Nachricht Nummer : 466 Übertragungszeit : 4 min 32 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 1 April, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 12.04.1994 10:46:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 1 April, 1994 Dobar dan, After the funeral and the talk with Jasmina we walk back to the main village to see if the guest from Beograd, from the Center for Antiwar Activities and Most have arrived yet. But we heard that the bus broke down somewhere in Bosnia and that they at least have to stay over somewhere for the night. When I arrive back on the Serbian side this morning, after spending the evening at the "other side" the two boys tell me that the bus some how was fixed during the night and that they arrived late in the evening and found a sleeping place somewhere in another village about 7 kilometer from her. Together with some people from some Swiss organisations we drive up there to get them and discuss some ideas for activities in the summer on this side, which the Swiss have in their mind and have discuss with us in the last months. We also have to get them for a meeting about it we have planned with Dzakula around noon. We drive over the hill to the place they are staying and in the valley on the left side of the road we see the road to Pozega and a few kilometres down the road I recognise the place from which they say the shooting must have taken place about there. We meet our Beograd friends somewhere on the middle of a field road and we kiss eachother and are happy to see eachother back. The both ladies have brought with them two possible volunteers for the summer, who also will leave back to Beograd with them on Monday. We are just in time for the meeting at Dzakula's place and sitting in the sun, enjoying the spring weather we discuss about the project we have in mind. During the summer months we want to build up in the main village a pre-fab building, which can be used as community center. I explained in before hand the others why it has to be pre-fab and looking if it can be removed within a few days. Since most people in the main village are displaced people they are not happy with permanent solutions. They feel that they somehow live in exile from their own city, which lays in the valley and in that city they like to go back, permanent solutions on "this side" are not expectable, otherwise the people will get the feeling that they are trapped here for the rest of their lives. After the meeting the others went to see the possible place and I go with the people from Beograd and Dzakula to visit the family of the dead man. At least that is what I found out at the moment that we walk into the house where his wife, his mother and father are sitting in the living room, loudly crying with pictures of their dead husband and son in their hands. We sit down and I don't really know what to do, I would like to speak the languages to be able to comfort his wife, but even than what could I say, so it is maybe better this way, I anyway feel the atmosphere in the air. After sitting in silent in the living room for about 15 minutes, which looks like half a day, other parts of the family invite us outside to have a meal. And although I have promised on the other side to be on a meeting I decided to stay. After a while it is hard to imagine that we are having dinner outside the house of a person who just die. We are not talking about what has happened but about possible actions and activities in the future. Again the plan comes on the table to invite some high up officials from the Orthodox Church to come to Pakrac and walk down the road, over the checkpoint to visit the Orthodox church and the house of the Orthodox Earth Bishop, which are both on the Croatian side, just 50 meters over the checkpoint (the house of the Earth Bishop is the Croatian Checkpoint). Like the time before that I heard this plan I react that it would be better if they also would invite a high up official from the Catholic Church to come to this meeting. But they explain that it is a message of peace and reconciliation what they want to bring, I say tat I am not so sure if the people in the town of Pakrac will understand it that way. But that I always would be happy if the church could play a role in overcoming the gap between the two part of the city. From the talks I understand that it is just an idea, like so much ideas and that it probably wouldn't happen soon. Last year at a simular occasion the people on the Croatian side organised a blockade near to the UN checkpoint on the Croatian side to make it impossible to reach the Church and the house. They continue with other ideas, with one of the ladies from Beograd has brought with her. I am some times a little afraid during this talk, not knowing really what to say. How can I explain people full of goodwill and beautiful ideas that maybe "people on the other side" wouldn't really understand it the same way as it was meant. Later back on the Croatian side one of the volunteers come up to me complaining that the local working brigades are not working effectively, this morning the people in my group were to tired to do anything, they had spend the whole morning and yesterday evening on their own land, making it ready and seeding it, they just want to sit down and do noting. He is also angry that still no body knows if the local working brigades will be paid next month, or that tomorrow half of them are send home, as been published in the local newspaper today, nobody from the working brigades knows which half that will be. During our talk suddenly the siren goes off and calm him down saying that it is not a grenade attack or something, since in such cases you hear the grenades first and the siren later, and I didn't have heard any explosions. Later it shows that it was an electricity break somewhere. Mir from somewhere in Hrvatska, Wam P.S. for some or another reason I mixed up my notes (I hadn't the time to type into my computer yet) and everything in the diary (since 25 March) happened one day earlier than it was describe, on "April fools" day I found out. So also what happened today happened in reality yesterday. Today was not such a busy day, we waked everybody up (I slept on the Croatian side) who was still asleep after 8 o'clock telling him or her that there was an important phone call waiting in the office and there we had made a big sign above the telephone explaining them which day it was. Further on we had some meetings with the people from Beograd on "the other side" and in the evening some friends, former volunteers arrived, from which one had his birthday, tomorrow, so we stayed up till the moment was there. Late in the evening I walk home and notice that all the streets lights in our part of the town, nearest to the cease-fire line are out. That always add another dimension to the place, probably they are just repairing some cables, but when I go back and asked in Skorpija what is happening, everybody admit that he or she have noticed it, but nobody knows why. ------------------------------------------------------ "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.ztn.zer.de . 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 (postbox 33), 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. Old numbers can be found by sending a message's with as subject "FILES" to pakrac.info@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de, to order a file send a message with subject "SEND " to same address. ## CrossPoint v3.0 ##