Nachricht Nummer : 183
Übertragungszeit : 3 min 37 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 4 July, 1993
Erstellungsdatum : 05.07.1993 19:29:00 S+2

Realname: Wam Kat

Zagreb Diary 4 July, 1993

Dobar dan,

After I missed the first tram and just show the bus to the Peace Hostel just 
leaving when I finally got by tram to the end off the line. So I arrive hours 
later at the mountain than I had planned. Arriving up the mountain I told 
about the fact that I was in Serbian Pakrac. All the Croats and long term 
volunteers enjoyed the story that I got a package of cigarettes, from the 
brand "Hercegovina" ("Stara Dobro" good old), but the factory is stands far 
away from the place, it was produced in the tobacco factory in Banja Luka, 
so I wonder how much Hercegovian tobacco is still there to proof the name. 

The other package I brought with me also has a nice story, it was a package 
of "classic" cigarettes from Yugoslavia. It seems that in the past "cartier" 
seems to have had a court case against this package, it looked to much like 
their products and it seems according the stories that they won the court 
case, nevertheless the cigarettes are still produced in Yugoslavia as the 
package and the tax labels from the republic of Yugoslavia on them. Also on 
this side you have cigarettes marks like "Ronhill", which is like "Dunhill", 
and "Walter Wolf", which is doing his best to use the image of "John Player 
Special". Anyway the new arrived volunteers couldn't understand the joke. 
of the "Hercegovina" package. And indeed it needs some explanation why it 
is funny.

So slowly you start to get use to the habits and inside jokes of Croatia and 
the countries around it, if you see a photograph, "welcome in hell", you know 
it is from a graffiti in Mostar. But I was realising that I have to learn a whole 
new set of visions and background and insides in the coming months. The 
sudden confrontation with what are the "enemies" of the country I am living 
in is strange. Especially since I as foreigner freely can pass the UNPA lines 
without any serious control (a bit like going from west to east Berlin, after 
checkpoint Charley was removed). And that in a city which looks a bit like 
what you can imagine a bit of the past nuclear war, outside the real centre 
of the impact. Not because of the bomb, but because of severe fighting 
between the two forces on both sides of the lines.

I don't know if you can imagine this situation., this is the only UNPA where 
within the UNPA both Serbian Krajina and Croatian authorities active. All 
other UNPA zones have a border of their zone simular with the "border" of 
Serbia Krajina. It has something really strange over it. We tried after I 
served the diner to a little bit from this strange feeling to the new arrived 
volunteers, a big group this week nearly 40 people, only for the new camp in 
Karlovac, Varazdin and Pacras.

This volunteers are lucky since Emma stands in front of the building, Emma 
is by far the most colourful humanitarian truck in the market. Joseph just 
returned back from Tuzla, without any damaged or any loose of load. 
Somewhere he must have a whole battalion of safe guarding angels flying 
around his truck because it is not really normal that an one vehicle convoy 
has so less troubles.  Other volunteers only hear the stories of the truck. 
The rumours go that she will get soon a sister, but who knows.

After the introduction, for which I used the story about the party of that 
Dutch journalists, we went for a drink in the pub "Johnny B. Goode" (with 
the last "E")  in Novi Zagreb, that is for so far I know the first pub in Zagreb 
which has "Grolsh", a Dutch beer on their list. It is 3 times more expensive 
as domestic beers, but it is good thing tasting it ones and a while. After 
those absolute tasteless Dutch tomatoes at least some good comes. The 
way they pronounce the name is however funny for me the hear, at least 
something, they say "Krols", which is the name we gave a female cat ones a 
month when she is going for male cats. 

During drinking the beer from my home country I was realising how stupid 
that is all those products from abroad. More and more western products are 
for sale and they overrule in many cases the sales of simular Croatian 
products.  You nearly start the think about such actions as "Buy British" in 
the UK. Living from import wouldn't be building up the Croatian economy in 
the end, it looks nice all those expensive products, but not much of the 
profits of the sales will end in Croatia.

In the pub we also talked about the so-called "white lists" which seems to 
be circulating in HDZ on which individuals and organisations are mentioned 
which seems to be dangerous for the state. It seems that ARK is on that list 
and that would be the reason that no newspaper is writing about them. On 
the other hand the Peace Centre, which is basically the same people, 
seems to be not on that list. After a short discussion we came to the 
agreement that the best way for HDZ to stop the Anti War Campaign is 
stopping the war.

Finally Goran told a story from the Meditaranian games, a good swimmer 
from Croatia won a lot of medals and a France paper wrote that Croatia 
should be lucky for having Milosovic. Milosovic is in this case called Milos 
and living in Split. A lot of people like which has last names like this  Milos 
have change their names in order to get good Croat names, a girl 
somewhere was renamed "Croatica" her earlier first name probably was 
"Yugoslavica" or something like that, was the reaction.

Bok I Mir from Zagreb,

							Wam
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