Nachricht Nummer : 274
Übertragungszeit : 5 min 49 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary  15 September - 15 October 
Erstellungsdatum : 17.10.1993 16:51:00 W+1

Realname: Wam Kat

Zagreb Diary 15 September - 15 October 1993 (2)

Dobar dan,

Of course the discussions in the train are not standard for all 
discussions I have had in the Netherlands when I was there, every 
where in the country I met peace and support groups, which knew, lucky 
me, a little bit more about what was going on. As a big surprise for me 
came the fact that my diary has become a regular source of information. 
And now back in Zagreb, looking at our own system I noticed that the 
information stream in Zagreb hasn't stopped in the time that I was away. 
From different person you have been provided with information, which 
normally didn't been shown and noticed in the Western media.

In this part of this rather long entry of the diary I want to emphasise a 
little on those not so well known information, especially one case. In the 
time that I was gone some things has been happening which change the 
situation of our work a lot. Or let's say change the political tension we 
work under a lot.

First of all the fact that the office of Dalmatian Action (DA) in Split has 
been blown up. When I first heard it I thought that the whole nice old 
corner building in the old centre of Split was demolished, but that is 
lucky not the case. According to the Croatian police report, about 200 
grams of explosives were used in the stairway of the building, which 
destroyed the stair sup the office of DA, but the office itself was 
practically undamaged as well as most of the rest of the building. This 
place at the staircase was relatively public, nearly everybody have free 
entrance to this part of the building. 

It was and is by the way not the only in town bombing which took place 
in Split in the last months. Like in other town also in Split regularly pub's, 
shop's and houses has been destroyed by an explosion, nearly daily 
you can read in the papers that somewhere in the country somebodies 
house or car has been blown up. Most of this explosions have 
absolutely nothing to do with politics, it is just the way fights have been 
solved in a country full of weapons and explosives. And I must say you 
don't notice anything of it when you live here, beside from the small 
articles in the papers.

The bombing of DA, however, gives a political taste in your mouth. Like 
the bombing of a building some months ago, from which the rumour 
went around that Feral Tribune or another "free" daily newspaper, would 
like to use that place to print or put together their magazine. Some 
rumours directly after the bombing at DA said that it was done by a wing 
from DA, which was disagree with the leading political line in the party. 
In the last months there has been some struggle about the political line 
in the party, even some people have been thrown out of the party. DA 
has won a lot of support in Dalmatia over the last year, according to a 
poll done by SD (the Dalmatian Newspaper), but which is never been 
published, the two biggest parties in Dalmatia at this moment would be 
HSLS (the liberal party) and DA, HDZ would loose almost everywhere 
their majority. 

Very fast after the bombing some people were arrested, from all those 
other bombings the arresting rate is next to nothing. But in this case 
after the first 2, very soon 7 others were arrested and two days later 
another couple (among them the husband of the only PM of and 
president of DA). Also the fax machine and a lot of diskettes were 
arrested. From this 11 people 10 are member of DA and most belong to 
the core group of DA, which are now accused, or rather they are not 
accused yet, since they are arrested by the military police and are in a 
military jail, they can be in jail for at least 6 months before any real court 
case have to take place and proof has to be presented of their guilt, any 
way they were seen guilty for blowing up there own office and planning 
more terrorists action, more or less. From people who were allowed to 
visit them in jail, after it first took some days to find out were they where, 
the stories came that some of them have been beaten in jail and that 
most of the questions they had to answer had nothing to do with the 
bombing, but everything with the party, the organisation, the place were 
archive and political documentation is stored, the strongest political 
people, etc.   

When the press asked Tudjman in a press conference about regional 
parties, just a few days before the explosion took place, he seemed to 
have said that those parties are terrorists and endangering the safety of 
the Croatian state. Talking with members from DA and reading their 
statements it can't however been said that this is like other regional 
parties in Europe a party which fight for a undepended Dalmatia, like 
other fights for an undepended Lambardia, Basque Country, Fries 
country, or what ever. The party line was more in fever of 
decentralisation of the power in Croatia over all the regions and logical 
in that case against the high centralisation coming from Zagreb.

According to the official police reports in some cases they found 
weapons, guns, ammunition and explosives in the some of the houses of 
the people who were arrested. It is a fact however that in nearly every 
house in Croatia you will be able to find weapons, also in this case it 
were as far as  known weapons which can be considered more or less 
standard of the armies in this region and it is unclear if somebody in 
their family has been or is in the army at the moment. Some rumours say 
that those weapons are putted there by the police, in order to frame the 
people of DA.   

Since I know some of those people who are arrested, I met them just a 
few months ago the last time, I hardly can imagine that any of them 
would be able to use violence in their political struggle, but that of 
course says nothing. I hope that international organisations like 
Amnesty International are soon starting to investigate this case, maybe 
those people really blow up their own office, you never know, but having 
people in jail without a real court-case and serious proof of their guilt is, 
to say it softly, a little spooky.

It is in many ways a strange case. First of all I can't understand that a 
itself democratic calling country can arrest 10 leading members of a 
normal political party, without having 100% proof that those people are 
guilty, beside the accusation that the were guilty for blowing up there 
own office (something from which the deeper political strategy really is 
hard for me to understand, otherwise that you want to blame it on your 
"enemy" or to "offer" their office to get international attention, but that is 
no where said up to now) and remark that they were also planning other 
terrorists attacks (in some press articles a link was made between DA 
and terrorist Serbian groups). As proof is given the fact that weapons 
have been found in some of the homes.

Even after a few days thinking about it and gathering as much as I can 
find on this topic I can't understand why the Croatian government don't 
give a load of information and enough proof to the people in order to 
make clear that this case has nothing to do with politics and is just a 
case of a straight criminal act. That they haven't done that up to now 
show the rumours around this case. Rumours which are even stronger 
since there is a new law coming up in which every journalists or 
newspaper, which publish something which is critical towards the 
government of Croatia can be arrested, but since it is only a proposal 
from the government towards the parliament (in which has the 
governmental party HDZ the absolute majority) the real texts and 
impacts are not clear yet.

Thinking about this case I was wondering why people from DA are now 
picked up and brought to jail, but people from other parties, against 
whom about the same accusation are running and in whose houses and 
offices you probably also will find arms and explosives are running 
around. Not that I would like to have more people in jail, not at all, I only 
try to find out a logic in the Croatian law system. A logic, which makes it 
for me understandable why people get arrested and give me trust that 
Croatia is a democratic country, something which is so hard when 
something like this happens and you are left with so many puzzles. 
Again therefor I hope that important International organisations will do 
there best to clear up this case, so that we get some clear lights on what 
is happening and what has happened there in Split some weeks ago. 
But even when this case get's cleared up, the work will not be finished, 
there are unfortunately thousands of rumours about other cases, maybe 
not as spectacular, but even some more spectacular, then this one, 
which has to be up in the open, but in which country in the world that 
wouldn't be the case.     

Bok I Mir from Zagreb,

							Wam

P.S. For those who don't notice it yet and that is about everybody 
outside Croatia, the telephone country code of Croatia has been 
changed two weeks ago, not 38 anymore but 385, but be not surprised 
when 38 works still in your country and 385 don't, it will take a while 
before the other countries realise that the codes have been changed. In 
the Netherlands nobody at the telephone company knew about it when 
we check it out in the first week of this month.
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all that time in Zagreb.
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