Nachricht Nummer : 204 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 43 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 21 July, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 31.07.1993 23:10:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 21 July, 1993 Dobar dan, Tatatatatataaaaaaa, Tatatatataaaaaa, hooray hooray, the bridge is open (or rather closed), or at least ready, today the first pictures came on the news from the Maslinica and it looks it we can drive south on it the next time. Although the attacks on Zadar, Sibinik, Karlovac and Zupanja from the last days came pritty close to destroy it all again. I am not sure if it is open for public transport yet. On this moment they are having peacetalks in Vienna, The Croatian government and members from Serbian Krajina government from Knin, one of the points is about the cease fire agreements they made some weeks back and which obvious have been broke in the last days, I wondering how that will end. It is anyway always a gamble, the new bridge is in close range of the Krajina guns and in principle just a single well aimed shot can destroy all the work of the last months. Anyway nice pictures on television how the last pontoon part was brought in place to close the emergency bridge, in the coming days they have to put some type of road on the thing and in about a week the first public cars can cross it, that is if the shelling on Karlovac the other day haven't spoiled the ongoing process. For the time being however they keep on working on it if there is no danger at all. I remember the pictures taken back in January when they put in ferries and it look like duck shooting. One of the ferries was so hit that it couldn't been taken out anymore. The illness from the last days have really put me behind schedule, I should have been busy to find fund and goods for the Serbian part of Pakrac in the last days, but it feels if I starting the burn up a little. In the nearly one and half year that I am here now I never really took a good break, even laying in bed don't really mean that I am not thinking about what I should do. In couple of days I have to go back to Pakrac with empty hands and that worries me. I would for example like to be able to take at least the possibility and permission with me that our volunteers could go at least for a visit to the Serbian side of the village, but nothing. The main reason that we couldn't get the possibility and the allowance to work on the other side is not the unwillingness of the local authorities, but is a results of the peace talks between Serbian Krajina authorities and Croatian government in Vienna. Those talks are still going on and in such situations it is better not to gamble to much. The Serbian authorities we have to deal with in Pakrac are not really in power, they actual power is in the hands of the police in that part, which is far from local. They are called "Knin" police, which makes it clear that they coming from the region around Knin and they are known of not being the most easy people to deal with. Even from our friends from Beograd we have heard that they have "problems" with "Knin" police in their city. This is not an easy thing to explain to our volunteers which are really like to go to the "other side", one of them went on his own already on Sunday and his not organised trip over the border didn't made it easier to have negotiations with UNPROFOR, which is in charge of the safety. When I phoned today with Duda in Pakrac at the UN Vienna office there she told me that there are now new guidelines send out by UNPROFOR for the border passing. They, UNPROFOR, have send a letter around that it is absolute impossible for civilians, from Croatian and Serbian nationality to cross the border, only those with the official UNPROFOR passes may pass. That is indeed a step back in the last weeks they didn't were so strict. Another problem I have to solve soon is finding somebody who speaks Serbo-Croatian and has no passport from any of these country and is willing to be leader of the work camps on the "other side". Thinking about it makes it more and more clear to me that you need for this work and the co- operation with the volunteers somebody which is absolute trustable, even when the volunteers are asking the most "idiotic" political questions. Last but surely not least I have to find a way of getting medicines from the "other side", I was surprised the last days when I was asking a little bit around how fragile this whole project is. Until my big surprise people are more biased then I thought, from some organisations abroad I got a very clear reactions, delivering medicines to Muslims, yes, if really needed also to Croats, but never to the Serbs, hopefully I just talked to the wrong people in this case. When I walked through Zagreb today for the first times in weeks I thought back how it looked a year ago and I remember how busy I was with the gypsies in the town at that moment, for one or another I or get use to it (which is the case in some way, from the family which is mostly selling the roses in the bars I know all the children by now) and hardly don't see them or and that is I think the reality there are a lot less of the at the moment. I found only a few beggars in the street were I use to find a lot more of them. Today the first time out of bed and out of the house this week and it is good to be outside again, even now the temperature has dropped a lot the last days, it is not particular what you can say hot in Zagreb at the moment. There is thunder in the air and I am worrying about our modem since everytime that there are electric storms in the air our computer get the hiccups and forget about everything we have learned him, the whole set-up disappears. 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 ##