Nachricht Nummer : 242 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 39 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 17 August, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 27.08.1993 12:55:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 17 August, 1993 Dobar dan, In the night train from Pula, via Ljubljana, to Zagreb my computer is friendly again and let me write a few stories, unfortunately directly after arriving in Pacras, from Zagreb I travelled in the local train further into the country, he didn't do anything anymore, so you had to wait till I found at least an alternative, and that's why this parts are written with pen and paper in the hope I find a computer somewhere to type it in. Anyway back in Pakrac again, on arriving I heard that the party from Saturday evening has a long tail, the sector commander has asked UNHCR which of there workers send a group of his soldiers away from an action and what the hack was going on in Pakrac during the weekend. I decided to do something with the matter tomorrow, since my card is anyway over dated. More important is to find out what the reaction on the working place of our volunteers have been the last days after the trip to the "other side" on Sunday. When I pop off at Pakrac Grad station I see a group of our volunteers busy with cleaning the station building and asked them about it, they just have their breakfast and tell me that this group haven't talked about it so much. The leader of the local brigade has said that she didn't want to talk about it, the other members seem to stick to that "rule". For the rest the atmosphere haven't change much. In the working brigade of one of the volunteers, who is here already for 8 weeks the situation is totally different, he got very strong reactions, people told him that he didn't have to return to the Croatian side of Pakrac if he went one more time to the other side. Also in other teams very emotional reactions came out, the local people felt betrayed by our volunteers, after the first 8 weeks they couldn't imagine that they still would go to visit the "enemy". More and more horror stories about the war came out and due to the fact that in most of the working groups there is some kind of translation, how poor it may be, there was a discussion about it, even in the group, which I visit when I arrived had a strong one just after I left. Most of the volunteers are rather shocked by the sudden reactions, ones more we realise the history of the place we work on, it are not just ruins which were their already for generations. Every stones has it's fresh memories and every person his own story, have we been to fast with trying to forget the war. I decide to join the children game afternoon (we got the key from the primary school and are free to use it when ever we want) to see if some parents would forbid their children to have any longer contact with us, but there are a lot more children than before, I guess that now about 30% from the Croatian children in Pakrac joint this afternoon. Among them also from the police chef, the leaders of the working brigades and we have a fantastic afternoon, playing with water in balloons from Belgium, throwing sponses at Italians and balls on thin cans full of un eatable meat sauce from humanitarian aid (we tried to find flour in the town for another game and found out that none of the now existing 5 shops sold any, that is a typical humanitarian aid product (so we got it from Caritas)) and dancing on Slavonia folk songs around chairs. Also during the English lesson there is a big group of people coming, the beginners class is about 3 times bigger as last week. We have found in our building some english teaching and reading (animal farm) books and the lessons are really prepared now, inclusive the home work. Most of the volunteers, even after 8 hours of hard labour are happy to be involved in this part of the work. You get really a part of the community, when you walk through the city children greet us and show their parents who we are. There must be about a little bit more than 3500 people in this part of Pakrac at the moment. In the evening we have a long meeting with all the volunteers, main point is to discuss the experiences from last Sunday and the two first days back from Krajina (all in all the visit was maybe 3 hours). There is a big difference in the groups, those who are here the longest have had the hardest reactions. And we find out that although work on both sides of the line have been a core item in the project in the beginning, understood by all the local authorities, the members of the local working groups never really were informed about it. They thought in the first place that we wondered off by ourselves and were surprised that the whole visit was discussed for 6 weeks with the local authorities and UNPROFOR. We decided after a while that we don't want to use our radio programme on Thursday to excuse ourselves for our trip and explain it ones more, but to tell about that we went as one of the many things were we talk about on Daruvar radio, nothing special, just a part of the project. In the group there is now some disagreement about yes or no working on the other side, not about the principle, but about the right timing. This will be a discussing which will be going on for some time I think, it is one of the hard points of the project, walking on eggs as I said some time ago. But walking without guidance I would add today. It wouldn't be easy, but how said that it would be. I feel more and more at home in this small village, here at the front-line far away from the centres of policy making are you on your own. Bok I Mir from Zagreb, Wam ------------------------------------------------------ Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different electronic networks, it is copyright free and can be ported to any network or other means of communication you like, but please drop my a line, you can reach by sending a message to wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de or wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org. Zagreb Diary is dedicated to Tyche, Pjort and Rik, so that they found out what there father have been doing all that time in Zagreb. Financial support for Grassroot relief work in Croatia or BiH can be send to Kollektief Rampenplan (atn. Lylette, Postbox 780, 6130 AN Sittard, Netherlands, tel:. +31-46-524803 and fax: +31-46-516460 or to Zagrebacka Banka, Zagreb, accountnr.: 2440291594, to Kat, Pieter Jan Herman Fredrik, Brace Domany 6 6fl nr3, 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. ## CrossPoint v2.1 ##