Nachricht Nummer : 422 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 41 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 23 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 18:43:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 23 February, 1994 Dobar dan, At last the snail has arrived in Pakrac, or maybe some by-passing UNPROFOR car has picked him up, anyway after nearly 2 days the order came from Daruvar to Pakrac (16 Kilometer) and Lynette and the Muppet are allowed to go home to their houses at the "other side". They were very happy about it, since it is always hard to disappoint people and in the last two days they couldn't reach out to the children and the people they had appointments with. This afternoon they will walk back home. I went today to Slavonski Brod via the road to Pozega to pick up humanitarian aid (toys and other material for children) send by a friend from Germany. About a month ago I never would have taken that road, in the end of last year some people were killed on that road and all the time it was known of being unsafe. The only ones who regularly take it are the UNPROFOR and the Croatian police car and the last ones are driving full speed. So I was a little nerved driving passed the house where in the autumn a group of people were killed by a home-made landmine (which I saw happening from nearby) and going up a road I never took before. The safest way to Slavonski Brod is going all the way up to the northern passing and than via Osijek and than south, which is about 200 more in one direction. After leaving Pakrac we drove for always half a hour or more through deserted villages, which didn't really look if they have been in heavy fighting, like the village you pass by coming into Pakrac from Kutina. They are all blown up in the period after the real fighting. Somebody told me one day that at least 93 of this former Serbian village totally has been destroyed, at that time I thought it was propaganda, but after seeing more and more of them I am not so sure anymore. In Pakrac I heard ones the story that a HV tank division came to help them from Bjelovar and when this division passed by one of those Serbian village somebody told them who use to life there and they started to shot around. By the time the came to Pakrac to had no grenade's left anymore and had to return to their base to get a new load. I don't know if that story is real, but it is one of those things people tell you. I don't know how many village's we passed, but it was kilometer after kilometer of destroyed houses, where absolutely nobody can life. This part of the sector is not cleaned up like the western part. Every so much kilometer we passed by a Croatian policepost, houses covered with sandbags to protect the guy if any shooting would happen. At least in front of two of them we saw policemen building a big snowman. I was laughing when I show it, since it proofs that the situation is not as tentions as it use to be. On a certain moment we passed by about 4 police cars which were standing on the road side having a chat with eachother. I looked at the guys and realised that I all know them from Pakrac and so did they, we greet eachother other and passed by another 10 kilometer of destroyed houses until we came to the first bridge which was still workable. Slowly we came back in the "normal" world after passing 3 UNPROFOR checkpoints, so we couldn't really figure out if we were still inside the UNPA zone or not. But by the time that all the houses were undamaged and we saw children on their way to school we were sure that we have left to sector. We passed by Pozega and drove down to Slavonski Brod, on the road signs cities like Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bosanski Brod and Banja Luka appeared, with distances, which are reachable within a couple of hours or less. Only nowadays you can forget it, you can't even cross the bridge at Slavonski Brod to Bosanski Brod, which is less than a kilometer. Driving into Slavonski Brod we saw the highway which is never finished, when the war started they were as far as this town and the building of the big motel and gas stations has been stopped. On one of the wall near the motorway we saw "AuslEnder Raus" (foreigners out, (it should have been "auslAnder raus", so it was clear that the one who wrote it was not German), a term you see often in some German town's and is meant against guestworkers, like people from Turkey, Marocco and a lot from former Yugoslavia. I am wondering against whom the writer of this line was protesting. Driving into the town I was surprised how well it looked, up to at least 14 months ago this town was still under heavy shelling, not a day went by without reports of new incoming grenades. Nowadays the town is really alive again, the streets are full with people and cars and not for one minute you have the feeling that you are so close to the front-line. In the few hours that we spend in the city, searching for a street which got a new name, which of course nobody knew at the moment, we hardly saw any soldiers. Also the hospital and all the other parts of the town which where heavily damaged about a year ago looked rather "normal" again. If you don't know that this town was under so much fire you hardly wouldn't have notice it at the moment. Like Osijek this town has been been able to "rebuild" itself in no time, of course at a second look you see the broken part and the grenade hole in the road, but after you have seen town like Pakrac and f.e. Mostar this looks a lot more liveable. 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 ##