THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok's government resigned on Tuesday to take responsibility for its shortcomings during a catastrophic peacekeeping mission that failed to prevent the worst massacre of the Bosnian war in 1995.

The cabinet's mass resignation came days after a damning report condemned politicians and the military for sending Dutch troops on an impossible mission to protect the Srebrenica enclave, where up to 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered.

The report, which said misconceived humanitarian motives and political ambitions had driven the Dutch to launch a virtually impossible and ill-conceived mission, deepened a sense of shame in a country that cherishes its liberal humanitarian values.

"The international community fell short in offering sufficient protection to the people in the so-called 'safe area'," Kok told a hushed parliament after all 29 ministers in his center-left coalition cabinet quit after a crisis meeting.

"The international community, in which the Netherlands played a special role in this respect, appeared unable to prevent the fall of the enclave and the genocide by the Bosnian Serbs that followed."

But Kok was adamant that ultimate blame for the massacre rested with the Bosnian Serbs who overran the enclave in July 1995, notably the former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, now a fugitive war crimes suspect.

ETHNIC CLEANSING

Queen Beatrix immediately asked Kok to form an interim government pending a general election on May 15.

An official report last week into the Dutch role in the fall of Srebrenica slammed both army top brass and politicians for unwittingly collaborating with ethnic cleansing when Bosnian Serb forces overran the supposedly protected enclave.

Some 110 lightly armed Dutch troops from the multinational U.N. force were assigned to protect Muslim residents and refugees in what had been designated a "safe area."

In the event, the Bosnian Serbs entered without firing a shot and the troops helped them organize the exodus of thousands of refugees: women and children to Muslim territory but the men to their deaths, mostly by shooting in fields and barns.

Bosnia's Foreign Ministry described the resignation as an "act of morality" which should spur a thorough look at the international community's role during the 1992-95 war.

But those still grieving said it was not nearly enough.

"If they think they can remove the burden of guilt, it's not a good try. Or possibly they are accepting guilt, I don't know. But there is turmoil among them, and there should be," said Kada Hotic, 57, who lost several family members in the massacre.

The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) report, commissioned by the government five years ago, reserved its harshest criticism for the political and military leadership for giving the troops ill-defined goals and a weak mandate.

SHADOW OVER CAREER

The accusations cut deep in a country that is proud to host the U.N. war crimes tribunal where former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic is currently on trial accused of war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s.

The sudden end to the coalition of Kok's PvdA Labour Party, the liberal VVD and the centrist D66 cast a long shadow over the career of a popular prime minister who has been credited with slashing unemployment and creating prosperity and who had already decided to leave office anyway.

Diplomats said the manner of his leaving could doom any chance of high EU office in Brussels, something the modest man, respected across the political spectrum, has always denied seeking.

Neither the defense nor the foreign minister who were responsible for the peacekeeping mission are still in office.

But Dutch media said Environment Minister Jan Pronk, who was development minister at the time, had precipitated the cabinet crisis together with current defense minister Frank de Grave by indicating they wanted to resign over the Srebrenica report.

Opinion polls have indicated that a center-right alliance could oust the center-left coalition in next month's election.