Nachricht Nummer : 406 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 45 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 11 February, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 12.02.1994 10:56:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 11 February, 1994 Dobar dan, There are moments in Skorpija that you absolute get weird from the sounds of Motorola's, that in the morning when the normal police, the special police and members from UNCIVPOL sit and drink their morning coffee and beer. On all the tables and on the take there are this small black boxes, with on top of it a small antenna. Every so much minutes one or the other start to whistle, blipping and what every electronic sound you can imagine. Sometimes you hear suddenly a space voice coming out of one of them and the owner goes outside to answer. A concert by the police. After I finished my writing yesterday I walked over the line with the 3 Muppets and Lynette, all ready long before we came to the school the children collected themselves around the Muppets and nearly pulled them the way up the start sooner with the games. For the supermarket (school) a group from at least 30 children was gathered and load screaming they jump on the necks of our three heroes. The Muppetshow live, what do you want. Ten minutes and a lot of noise, during which the children restructured every table and chair in the room, the show started with circles games and later drawing and making puzzles. Since we walk every time we could bring just enough material to have pen's and paper for 40 kids and a few board games, but I have hardly ever seen children being that quiet and concentrated, not one war drawing or Chetnik symbol appeared. After that we went with Simo, who came by by footpatrol (walking 26 kilometres from Okucani, because UNOV has no wheels for him, at the moment, especially since somebody parked the red Peugeot professional against a tree), to one of the bars in town. When we left the Croatian part of Pakrac we were nearly run over by some Police cars who were busy to break the speed record in town, followed by some UNPROFOR and UNCIVPOL vehicles, so probably the special brigades we met yesterday in front of this pub had done their action, on the day that the Serbian journalists visit the town. The guy (a twenty two years old boy, who lived all his life in Switzerland, his father is Serb (guest worker) his mother Swiss and who came two years ago to fight for his "rights as Serb") told us that he also was surprised that they suddenly had to do an action after nearly three months rest. In the bar I tried to check out a bit, but the whole team left. Instead of them we met with the local militia, although local, I figured out that most of them use to life in Zagreb before the war, but when their friends went into the Croatian National Guards they didn't dare to stay behind their and went over the line. Together with them we spend about 2 hours to get a total lists of all the Cyrillic signs, most of them never use them before and the discussion were plenty, almost every character had to be approved by every person in the bar. It was very late when I walked in the dark down to the Croatian part of Pakrac, on my clothes about the half of Krajina, since I missed a grenade hole and ended sliding in the mud. Today the big thing in town was that the School (Anneke's school as everybody call it, although it has a nice Croatian name, the one which is half rebuild now, thanks to a huge action on the BBC), at the least the part which is ready was opened, again a high official from British Red Cross came to be there and all the other "important" people in the area. Jura was proud like hell, since his son Tomislav was the one who had to do the official part of the opening. After the official part Vanja and I walked into the building, showed our faces around, looked at the flocks of three part suits, the sign in the hall "Your fathers fought for it, by welcome back in your school" and left. Later during the day some people in the town came up to us and excused themselves that the stupid red cross and the officials hadn't invited the volunteers, who are in their opinion not only part of the town, but also worked a lot together with the local working brigades on the school. Such excuses are more wealth than an invitation to any official thing. After that we went to visit the opening of a photo exhibition of the fights and the days after Croatian army came in, from the area Pakrac, Lipik and Daruvar. This was the first time that I visit the HDZ building, up to now it wasn't much anyway, but in the last week they seem to have worked as idiots to get the room ready for this special day. For some of the volunteers the photo's were hard to recognize, even the fact that they were taken from street which they daily pass. The chaos of stones, broken glass, trees, burned out cars, falling down walls camouflage the town as we know it now. That was how the town looked like when I visit it the first time and than you start to realise what has happened in the last 1 1/2 year. The rest of the day I spend discussing the space problems we have, it is fantastic that so many people and press want to visit the war zone and they should keep on coming, as the aid for the children and other social activities, but some of us are now already sharing single beds for over two months, not because they love eachother, but simply since there is no other place to sleep. And we are still in the middle of the winter, although outside it looks if the spring will come fast, but with the spring wouldn't only come the normal birds, but also more peace..... 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.comlink.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.comlink.de, to order a file send a message with subject "SEND " to same address. ## CrossPoint v2.93 ##