Nachricht Nummer : 469 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 58 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 4 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 13:55:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 4 April, 1994 Dobar dan, This morning I went over very early, long before anybody is woken up at this Croatian side of the cease-fire line, it is if the Croatian police at the checkpoint are the only ones still awake. At the other side it is different there it is just another Monday morning, we have appointments with some people in Okucani and have to go there early in the morning. When I come in the breakfast room of our two Beograd friends they welcome me saying that the Patriarch is coming next Thursday on the 7th of April, since that is an important holy day for the Serbs in this region. Besides him also the Earth Bishop comes and a load of Church officials from Beograd. My brain starts to work on top tempo, the Earth Bishop is wanted at the other side of the line, he was on the black list of people, which was published some time ago in Pakraci List. They Croatian police will never move out of their checkpoint if he comes to see his house. And it is market day on Thursday the whole Croatian part of the city will be full in the morning. Further on it is impossible to tell it already today to somebody of the Church since it is Easter on the other side and also most of the UNCIVPOL, UNPROFOR and civil affairs from UNPROFOR are on Easter holidays this week. They tell that it is sure that he will come and that it is not an empty story. In my brain I run down the possible implications. To make me laugh they tell that there was also another idea, from a peace group from Serbia, to make a giant Easter egg on the 2nd of May and stiff it will all kind of peace messages from Serbia to Croatia and roll it down the hill over the checkpoint. I grim more than I laugh. But they continue telling that they told the story to the UNPROFOR commander on this side, who nearly speak 100 words English, although he is getting better. He answered as follows: "Egg, down road. Egg at Checkpoint. Check egg. Egg no blue pass. Egg back." I think I don't recover from laughing. What a land, what a village, welcome to the sea of madness. [note: Although this whole action still have to take place I already write about it, first of all to be able that I don't forget it, but most of all the make clear how things go and maybe after this joke people will except the egg, although it comes a month too late]. We drive down to Okucani and in the car we discuss about all those different plans and what kind of impact they can have on our work. Zoran tries to make up the minute we have lost and soon I don't dare to talk at all, we fly low over the road. And in time we are at UNCIVPOL at Okucani to meet Simo. He notice that we are in a very laughing mood and want's to know what "egg back" means. We explain him and he get the point, nevertheless later during the day he tell that he need to go on Thursday to Pakrac (Serbian side of course) and ask him to meet him there, I try to explain that I don't believe that Thursday will be happening a lot on the work level when the Patriarch is in town, that is more or less the Pope from the Orthodox Church. We meet out friend with his construction firm again and we discuss the possibilities to make a sport field behind the school and if he is able to design and build such a pre-fab construction as we discussed with the Swiss. I more or less explain that I need a type of LEGO construction, which even the biggest un-technical people can build together in a month. He asked me if that is not cheaper in Western Europe, but I tell that even when we get it for free that both the transport costs as well as the nerves to get it over the cease-fire line compensate by far the extra costs we have to pay to let it be constructed in this part, and it also invest some money in the region, which can give possibilities for his sub-contractors. He tells that everything is possible and advice us to drive down on the road to Bosanska Gradiska and look for ourselves at the basketball place he made their and the pre-fabs which are used by UNPROFOR. It is the Nepalese battalion, NepBat, which got their HQ there. So we drive around lunch time down, so that we also can have a lunch their, some real Nepalese food, at last something real vegetarian. In compound Simo shows us and his girlfriend to everybody he knows. And it is nice to see how Simo knows a lot about the Nepalese lifestyle and about the Argentinean and Canadian for that matter. He likes and is open for all other cultures. You can't say that from everybody around here. But he is of course born in his own culture and the first words in Nepalese and Arabic were of course about women, but were does soldiers among eachother talk about. We visit the camp shop from the base and the others buy some beautiful mantra calendars, hand made. When we left the base Simo asked if we can drive his girlfriend to Bosanska Gradiska, but I tell her that we don't go further as the bridge, we don't want to go out of the UNPA with our Dutch, yellow, numberplate. Nema problema, the bridge is just 10 minute walking from my house, she answer. So we drive down, or rather race down on a road full of grenade craters, Simo warns Zoran for each up coming grenade whole in the road. We pass down some totally shot apart villages, also done by the JNA, although the majority in these villages was Serbian. Passing by over a kind of dam the destroyed sub bridge we reach the Sava bridge which was the theatre of some tensions some weeks ago. We drop her of and see walks through the checkpoint and we return in a possible even higher speed back to Okucani for the last meeting her with guy from the youth organisation, and than back to Pakrac, to have some meetings with the people from Beograd before they leave and a joint meeting with the volunteers and the long-termers on the other side this evening. Mir from somewhere in Hrvatska, 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.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 ##