Nachricht Nummer : 416 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 31 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 19 February, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 25.02.1994 13:19:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 19 February, 1994 Dobar dan, When we woke up it was still snowing, outside there is laying about half a meter now and as always the snow covers all the hard views in Pakrac, under the snow the town looks peaceful and quiet. Still you can hear the dogs barking around the town. A nice noise, considering that all the animals were killed or disappeared during the fighting's, when we came here in the summer there were hardly any dogs around. I went relative early to bed last night, Davor, the reporter of the local newspaper, had his last evening as unmarried man, but after the second beer glass with whiskey I decided that I had enough and continuing drinking would make it hard to fight my bed in the night. I just started to write my diary and Lynette and the Muppets, who are living at the "other side" came in. They told that there are some problems in the southern part of the sector. And that the total Serbian part was closed off. At first I thought that she meant that the Serbian authorities had made that decision but soon it became clear that the order came from UNPROFOR. This morning Krieger, the commander of the Argentinean UNPROFOR troops in the Serbian part of Pakrac told them that he more or less got the orders to evacuated them from the area, but that if they want to stay they could stay, but when they decided to go back to the Croatian part they probably couldn't come back to their part of the town. They sit down in the UNPROFOR house on the Serbian side and Krieger showed them some video's from landmine explosions nearby and other video's they were copying, since this battalion will leave in two weeks and they like to take some souvenirs with them. It was hard to find out what really happened but finally it became slowly clear. Yesterday morning about 100 heavy armed Bosnian Serbian soldiers appeared at the Sava Bridge near to Bosanska Gradiska in the ultra southern part of the sector, this bridge forms the only connection between the Serbian Krajina controlled part and Serbian Bosnia Republic (with other words the only supply line for all people in the southern part of the sector). They came with some tanks and pushed the Nepal UNPROFOR soldiers, who used to bridge as checkpoint, with some intimidation of the bridge. The Nepal battalion brought in their tanks and stopped the soldiers coming over the bridge. Most likely this action of the Bosnian Serbs have to do with the ultimatum around Sarajevo. Already they tried to take the UNHCR workers, who closed down their operation this week in Banja Luka. The idea is that this group of fighters is trying to surround the Nepal barracks in order to more or less take those soldiers as exchange for possible airstrikes around Sarajevo and Tuzla. Since it is months go that heavy weapons came into the sector the force commander in chief in Zagreb ordered special security actions. And as far as we know now all civil UN personal, besides our volunteers, also UNHCR, UNCIVPOL and all civilians working for UNPROFOR are not allowed to travel over the cease-fire line. Although the UNCIVPOL office in Okucani, the biggest town south in the sector, very near to the bridge is still in operation. The whole story also appeared on Croatian television, but also they didn't put much attention to it. The undertone was that the whole action had more to do with the relationship between the Bosnian Serbs and UNPROFOR, than a try to bring heavy arms into Sector West in order to start new fighting around the cease-fire line. But you never know of course. We hope for the best that things will cool off during the coming days. Further on I had a long meeting with our new co-leader Zjelko, who is a refugee from Sarajevo and hopefully will join our group in Pakrac during the coming months. Things in her home-town seems to cool down a lot, the message's from down there are very positive. The minister of foreign affairs from Croatia, Mr. Granic went today to Frankfurt in order to have talks with the BiH premier Mr. Haris Silajdzic in order to establish better relations between the Croats and the Muslims. Nevertheless the fighting's between HVO and BiHarmija in the Kiseljak area, Lasva Valley and Vitez are still continuing. Mr. Karadzic, however promised that all the heavy weapons will be under UN control by tomorrow 12 o'clock. Also Izetbegovic made the same promise, he said that all mortars and other heavy armament will be brought out of Sarajevo, outside the 20 kilometer circle. He didn't explain however how BiHarmija is able to bring out the weapons who are situated in parts of the town which are totally surrounded by Bosnian Serbian Army. The last news I picked up from the television today was that the talks about the Croatian army involvement in BiH within the security council of the UN will be post-pond until somewhere next week. During the day the snow kept on falling and the planned trip to pick up material from Slavonski Brod today we had to cancel since the road look impossible to drive on. 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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