Nachricht Nummer : 251 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 31 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 26 August, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 04.09.1993 05:06:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 26 August, 1993 Dobar dan, Very, very early in the morning we, Annette (from UNOV, UN office of Vienna), Sophy (from the UK, somebody who came to Zagreb in the hope to find a place were she could stay and help) and me, leave Pakrac in order to be in Zagreb before 10 o'clock. Annette has at that moment an appointment in Zagreb in order to get material for her women group in Sarajevo, just two days ago she returned from her two days trip up and down the BiH capital and she was trilled by the progress her group had made. When she came back I hugged her as normal, but immediately asked what she has been doing with her group and with a big smile on her face she said "Women liberation". We drive up to Lipik and from there we take the small road, which goes very close to the front-line to Novska. Also here you can see how hard the fighting was, just a couple of kilometer under Lipik we pass by a village, which is totally shot apart, in this case you may say that not one stone stands on the other anymore or rather that not one wall is higher than about a meter. Next to the houses is an new improvised grave yard were all the inhabitants of the village are buried. The red and white colours of the flowers on the graves makes clear that it were Croats who lived here. In the heavily damaged houses you see the barricades of sand-bags, which shows how they must have been fighting for every house, sometimes the old fighting lines were just on both sides of the road, the two fighting forces must have been on those spots not more than 25 meters away from eachother. Close enough to shout at eachother, the holes in the houses show, however, that it wasn't shouting alone. Most of the houses are not used, it some there are now Croatian observation points, and some host check points of UNPROFOR on the roads into the Serbian controlled part. After about 6 kilometer down of Lipik we see the first UNPROFOR check point on our road, called JW 4 or 5, since it is now a run by the Jordanish battalion. Annette hangs out the window of her car and shout "Dobar Jutro, Kako si (Good Morning, how are you)". The check point leader comes up to our car and asked afraid in his best English if we maybe speak English, since his Croatian seems to be even worst. Of course Annette answers, I am Irish from Dublin. The commander laughs and waves us through, without asking for any identification or writing down the number of the car (ok it is an UN car, but still). I asked Annette if she knows between which and which this checkpoint was when we pass by a Croatian police car, which is standing at the road side a few kilometres behind the checkpoint, since it was not one of the exit checkpoints as far as I know the road we are taking from looking at the map, the whole road is within the UNPA. But she don't know and before I can look at the map another UNPROFOR checkpoint from the Jordanish turns up, probably they are informed by the first one that we are coming since it goes open as we are driving down the road and with Annette waving with her arm out of the window we are passing the checkpoint and are out of the sector. We pass by Novska, I have top visit that town in the coming weeks some times, since I know it only from video films and it must have been or still is partly as destroyed as Pakrac, and went on the autoput (the highway), although maybe one car per hour passes here and most cars will be UN vehicles, like ours, there is a man sitting in the control station, who waves us through. Just driving up the highway and getting in the right speed, to big pigs are walking at the middle of the road, an old lady stands on the road sides looking how Annette go zig zag around her animals, which are obvious surprised by the car. Two kilometer further we pass over a farmer on a bike, which also drives in the middle of our lanes. It is obvious that people on this part of the highway already have forgotten the day of the big traffic and consider this part as their private road. The first car we see is about 25 kilometer passed the crossing at Kutina, were I normal went on the highway, which is about after 50 kilometer driving. Rain starts to fall, which is a relief after weeks of enormous heat, but on the other hand turn the landscape in a total different scene. The warm period is probably over now and slowly the winter is starting to come. I remember all those talks in UNHCR In the beginning of the year about al, the road repairs in central Bosnia, which had to be done in order to secure the roads after August, it is nearly that period and nothing has been done about the road, due to the fighting in that area. I don't know if the rain will keep on falling, but in a couple of days the dusty sand roads will be mud baths again and the trucks would be able to pass. Everybody is afraid for a next winter with fighting in Bosnia and knowing that the convoy which was planned to go into the Muslim part of Mostar yesterday haven't made it yet, since it is stopped by a huge group of women and children at the west bank (Croatian) of the Neretva, the hope that the war will be over soon and humanitarian aid can pass freely is rather low. 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 ##