Nachricht Nummer : 316 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 31 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 28 November, 1993 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 06.12.1993 16:05:00 W+1 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 28 November, 1993 Dobar dan, It is already dark when I went together with Annette to a small village next to Pakrac and the "other side", after some searching we find a small community house, were there is coming light out of the window. Since a few weeks there are generators on this side, so the people are able to use their electric machines again, through most of the windows you see the blue lights of a working television, when we drive by I recognize that most are watching the Croatian station, at least I think that I recognize the news reader (later it is proofed to be true). In the cold hall, their is no money to heat it hangs in the middle a small electric light and a few dozens of children with their mothers are dancing on Estonian and Scandinavian folks songs. Kristof starts his act and learns the children how to juggle, you see that every body, at the least the grown ups, is doing their best to get warm, but that the children don't mind the cold. With red faces they are watching what Kristof teached them. It is looking if a magician came to town in the middle ages, although they watch television this is something special. The high point is when Kristof explain them that they can keep their rainbow coloured balls, you see that they don't really believe it. For nearly two hours the show goes on an the children are nearly in tears when we finally went. Of course we can't get away from this village without visiting some people, they prepared a meal for us and Asa and the Austrian girl, Beate, are a little bit surprised that they are the only women around the table, the house wife and her daughters are serving us, but they don't eat a thing. Beate is already a little used to this role model, since she has been here nearly two months, but Asa has some problems with it, I tell her in Swedish that she must accept it, since it is the custom of this area, worst even in BiH, were some farmers of a village, which had to evacuated since the front line was coming near, came with their cows and sheep's, instead of the children and wives. First we have to stop the war, I tell her, then we can start with the other things. From this house we went to the next one and the whole thing starts again, besides the food they keep our glasses with rakija full and after a while I am too afraid to drink since this can go on the whole night. Finally we drive slipping over the ice back to Okucani, were in the pub of his parents Simo is waiting for us, we decided to drink a coffee, which turns into a beer and than the commander of the local military police comes in. An old guy from about 70, whole looks if he has found back parts of his partisan uniform somewhere on his addict and together with some modern camouflage uniform parts he rather looks like a real fighter. He looks with an open mouth at Simo and ask him how his stay in Zagreb was, Simo replies that it was all right and tell me that UNPROFOR put a zipper on his mouth, not even to me he will tell the whole story. The old guy takes of his gun and places it against the wood stove (after 15 minute I decided that there are no bullets in that gun, otherwise they would already went of because of the heat). Then he turns to Kristof and starts to explain that he has parked his bus totally wrong, since this way he can't protect it against the Ustase, when they would come up the road with their tanks he would not even be able to see them from his checkpoint. Next time we should park our bus behind his house, there it is safe and nobody will hurt it. He looks again at Kristof and me and see our weeks old beards, he goes with his hand over his, obvious not so shaved skin and tells us that he shave himself every day, just to proof that he is not a Chetnik. No we are Chetniks, Chetniks from the North. Kristof tells him that we are lazy, but that we will surely take care that next time we have the most shaved skins in the village. He goes on a bit about his heroic moments in his life, when he was fighting the Chetniks and Ustase and then he sees a young girl sitting next to the gambling machine in the dark (also here the only light comes from a small electric lamp) and still talking to us he is making winks to the girl. The guy is back in his twenties, just as he was in the last war, maybe he even have forgotten which war we are in now and how old he really is. He finish his beer, says again to Kristof that he has to park the bus somewhere else next time and goes for his patrol to see if everybody keeps his rules, people are so dumb he says, they don't know how dangerous it is. We wait until Teet comes back from the bus and go to another bar. This is a bar for young people and is overcrowded, not much to do in Okucani anyway, basically sitting inside and drinking. The prices are sky high if you compare it with the "other side", the beer has to come from Banja Luka and transport is expensive. We pay in DEM's since although the scrapped some months ago 6 zero's at the moment they are back in the 8 figures numbers and we really can get the hold of it what it is worth, but we are not the only ones, also the local people seems to have problems with it. 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 v2.92 ##