Nachricht Nummer : 150
Übertragungszeit : 3 min 33 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 10 June, 1993
Erstellungsdatum : 13.06.1993 23:11:00 S+2

Realname: Wam Kat

Zagreb Diary 10 June, 1993

Dobar dan,

Yesterday evening very late, but still normal working hours on the other side 
of the ocean a reporter from Prime Time Live phoned, I nearly gave up on 
their idea that they were willing to come to Zagreb to film us here, so I was 
rather surprised that something suddenly started to happen again on this 
front. We made an appointment for next week and I hope it will happen 
than.

Today was such a day during which I spend the most of the time talking 
with some journalist, in this case a Dutch female journalist, with whom I 
have been in contact, by telephone, a lot of times before, but we never met 
face to face. The stories she wrote about the media in war, for which I was 
one of the sources, won a price in the Netherlands and now she came to 
make a long story about the changes in the normal life's in Croatia since the 
Croatian break away of Yugoslavia. I talked with here for nearly 6 and half 
hours and than you start to imagine how much also have happened to 
myself in the last year. How much fear for war and violence a lost, how 
much prejudices of me has changed over the last year and all those things I 
have seen with my own eyes, which I only knew from the history books. 
Above all how normal I experiences living in a country of war, or rather in 
violence peace, after a year.

The war in BiH get's worst in the last days, even Owen admit that in one of 
the many interviews he is given every day. I was watching with an half eye 
the news tonight at HTV and saw thousand of obvious Croatian refugees 
from central Bosnia who were camping for the time being on a big grass 
land next to the road from Travnik to Vitez (if I recognised it right), most of 
them had to run and couldn't take anything with them, only a few came with 
their cars, but most are laying in the grass without any protection. Probably 
this refugees will be brought to Caplijna and the other cities and villages 
around  west Hercegovina. I just organised a small convoy to the Muslim 
refugee camp in Caplijna but I can imagine that we will have some problems 
when we bring the materials only to the Muslim refugees, when at the same 
moment thousands of Croatian refugees will arrive in the town. Hopefully I 
can convince the group who is bringing it that we have to split the materials 
between the Muslim and Croat refugees in order to avoid more tentions then 
necessary, but since it comes down with a relief organisation of Bosnian 
Muslim from the Netherlands this will be a difficult tasks I think, but who 
knows....

During the interviews with this refugees I picked up words like "Muslimani" 
and "Mojahadin", spoken by emotional women which nearly scream this 
words into the microphone. 

In Novi Travnik a Muslim convoy of 450 trucks on their way to Tuzla was 
attacked and some of the drivers were killed, the convoy stands now in front 
of one of the many HVO roadblocks. This convoy, organised by the people 
from Tuzla didn't get any UNPROFOR protection, since the policy is that 
private, not UNHCR, organised convoys don't get this protection. But when 
the attack took place the local UK UNPROFOR commander decided to 
bring in his Warriors anyway, in the small fight they had with the local HVO 
troops they shoot a few rounds with their supper guns and killed 2 Croats.
 
Also the same Britforce battalion of Vitez came in a heavy fight with Muslim 
troops in a village called Novoj Bille in a try to liberate about 200 Croats 
which were hiding in a monastery there. For the first time in the short history 
of the BiH war is really getting into the fights. They evacuated the people 
from the monastery and brought them to Travnik.

In Split about 2000 Croatian refugees from BiH arrived today, but 
immediately after they arrived they heard that they weren't welcome in 
Croatia and will be send back in the coming days into BiH, probably to 
Caplijna. The reactions of course were of surprised, anger and being afraid 
of going back. They protested heavily against the plans of bringing them 
back, but I think that it will happen anyway.

The arriving of this refugees was given as one of the reason for the earlier 
than planned return of Tudjman from China, the other official reason was 
the new fights in central Bosnia. Tomorrow there will a special meeting of 
the security council of Croatia. Izetbegovic blamed today Boban for not 
keeping the promises he made in Medjugorje.

A rumour is going around that a Muslim group has forced at gunpoint an 
UNPROFOR group to leave their cars and hand over their arms. Since I 
heard it only on one news broadcasting I am not sure. 

Today Petrovic was brought to his last resting place, who died at Monday in 
a car crash on a German high way. The best Croatian basketball player of 
all time, it was said. Thousands of people paid their last respects yesterday 
and it was strange for me as "cold" westerner to see strong proud guys, 
fans, crying and totally broken. Petrovic was the star player in the Croatian 
team who beat the Russians during the Olympic games, and became one of 
the national heroes. To think of it, up to now I haven't really noticed a 
fighting (in the army) hero in Croatia. Most of the famous figure heads are 
sporters or singers (besides Tudjman of course).

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 ##