of mortar was used. “The boys themselves did not know, but The Hague knew this.” In the proof of purchase, they could not guarantee that it was safe, and stated that the United States Americans themselves did not use it. They should have learned from that. This is gross negligence. ”

The relatives are planning to take legal action. “Defense is 100 percent responsible for the death of my son. Someone in the Defense Department consciously took the risk and acted contrarily to the recommendation. They will not get away with that as far as we are concerned.”

Whatever will follow from a possible follow-up, of one thing Groenbroek is well aware: “We will not get back our boys. My granddaughter must live her life without her father. I’m angry about that, but at first, of course, I am primarily very sad.”