Nachricht Nummer : 212 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 44 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 29 July, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 05.08.1993 09:18:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 29 July, 1993 Dobar dan, Sitting in the evening sun at a stone in Bribir, don't try to find this place on the map of Croatia, since it is probably far too small to be on it, it lays about 30 Km south-east from Rijeka in the mountains near the seaside. The air is full of the sound of this Mediterranean insect, from which I don't know the name in English, but it is that famous insect which makes music all summer and don't prepare itself for the winter. I arrived her just a few hours ago together with Ognjen, it is the birth house of his father and now one of the summer houses of his family. His father was just in his early twenties when the second world war started and proclaim him self pacifist in those days, but soon after he joint the partisans up in the mountains south of Karlovac, where he was fighting during the whole war. His mother also joint the partisans but was never in active battle, she was more involved in the medical brigades in central Bosnia in those days. After the war Ognjen's father stayed in the army, till he got his pension some years ago. Now they don't get anything anymore, like all the other former JNA (Yugoslav army) officers in Croatia, they live from what Ognjen's sister earns. In this small mountain villages HDZ (the party of Tudjman) won the first free elections of Croatia, like in all the places around the country, but it was more a lack of free choice, that was shown during the last elections, when HDZ was beaten by HSLS (the Liberal Party (which is indeed not so much different of HDZ) and HNS (the Croatian People party, which is build up around one person and seem to have no real party program) and the local HDZ representatives didn't know how fast they had to move out of the villages, the people didn't really like them. Ognjen told all this when we were passing by Karlovac and the mountain area, a lot of those village have historical means from him as being the places were his father has been fighting. In this war also in this area there was a lot of fighting between the Krajina Serbs and the Croats, just a week ago Karlovac was heavily shelled again for the first time in months, but when we passed by I couldn't recognize any new destruction. And another time it was shown that the stories in the international press about the fact that this area was absolute not safe to pass through were heavily over estimated. Just before I left Zagreb I watch the afternoon news on television and in there was a large report about the heavy and heated debates which were going on the what I would call the second chamber of the parliament, which is the part of the parliament formed by regional representation. Yesterday the discussed for one whole day a topic and you show them shouting on eachother. It was obvious a very important topic, since they couldn't reach an agreement and ended the day with the suggestion to organise a nation wide referendum about it. The topic what was discussed is, you hardly can believe it, I think, the name of the new money. I wrote months ago that the Croatian Dinar is only a temporary solution, but that whenever the government think that the time is right there will be real money coming. The name of that new money was up to now Kruna (crown) and in some magazine we could see a year ago already the ready made banknotes. Yesterday however the debate was opened again, some parties didn't like the name Kruna and want to recall it into kuna, which was the name of the Croatian money during the NDH (the Croatian free state, a puppet state of NAZI Germany during the second world war). The debate was open yesterday and it was clear that none of the two names would be able to get a majority. The main arguments against the name proposed name (Kuna) was of course that it was to much reminding the people on the old fascistic money and that wouldn't be good for the imago of Croatia. How ever for a simular amount of people this was absolute no problem. When I first watch the discussions I was thinking "great" at least some people start to protest against the fascistic imago, during the last month I really had the feeling some times that it was going in the other direction. Especially due to the open media attack on ARK and the way this discussion was brought forwards, no real arguments, only more or less demagogic statements, which opened the way for others to do what ever they wanted. A little bit like Seks, the more or less crown prince of Tudjman, statement about a month ago that the Croatian state couldn't secure the safety of the Muslim refugees in Croatia. Which is when you turn the statement around also a free card for everybody to be able to use violence against the Muslims here, since you could also interpretate the statement in a way that the Croatia state can control it so you are free to do what ever you want. At last some persons are busy to turn away from a state build on violence and intimidation, even when part of it is not really taking place now but only reminding on what happened 45 years ago, but is more or less proud of it. But than I remembered that the name Kruna was actually already decided some year ago and that this whole discussion took place since some people came up with the NDH name Kuna, a maybe the different is only one character, this small different is enormous political step. On the other hand a parliament in a country in war which can spend a whole day discussing the name of a currency from which nobody knows when it will come is in itself already something to think about. 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. 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