De enclave

De Enclave is a Dutch TV series about the mass murders in Srebrenica during the Bosnia war. It tells a part of the Bosnia war, personalized in Ibro Hadzic, who lost all of his family there. It begins with the Yugoslavian tribunal in Holland (7 years after the war), when war criminal Darko Bokan is being prosecuted. Ibro Hadzic worked for Dutchbat during the fall of Srebrenica and saw his family being deported. Years later, during the Yugoslavian tribunal in Holland, he works as a translator. While working there, Ibro keeps reliving has awful past and eventually decides to kidnap Darko Bokan. In the last episode, former Minister of Defence Terhoef from Holland goes to visit Srebrenica twelve years after the horrible incidents. There, he discovers some horrifying things...

De Enclave can be seen as a little war history of Holland. It shows the awful mistakes Dutchbat, the UN and the minister of Defence made during the fall of Srebrenica. It's a history Holland would rather forget: it is shocking, unbelievable and I think a whole nation is ashamed about it. In Holland, the complete government decided to step back because of this history! In this series, you can see why they had to step back and you can see one of the biggest mistakes ever made by `Dutch military'. I can assure you, we're not proud of these facts.

Ramsey Nasr gives away a very good performance as Ibro Hadzic. You can really see his personal dramatic history is making him crazy and you can really sympathize with his character. Frank Lammers as Darko Bokan acts very well also. I was a little less satisfied with the acting performance from Johan Leysen as formal Minister of Defence George Terhoef. Though not bad, he didn't act as good as the other two main characters in the series. One of the most famous actresses from Holland, Rene Soutendijk, plays a little role in the third part as the wife of George Terhoef.

The biggest strength of this TV series is the realistic way history is brought to you at the screen. It's very frightening, as the real thing was, and it just tells you how it was there. No Hollywood, no patriotism, just the awful facts. When you look at it, you obviously begin wandering how many lives could be saved if the mandate was better, the UN brought air support or we simple went to Bosnia sooner.

This is the second movie about the UN mission during the Bosnia war. The first was the BBC TV film `Warriors' , which is an absolute masterpiece on my opinion. Warriors is about the English UN soldiers. If you want to know about the Dutch work there, take a look at De Enclave. Both movies are incredible accurate, precise and realistic. The negative side of the Enclave is that it's a Dutch production, which limits the production budget and possibilities. This makes it a little low budget series, but on the other hand, makes it very realistic.

Anyway, I think anyone who's interested in history should watch this, especially people in Holland. If I'd have to describe it in short:...Schindler´s List Part 2!