The Dutch Ambassador to the US, Renee Jones-Bos, has reacted with anger to the accusation that the UN failed to protect the "safe haven" of Srebrenica, in Bosnia, because some Dutch troops were openly gay.

The claim was made by retired US Marine Corps General John Sheehan, at a US Senate hearing.

His comments provoked immediate outrage in the Netherlands, where the humiliation in July 1995 of 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers and the subsequent massacre by Serb forces of 8 000 Muslim men and boys, remain a subject of acute national sensitivity.

General Sheehan, one of two NATO supreme commanders at the time of the massacre, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee against a proposal to allow homosexuals to openly serve in the US military.

He told the senators how the Armed Forces of various European countries had lost their combat focus after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and had turned to peacekeeping because "they did not believe the Germans were going to attack again or the Soviets were coming back".

"They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military - that included the unionization of their militaries, it included open homosexuality. That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war," he said.

"The case that I'm referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs, the battalion was under-strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them."

"That was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II," he stated.

Carl Levin, the Democrat chairman of the committee, who backs moves to allow openly gay soldiers to serve, told the general that he was "totally off-target" in his comments which quickly led to a flood of complaints from Dutch officials.

Renee Jones-Bos, the Dutch Ambassador, said that she "couldn’t disagree more" with General Sheehan, adding there was no evidence of his claims in the extensive record of research on Srebrenica.

Roger Van de Wetering, from the Dutch Defence Ministry, added: "For us it is unbelievable that a man of this rank is stating this nonsense, because that is what it is."

"The whole operation in Srebrenica and the drama that took place over there were thoroughly investigated by Dutch and international authorities, and none of these investigations has ever concluded or suggested a link between homosexual military personnel and the things that happened over there," he concluded.