Nachricht Nummer : 344 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 38 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 18 December, 1993 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 21.12.1993 18:38:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 18 December, 1993 Dobar dan, The police cancelled our Christmas party for tomorrow evening, one high official decided that the place so near to the cease-fire line was too unsafe and that there was not enough police in town to protect us. We smiled a bit when we saw the paper, this is an argument they always can use and you can't recall it. Maybe it was just a bit too quiet in the last weeks, when Manfred and I met eachother at the opcina we had the feeling already that there was an extra big wedding going on, the explosions and shootings seem to have come from all the parts of the town, and the hills around the centre echoed them back, but still you think nothing special, nema problema. The wedding which was going in the opcina was indeed a big one, on the stairs there were standing at least 8 musicians and inside the hall way was crowded of persons. Some of them couldn't wait with their fire-works and explosions also were all over the building. You could even smell the gun powder in the Care office. After a while I heard however the wedding people leaving in the direction of Prekopakra. But the shooting came as far as I could hear from the area near the hospital. And it weren't like normally shots from pistols or revolvers, it sounded much more like automatic riffles. We listen a while and came to the conclusion that indeed something was going on and not only on this side of the line. Duda came in and we asked her what she know, she answer that their was a wedding in town, at least that what was she thought. But when she also listening a little better to the shooting she also had to admit that this was indeed or a very big wedding party, which was taking place at at least 5 places at this side and as many at the other side as well, or it was an exchanges of fire. We went outside and look at the checkpoint, just at that moment some guns cracked from the hill just in front of the Opcina, behind the UNCIVPOL building. At the checkpoint the police agents were laying behind the sand bags, although some of the civilians stood just a few meters away from them. Out of the building at the checkpoint the sound of automatically riffle fire came and we heard that somebody at the other side was answering the fire. We look at the people of UNCIVPOL, who were standing in front of their building and also were looking at it fully surprised. In front of their building about 7 widows in black clothes were standing and on most corners of the square some police agents were waiting for something. We walked over the square, passing the partisan monument in the direction of the destroyed orthodox church just in front of the Croatian checkpoint. Now we could look over the UNPROFOR checkpoint and saw that the soldiers were in hiding behind their sand bags and you could see the blasts coming from one of the houses on the other side. One of those totally destroyed ones, so in fact nothing much more than a pile of stones. And there we stood next to three people who normally work on the opcina, straight in the shooting line, about 5 meters away from the Croatian checkpoint, we heard that this wasn't the only place in the town along the cease-fire line were people were shooting. Still none of us were feeling afraid, nevertheless we decided not to cross the line today to the other side, you never know if you get got by a bullet which is just floating around. We walk back to the opcina and the old guy who is mostly doing the night watch is putting his hand in his pants (obvious some gift from the red cross) and pull back a small automatic pistol, from what he tries to tell us he is ready to fight, although he has been partying alone with the wedding couples this morning and have had his drop of wedding rakija already. Manfred and I look at eachother and decided that the best place for the time being will be Skorpija, and wait there till the weather outside is clearing up a bit. One after another the volunteers drop in and most of them didn't realise yet that the shooting outside had nothing to do with a wedding. Jura tells us that this morning there would have been an exchange of prisoners, that explains the widows in front of UNCIVPOL, but it didn't worked out for one or another reason. That's why the shooting started. Everybody in the pub is a little laughing about it, when one of the police agents from UNCIVPOL comes and we asked him what the hack went on out there he says "Nothing, we have no a report yet" and that of course is answered with a load laughing from about everybody in the pub. During the early evening the shooting calms down, now it is just sporadically and not some times ten minutes in a row as during the afternoon. Now you see ones and a while a nice red-green light trace going through the sky. Still when I went late in the night from the volunteers house to our new office house (which is laying as it where, at the cease fire line I hear some shoots not more than 50 meter away from me. I start to wonder if they have been shooting with blanks the whole day, because I heard the shooting saw the guns, but didn't hear the incoming shots, although during the afternoon they hit a sandbag at the checkpoint just a few meters away from me. 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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