Formal in example sentence
Yet afew facts are incontestable:Srebrenica was a UN protected zone, a Muslim enclave in a Serb-held region;When the Bosnian Serbs, under General Ratko Mladic, occupied the town, the Dutch Battalion, though obviously outnumbered, did not oppose the military Serb action: such opposition was also not in its formal mandate -- after all, the Dutch were supposed to be "neutral";Dutch officers were present when the Serbs gathered together the Muslim civilian population of Srebrenica and separated the men from women and children, taking the men away; the Dutch did not object, nor did they try to confront the Serb forces with the idea that what they were doing is unacceptable;It is obvious that the Dutch Battalion could not militarily stop the Serbs from doing what they were doing; yet there are always other options besides shooting -- or washing your hands and doing nothing.