Nachricht Nummer : 253 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 30 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 28 August, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 08.09.1993 10:50:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 28 August, 1993 Dobar dan, One whole day in Zagreb, just to relax a bit and get some updates about what is going on in the rest of the country, when you are back in Pakrac it is always hard to find out what is happening in f.e. BiH, it is even hard to find out what happens in the town itself. Most of the time you life with the rumours and stories. We have a radio but after 6 hours hard labour work and at least 3 hours a day social work you not really into sitting listening to the news reports on the BBC radio, on such moment you nearly only think about Skorpia or one of the other bars in town, to sit, laugh and relax. In Zagreb news plays a bigger role, at least for me, the food convoys to Mostar, which were planned to reach the town on Wednesday haven't past a blockade of angry and hungry women and children, they are standing there now for 2 days and no movements can be made. The UNPROFOR soldier from the Spanish Foreign legion, who are based in Medjugorje didn't looked really confidence that they were able to do the job, they really looked nervous and some of this young guys probably will be afraid as hell. Like the Canadian young UNPROFOR soldiers in Pakrac, they look powerful, but when you have seen them busy for a while you start to find out that peacekeeping is not as easy as you think, it is a lot more than hanging on the check points and driving around in Jeeps. Yesterday there were pictures from aeroplanes dropping food over BiH and when I understood it right some of those parcels were dropped over Mostar. But for feeding 55.000 people you need a little bit more than a few boxes and the few tens of tons which will be brought in by the convoy if it comes through will be by far not enough either. The day before yesterday just before I left Pakrac I had a long talk with Zelic, which is one of the people in the Croatian part the town who is responsible for the reconstruction. Aim was the gather projects for which I maybe can find donors abroad. Not big expensive projects since I am not able to get big sums soon together anyway, and so much have been promised already. If you can't deliver you should in principle not promise anything. On the other side during this kind of talks they are always pulling a lot out of you, more than you often can give. In the last months I have been borrowing money about everywhere in able to keep at least some of the smaller projects running, in the hope to gather more money later, but it is not that easy, to get money, people want to donate goods and things. Zelic is very realistic, and I think people must have promised him heaven and paradise by now and he must have told the same story over and over again. It is not that hard to hear the frustration in his voice, when he talks about all those people who past through his office. I have met more of this officials in the governmental offices, town councils, and more places Croatia and BiH would have been the most beautiful place on earth if everything what has been promised to them in the last 3 years would have come through. He not really complains about other organisations to me, but use them as examples, they said so and so and we took the rest of the roof off and now that building stands without roof for two months, nobody knows when they will be able to pay the new roof. And there are lots of this examples I have seen them everywhere in the little town on both sides of the cease fire line. More important than food and other type of emergency aid is the rebuilding of the economy. People really become addicts from standing every day in line to get their share of the food for free. To break that economies needs new injections. Zelic explains me that one of the key parts of this economical rebuilding should improving the economy on bought sides of the cease fire line. This is an unique statement on the Croatian side of the line, since mostly people are not so friendly towards the "Serbian" part of the town. Our volunteers can remember two weeks ago that a women on the Croatian reacted on the statement that we are only planning to rebuild a childrengarten on "the other side", since there is none, with the logic "Kill all women and children, than you don't need childrengartens. Zelic knows also that Croatia wouldn't become member of the IMF soon, at least he think so, so the ambitious economical plans made just before the war and even in the last year wouldn't work or rather their wouldn't be much funding for it from the Croatian state. So he tried to figure out other ways of economical reconstruction. And came up with an idea which is very near to the plan which I had in mind when I came here one and half year ago. We, Zelic and I have been talking about this plan already a few times, it is based of producing fruit on the small farms and produces marmalades and juices. The more I think about it the more I think that it will be possible to find money for a plan like that, but more in important in this second talk with him about it was his clear vision that it should happening on both sides of the line. Otherwise they never would be able to grow together. 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 ##