Nachricht Nummer : 210 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 44 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 27 July, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 05.08.1993 09:08:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 27 July, 1993 Dobar dan, This morning for the first time in many many weeks I talked with my children in the Netherlands, I missed them a lot. I noticed that especially after I receive the tape from a radio interview I did with Jojo. He asked me a lot about my relationship with my children. When I was listening to the answer I had given I felt lonely without them. The phone call did me a lot of good, Pjort, my oldest son has get to know a girl from his age (5 years) which is the daughter of a Croat and a Dutch mother, her father is also Croatia, he told me, and she knew a lot more words in Croatian then he knew, but when he sees her again he will ask her to learn him more words. In a few days from now they will go with the Peace Bus to Ecotopia and their will be also a lot of my friends he said and he will give them my greetings. I think you all now Glavac by now, the uncrowned prince from Eastern Slavonia, who is mostly famous because of his strong remarks about taking back Baranja and the area around Vukovar, if necessary by force. Every ones and a while he announced that he is ready to do it and everything it blows over again. The newest step of him is there for a little surprising. Today he announced namely that he is going to buy wheat from Baranja, from the local Serbian Krajina authorities there. The farmers in Baranja and the Vukovar region, which is very good land, only get 0,05 DEM for a kilo of wheat if they sell it to Serbian, Glavac offered them the day price in Croatia instead, which is around 0,20 DEM at the moment. The Croatian Dinar is at the moment not changing so much as some weeks ago, in the last week the official exchange rate with the DEM stayed in the neighbourhood of 2200 and only went up with maybe 10 or 15 Diners a day, which is next to nothing. In the Serbian part of Pakrac I heard that 1 DEM was around 15 million Krajina Diners last weekend, it was only 3 million Diners 10 days ago. That is inflation. Never the less the HDR is not stable yet and any moment the big jump can start again, at the moment a lot of Croats are on holidays and spend some more money than normal, that is maybe the reason that the inflation is not as big as some weeks ago or the foreign tourist, not as much as were expected bring in enough currency to stabilise it a bit how knows. The government however is not trusting their on currency, when you get a parking ticket at the moment there is written on it that you have to pay 10 DEM in HDR at the exchange rate of the day that you pay the ticket. The telephone bill pulses are now also counted in German currency, like lot of the other governmental services. The electricity bill is however in American Dollars, but that maybe has to do with the international fuel prices, which are also always in Dollars. It is understandable that a country uses a more stable currency for billing, not only in Croatia, but also in the whole of BiH, Serbian Krajina and even in Serbia they are using DEM as counting currency. What is however strange is that they all choose the German currency, in reality you are not allowed to pay any of this bills in any other currency than HDR in Croatia. I would have chosen the European ECU as exchange currency for it, especially in this country, what has done their utmost best last year to join the EEC. Zadar is now for over 100 days under general alert, which means that people are advised to stay close to the shelters in order to be able to go directly into them when an attack is coming. And during most of this 100 days shells indeed landed on or in the neighbourhood of the town. But it is also hot in Zadar and people at the coast like to swim in the sea when it is hot. In principle swimming is forbidden in Zadar at the moment, although some people will still do, general alert, shelling or no shelling, summer is summer and summer is swimming. In order to relief the pressure a bit, especially for families with children, who have to stay inside all day, they have made special day tickets with the ferry to the nearby islands, which are half of the normal price. Zadar is probably the town in Croatia which have the most problems with the war at the moment, beside the shelling, they don't have electricity during the day, like the whole Dalmatian coast, but they also run often out of water. The last thing endanger the situation in the region a lot more, since in the summer there are often forest fires there. You may say what to complain about, the people in Sarajevo and other Bosnian town are in full war, they have besides no electricity and no water, also no food, no medicines and no safe times. But I have noticed that the human nature much easier adopts all this things if there is a really war going on outside your house and you know that people are dying all the time than when there is in principle only danger a few minutes a day and for the rest of the time it is a normal (as normal as it can be) city. In the evening Ognjen and Oystead came by for a nice being together. Ognjen is along at the moment, Biljana is on one kind of women meeting on Malta, and his children are at the coast by his and Biljana parents. Oystead is from a Norwegian peace organisation and he was a little bit lost the last days since about everybody from ARK is more or less having a break. We had some long talks and I must say that I have got the feeling that most of us, at least Vesna, Ognjen and me are a little sceptical about the future. We can laugh about it and make jokes, but the overall feeling sounded negative. 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 ##