Nachricht Nummer : 407 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 32 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 12 February, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 16.02.1994 14:26:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 12 February, 1994 Dobar dan, A Volkswagen van full German officials from some kind of Christian Humanitarian organisation can believe their eyes. In front of one of the old Buducnost (future) supermarkets, just over the Pakra, when you come into the center of the town from the UNPROFOR building, which use to be the local main hotel they found the strangest bunch of people which ever have been gathered in this town, dancing, singing, laughing, drinking, eating special Slavonia pastry and having a lot of fun. After 5 minutes looking at this scene, one of the Germans comes out and ask what is going on, if the war is over or so. The police agent helps him out of a dream, no this is carneval (at the front line). The whole story started a week ago, when somebody from the volunteers remembered that it is carneval this weekend and the next coming three days. Having a mixture in the camp from people out of area's of Europe where carneval is the major three days of the year the reason is not hard to understand. Also here in Slavonia among the Catholics it seems that carneval was something which wasn't forgotten. So the volunteers went to the local Police chef and asked permission to organise a public carneval parade in the town. During the activities with children in Papega (the former discotheque from Pakrac, which is rented now for the social activities) they started to make masks and some kind of costumes and slowly some 40 kids were involved in the preparation of this scene. It started this morning all quiet with a visit of Georg and another friend from East Berlin, who would like to know what happened since Christmas, but after this serious part I left with them to the secondary school, next to the UNPROFOR building, were some volunteers in costumes already had gathered, which a group of local police and some UNPROFOR soldiers. The starting activity was namely a running competition (a rally) between three teams, UNPROFOR, local police and volunteers. Unfortunately the police team didn't show up, but at least 15 or more police agents, and three police cars were involved to control the traffic and to accompany the runners (with sirens and bleu lights). For the first time the volunteers beat the UNPROFOR in a direct sport confrontation, The commander did his best to push his soldiers to run faster but it didn't help. After that the parade should start, but the 76 battalion, a music group from Prekopakra, which plays nice Slavonian folk music (which little Ustasa stickers on their instrument) forgot were their drums were and we had to wait another hour. In that time almost 75 or more children and their parents gathered and when we left to place it really looked like a parade. Behind the behind the local children and their parents, than our transport bike, with on it one Tom, of our Belgium volunteers dressed up as a hippie playing more rock than carneval songs and behind that our van, dressed up in nice colours and full with peace and yin and yang symbols. On the roof of the van dancing and swinging volunteers, two UNPROFOR soldiers and some local kids, behind that the car from Fabrice, who just wanted to pass the town and ended up in the parade (Fabrice is the UNHCR responsible from Darovar and he couldn't believe his eyes). Every meter the group became bigger and people hang out their windows, for the first time we could realise how many houses in the center of the town are now used. After a while Carlos, our favourite UNPROFOR soldier, took over the guitar from Tom and the Latin rhythms came into to party, also more of them joint to spectacle. After a full circle through the Croatian part of the town we stopped in front of the Buducnost and the dance went on. The commander showed to have a beautiful voice and for at least two more hours people were dancing, singing and making fun together. The children had great fun, but also their parents couldn't believe their eyes, this was happening in their town, in front of a total destroyed building, but everybody forget about it. A lady, who reacted very strongly on us when we started to work on the "other side", she lost her husband in the war, saw it and went home to return with fresh back special Slavonian carneval pastry. A shop owner nearby offered beer and chocolate for the children for a special price and more UNPROFOR soldiers came out of their compound to join Carlos and their commander and the colourful chaos on the street. When I arrived here about 7 months ago I never would ever dreamed that something like this could have happened, so the rest of the day I really wasn't in a mood of talking about very serious things. When Fabrice came back from the "other side" to show us full proud his just born son, but also said that we needed to improve the security for our volunteers on that side, now the NATO ultimatum is getting closer I just congratulate him with his son and told him that there is a next day tomorrow, but that it was carneval for us today and that work was shut down for a day....... 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. 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