Nachricht Nummer : 339 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 34 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 14 December, 1993 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 20.12.1993 19:44:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 14 December, 1993 Dobar dan, We were all tired from the trips from resp. Beograd and Zagreb, so a long evening it didn't became. Around 10 we all went to our rooms. Nevertheless it was good to be able to talk free and openly with each other. It is not happening so often that you come in face to face contact outside the country with somebody from Beograd. At least not for me. We finished our reports and things at the UNOV office and went to our hotel, a small nice real Austrian hotel. During the evening meal I realised from the talks that the people in Beograd have totally other experiences than f.e. those in Croatia and BiH who have been in the front-line. Being all that time in Beograd must be a bit simular as being all the time in Zagreb. We told them about Pakrac, and how destroyed it was directly after the war. They told they had been in Vukovar and how much impression this town left on them. We tried to explain that Pakrac looks a lot like Vukovar directly after the war, but since a lot of the destruction is cleaned up, no glass and stones any more on the streets, no cars who are shot apart. Of course the destruction of Vukovar is bigger as from Pakrac, but such first steps in the re-building is rather making a big difference. We talked about our experiences and the feeling at our side of the cease- fire line. Suddenly I started to recognize that talking with Serbian people in Okucani is different than talking to Serbs from Beograd. Not strange of course, but I noticed that I know a lot more from Okucani, than from the situation and information in Beograd. I wake up very early and went down for breakfast and writing, some stories went around in my head and I couldn't sleep. After two hours the others went down and it was time to pay and go back to work, to the UNOV. Picking up the things from my room I noticed that I couldn't find my wallet (including all my ID cards, about 5000 DEM (received as gift for a project here), address book, photo's of my children, travel papers, etc.). Back down in the restaurant I couldn't find it either, it was gone and stayed gone. We turned over the whole hotel, together with the cleaning girls, but nothing. In nearly 2 years of Croatia and BiH I didn't lost anything and now one night in Vienna and I loose about everything I have. But I can't blame it on Vienna, it was probably my own mistake. In a far away city, without pasport, money or anything, luckily surrounded with friends. The first thing was to get back at least a bit of identity. In such cases it is suddenly possible that the UN works very very effective. Within a hour I had my bleu pass again and pasport photo's in the trams on my way to the Dutch embassy. The nice woman was just phoned by the UN to tell that my pasport was gone and that I would come by for a temporary pasport. She phoned Den Haag to check me out and they asked her why I wasn't in Zagreb, but that when an idiot stands in front of the take telling he is Wam Kat and writes than about four official names down it only could have been me. I wonder who was working their in Den Haag, but it must have been somebody from before. Making the pasport took 10 minutes and within 2 hours I was not so "unknown" anymore, I had my pasport and could be checked again. Back in the UNOV Platzer took me to some other UN chief, which obvious knew Platzer well, but didn't really knew what we were doing down there in Pakrac. He was surprised to hear that the UN is involved in something what can be called peace building, rather than peace keeping. He knew something was going on down there, but didn't realised what already was established. He said that the UN should organise a press conference. And tell about this. We will see, but it is funny to sit here somewhere high up in the UN explaining them what their own organisation is doing. And more how the doing it. We went from the UN to CARE to see the people I normally see in Pakrac in their own office. The office in Vienna is indeed a lot bigger than the two tables they have in the UNOV office in Pakrac. And here are at least some, more than one, telephone lines. I asked them first where in the neighbourhood a police station is situated to inform them about me lost this morning and when I arrive there I sudden found out that I am corps diplomatic (CD) now, I don't have to pay for my forms and a nice girl is taking down the whole list of ID's from the different institutions and organisations. The proud police cop with a big revolver, who probably would have made me shivering some years ago asked me how it was on the front-line and why I was doing this work. I tell them some of our stories and after a while 5 or 6 police agents are sitting around me listening to the story. With a "gruss got" and laughing we say good-bye, it has been a long long time ago, if ever, that I ever left a police station that way. The world is white again when we are the only to participants in the night train from Vienna to Zagreb, such before we left for home again, me met Manfred in Vienna and he showed us one of the best eating places of Vienna. Mir from somewhere in Hrvatska, 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 . 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 (postbox 33), 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. 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