Nachricht Nummer : 216
Übertragungszeit : 3 min 42 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 3 August, 1993
Erstellungsdatum : 05.08.1993 09:38:00 S+2

Realname: Wam Kat

Zagreb Diary 3 August, 1993

Dobar dan,

After an active night fighting against all kind of insects, I went together with 
Biljana for walk from the apartment building just outside Povja into the
centre of the village in the hope to buy a newspaper and to have a coffee, in 
our apartment we only have electric cooking plates and since there is no 
electricity we can't do much with them. In the local post office we hear that 
we just missed the last newspaper by 5 minutes and that is the only place in 
town where you some times can buy them. The post office also stopped 
exchanging money, as reason they give that there are any tourists anyway, 
that about all Croats have their money always safes in DEM seems to be 
not interesting for them, there for you have the black market in the local pub 
she reacts.

In the local pub we sit outside in the shade of some nice old olives trees and 
waiting for our coffee, which they specially have to make on a camping gas 
cocker we try to follow the conversation of the local wish elder man from the 
village, who are enjoying their morning rakija. The discussions goes about 
"them" and "us" in Maslenica. From what we can follow "they", the Krajina 
Serbs have been shelling the bridge yesterday all day and they are 
discussing how strong "we" (Croatian Army) are to be able to control the 
bridge again. The biggest bad guys are however not the Krajina Serbs, but 
UNPROFOR, which refused according the local mean political expert to 
protect the bridge, if they (UNPROFOR in this case) wouldn't have been 
there "we" would have been able to teach "them" (the Krajina Serbs) a 
lesson they wouldn't forget so easily. "We" are strong enough to move up to 
Knin, according to the local military expert, he just have heard it from his 
son who is stationed near Zadar.
 
The barman, an old guy from about 60, who seem to be a good customer of 
his own pub, looking at his red noose and watery eyes brings our coffee and 
sits down with us for a while. My son has died in Osijek he tells us and 
that's why I have start drinking, he obvious knows that he face shows of his 
habits. But my grand children are still alive, he continues, so my life isn't 
been for nothing.

After this talk I went for a swim in the sea, which is rather something new 
for me, after I nearly didn't survived my try to break my own 100 metre 
record in the river through Bern some 15 years ago, since than I was as 
afraid for water as the Muslim kids which arrived last year at the Dalmatian 
sea coast. I have found a part of the sea were it is not so deep and which is 
situated at a spot were hardly anybody comes, since it is the part of the 
village were the Serbs have their holidays houses. Most of them haven't 
been used in the last 2 years, but different from the situation in other part of 
the coastal area the are all intact. At other village on the Island they have 
used this summer houses to host refugees, but not here, they are just 
standing there, waiting until their owners return (which wouldn't be in the 
next session and hopefully when they come it wouldn't be in the simular way 
as in other part of the country)  or when they, the Serbian owners, found a 
way to sell or exchange them with somebody who is more able to use them, 
as a the family of a friend of mine did, his family had a summer house in 
Volvodina and change it with a Serbian family which had a house in Zadar. 

Maybe it would be a good idea to ask my friends in Beograd to find out if 
they know people with houses on the Island and god knows maybe we can 
organise something with them. 

During an other beautiful sun set, with in one hand a glass white wine full 
with ice, if the freezer starts working at 5.30, the first ice is ready at the 
moment of sun set and in the other hand a Hercegovina cigarette (made in 
Banja Luka), on my knees my laptop computer,  and with a half ear listening 
to the news on radio Brac, the pontoon bridge in Maslenica is hit a few 
times today, one of the pontoons on the Zadar side of the bridge is been 
destroyed and according to the news it will take at least a week before they 
will be able to have it repaired. My first reaction was, nema problema, than 
we stay just a week longer. I wish it would be possible.

The next item brings me back in the reality, it is a report about the massacre 
of 26 Croats by the BiH (Muslim) armija, this is already some days in the 
news, but again new evidence has been found. Not that point brings me 
back to the reality but the thoughts about my friends in Mostar, the last 
message from my friend who is fighting in HVO I got about a week ago, 
from my friend in BiH armija I haven't heard of since weeks, I know that both 
are first line fighters on both sides of the Neretva in Mostar (they know 
eachother from high school in Sarajevo, which they escape together in April 
last year to join organised armies outside the city in fight against the Serbian 
Bosnia and JNA troops, who just started their fights in BiH. Both have been 
in the same brigade for nearly a year, during which they lost a considerable 
amount of their combat friends and have saved each other lives a couple of 
times, direct and indirect, from the stories of their soldier friends I know that 
both are good and fast shooters and nick named "the nasty twins" during 
the fights liberating Mostar from the Serbian occupation, but some where in 
February this year a started to notice a kind of political break in their 
friendship. Every time when I heard news from Mostar I automatically think 
about those two.

Bok I Mir from Zagreb,

							Wam
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