Nachricht Nummer : 106 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 40 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 17 May 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 19.05.1993 09:07:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 17 May, 1993 Dobar dan, So attached to my back is a nice little blue plastic card stating that I am working for an organisation which has a working co-operation with UNHCR, this is the famous UNHCR pass, which is one of the only visible the war souvenirs, which I will bring home whenever that will be. It is however more and more unclear when that will be. The invisible war souvenirs are stored in my head as experiences which I never ever would have believed to have to live through about 1 1/2 year ago. The bleu UNHCR ticket is handy when I want to pass the front lines, but it seems to be also a ticket for the local buses and trams, that was told to me, we will see, it safe some money. In the buses and trams you often experiences such small little scenes which remind you that you are not in a real normal city, even when it looks that way. This morning I was sitting behind a young man who had a coat on with on it something different than the normal American University or baseball signs, which you often see, it had the words "This is a donation from the West Coast Red Cross to Croatia " on it. Thanks to the people in the West Coast I would say, but such a person in such a coat is marked, everybody knows his status just by looking at his coat. I was used to boxes with all kind of marks on it from all kind of humanitarian organisations, but something like this I only had seen so far on blankets, never on clothes. One tram stop a war veteran enter the tram, he missed his right leg and hand. When the tram starts to drive he starts to speak loudly to all the people, pointing on his missing body parts. Unfortunately I can't follow all what he is saying, but the point is clear he lost his ability to work in his offer to help the his country and is now without income. After his speech he goes through the tram to collect money, most people have suddenly more interest for the scenery outside and look away. Which is also very understandable, most people in the tram have to same problem as this man, namely how to survive with hardly nothing. That outside the most expensive cars pass by and the restaurants are filled up again with people who can effort it doesn't mean that most of the people in Croatia have a good income. The people in the tram look ashamed. The financial for war veterans is not cleared yet, but more problematic is the situation for young mothers with small children, who lost their husband or friend in the war. Especially those who lost them in the early days of the war when the situation was so chaotic that nobody knows who was in the army and at the front and who wasn't, people went as volunteers and registration wasn't particular the first thing to think about. It will takes year to find out what happened. All that time people have to survive from small paid legal or illegal jobs, charity gifts or family. Charity and humanitarian organisations enough for the time being, I was typing in the list of at ICVA known organisations and that already had 98 entries. And in that list I missed at least 26 organisations from which I know that they are existing, but I am sure that that is still a top of the ice berg (mountain), humanitarian aid is still one of the biggest turn over in the country. And at the moment that I am walking through this peaceful city just 250 Km down the road in Brcko the fights continue, it is more or less clear that the referendum will have a negative answer on the Vance-Owen peace plan, soldiers were taken in trucks from the front-line to the voting stations in order to vote NO (the interviews on Banja Luka television didn't particular sounded peace minded and sick of war). The situation in Mostar is also not quiet, some reports came in that the armoured cars from the Spanish UNPROFOR were hit by some sniper fire. Don't worry those cars are strong enough. Strange by the way how you start to think if you have been in front-lines and besieged cities. Rather than really feeling sorry for somebody when he or she is hit on the street, you have this mentality that it is her or his own mistake. Therefore I can't understand totally the story which is travelling around in Zagreb about a man in Sarajevo who went over a street and was hit. His friend was with him and experienced his friend dying in his arms. According to the story this friend is now totally traumatised. Somehow I was surprised by this story, first question was why his friend wasn't hit, since somebody sitting at the middle of the street is a perfect target for snipers and why is only one shot. Since the story is told by different people who explain that the traumatised friend is a friend of theirs I get the feeling that it maybe happened, but also that it is a made up story. My experience in this war is that in those and simular cases people are not really getting traumatised, or at least not directly. It is also a story which you hear in Zagreb and not in the front-line cities. Zagreb and most of it's civilians went practical unhurt through the war, so far. Months ago I wrote that the Beograd weekly Vreme wasn't available in Zagreb anymore, that has changed again in the main time. There seems to be still contact between Radio 101 and radio BG in Beograd, since every week a few hundred copies are brought from there to be sold in Zagreb, not enough to satisfy the needs in this town (Vreme is still very popular), but at least those who know were to get it are lucky. 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 ##