Nachricht Nummer : 243 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 42 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 18 August, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 27.08.1993 13:47:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 18 August, 1993 Dobar dan, My activities on Duda's wedding really hit some people awake it seems, this morning when Svetlina went to UNPROFOR to prolong my card it was taken away so Annette offered me to accompany me visiting the commander. I never had so much from military structures and feel that I have handled on Saturday without really thinking about the place were I was, I just did the same thing as I would have done back home. Behind hugging Annette I enter the room of the commander in chief, he looked at me and the small bleu plastic card in front of him on his desk, my card, she explains that she was also on the party and indeed was agree that the shooting was not the nicest part. The commander explained after I aided my version of the story to Annette's report that he could understand my reaction, knowing that there were 300 nearly drunken people inside, but that UN personal, at least UNPROFOR members, should not mix with the locals, otherwise they get biased. But that that would be hard for our line of work, but we should at least have left the party when the shooting began. For the rest he would forget about the incident, wished me a good stay in the sector and more close co-operation and return me my card. Directly after we came back from Daruvar Annette and I visit the local Canadian UNPROFOR commander in chief, to explain our side of the story and to meet eachother an other way. He explained that it wasn't my action with did the trick, but a whole series of things which had happen on that evening, my action was just one of them. On that particular Saturday there were 7 weddings in Pakrac and Lipik, 3 at this side and 4 on the other side and on all there was shooting in the air and from none of them they knew that they would take place. But on top of it just before the shooting started at Duda's wedding somebody should at their, UNPROFOR, building and the bullets went as it were through the hairs of the soldier at the gate. And that really make them upset. Tracing down the shooter with 15 soldiers they followed his trail up the fire station in which Duda had her wedding party. Just before they went over the small bridge over the Pakra behind the fire station just outside the centre they bumped into my three friends from Sittard. These soldiers of course were rather surprised to find Dutch people at a place were they expected a Croatian gunner. 10 minutes later there jeeps which surrounded the fire station bumped into me and they just found out that the lady, Duda, who was having her party was a member of the UNOV office, slowly they started to think that the whole building was full with foreigners and UN personal, which of course didn't improve the understanding of the soldiers whom just were been shot at. And top of the bill was that precisely this weekend it was 2 years ago that the fighting in Pakrac really started, one of the first places in Croatia. Annette asked him about the autobus, which was blown up on Sunday just behind their post at the Serbian side of Pakrac, something from which nobody knew on the Darovar UNPROFOR HQ when Svetlina asked about it on Monday after they received the first complain about me. But he made clear that it was nothing special, some of the neighbours of the bus driver had d a little bill to settle and did it this way. It was not related in any way to the war, although the amount of explosive is of course related to it. He said that he could understand our point of the picture and was glad that we were here and offer his help. So we immediately we asked him if he could organise a security briefing every time when our volunteers arrive in order to inform them about what is going on around them. After that I decided to go house hunting, up to know I didn't had to real possibility to walk through the whole town and the villages around them on the Croatia side, most of the time in spend in our school and what can be called the centre of Pakrac. We walked around and found a dozens of houses which, after a little bit of repair could be used to hosts our volunteers. The school is soon to cold to sleep and the lack of water in the last 8 weeks have not particular a positive effect on the health of our volunteers, mostly there is only a few times a week a few hours water in the school and all the drinking water has to brought up from Lipik and the other water is carried up from the hand at the station. Every morning you see people running down the road to bath themselves under the pump. It is also the washing place for the clothes. The station chef and the locals who are waiting are use to this strange modern gypsies. Checking most of the former owners of the buildings it becames clear that this list I made don't help much, most of the owners are somewhere on the "other" side and even when we could find them there and rent our house legally from them it would mean a lot of political tension on the Croatian about it. Walking through the town I realise that soon we have to make photograph's from all the houses, just to documented what has happened, people are returning everywhere and the town on the Croatian side is slowly awaking. Every where you see people preparing their houses for the coming winter. It will be a big job, and I really don't know at this moment where to find the money for the films, but I think it should be done just to inform the people later how it looked, since it is hard to imagine, as it is to imagine as it use to be before the war. 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 ##