Nachricht Nummer : 419 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 20 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 15:11:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 20 February, 1994 Dobar dan, At the moment that I am writing this I am looking at the clock, in two hours the ultimatum will come to an end. And I must say that I am counting the minutes. The rumour is that the ultimatum is delayed with two more days, two more days of tension, will it happen or is this storm blowing over again. Or will they really drop their bombs this time and what will happen next. The talks about intensify and although most people are rather sceptical about the real possibility that something will happen we are discussing with each other what can happen, especially afterwards. We are also sceptical about the sudden quietness, besides the tension in the southern part of the sector around the bridge. It is all so unclear again and you start to realise how close everything is from here. I have to tell the volunteers again that where ever we are in Croatia we are always in range of the heavy guns and who knows what the reaction will be. Tudjman made more or less clear in the last days that he is also not so in fever of the NATO solution. From Sarajevo the messages are coming that the Bosnian Serbian Army does their best to get their heavy weapons, but that the snowfall from the last days has given them a hard time, it is not so easy to manoeuvre their tanks out. "Freedom is just another word for nothing leave to loose" It is real quiet in and around Pakrac in the last weeks, Pakraci List wrote some days ago that the town never have been so safe and so quiet before in the last 4 years. So everybody was a little surprised when this afternoon we heard suddenly at sun down a salvo of a automatic gun in the middle of the town. You can expect that on Saturday evenings when there are weddings, but even than it was quiet. It took some hours before the news travelled around the small city. But in the evening the story arrived in Skorpija. Somebody had killed his wife, there were so wedding problems, but above all financial problem and today the man took up his gun after another fight between the two and shot her right in front of their children. A story like this is not new in Pakrac, a few weeks back somebody else committed suicide and it is known that there are a lot of domestic violence going on around the town, both between husband and wives as well as between parents and children. It maybe sounds strange to you, diary, but this is a part of the normalisation process of this town. I have seen it happening in Zagreb two years ago when I arrived, in that time (and still is) also a lot of things like that happened. It has to do, I think, with the fact that people are realising that the war is more or less over and that normal life has to start again. So the time that you are just surviving are literally have to fight to stay alive is over and people are thinking about their future again. And for the time being there is not much future visible in this town. The houses are destroyed, some people, especially those who started to life in the high houses near the front-line have no water, no electric, not even windows, grenades and firebombs has burned everything in side and when you come in it looks more like living in some kind of black cave than on the 5 floor of a modern high house. Suddenly people are realising than life goes on and that they have big money problems, some people have created their own job, but most are relaying on the police or the local working brigades or get some kind of pension as war invalid, but a lot are un-employed without regular income. But even those who have a "job" or other payment via the state have a hard time. Most people in the working brigades on this side haven't recieved any payment in the last 2 months f.e.. This things is what make people tens, small "normal" domestic problems are raising to unslovable problems. Man who have been on the front-line, who lived under life-threatening conditions, and from whom most have just their arms to kill are not always able solve their fights in a none violent way. Grenade and riffles are still around. "It is a long hard road, till we will be free" I have been missing the message's from the activities of UNHCR on our network the last week, normally we get daily updates from all their activities, but it seems that at the beginning of the week somebody has broken into their building and stole 35.000 dollar of computer equipment from there, among those machine their network computer. So I am glad when I got via other channels the update that ICRC (International Red Cross) has been able to deliver over 1000 tons of food to displaced people in BiH in the last week. The have organised 19 convoys. Further more than have been served one hot meal per day to 15.000 people in Sarajevo, flying in 80 tons of food per day with two flights from Zagreb. The situation at the moment in Sarajevo seems to be so quiet to all this things are suddenly possible again. Let hope it will stay that way and that the heavy days for them are over. 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 ##