Nachricht Nummer : 432 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 39 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 27 February, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 01.03.1994 22:26:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 27 February, 1994 Dobar dan, It is spring in Zagreb, the spring flower, yellow and purple crocus(es, I don't know the plural name), which reminds my on my own garden I left behind in the Netherlands, them and the real saffron are always giving me a real warm feeling, I had thousands of them in my garden, just to remind me that the winter was over. A few days ago I was still in the middle of half a meter melting snow in Pakrac, last week we had days with minus 15 degrees Celsius. Also in Bosnia the snow is melting it is falling from the roof and probably gave people f.e. in Sarajevo the same shock reactions as I had last year after being in Mostar. You known if suddenly a big pack of snow falls down a roof and you are used to incoming grenade's that sound makes you jump for half a meter. At last it is quiet (at least from gun fire and explosion) and suddenly a small avalanche comes down from a roof a couple of meters away from you, you really thinks this is the end of you. Nevertheless it is spring and the birds return, a saw by the way the last weeks a lot of crows in and around Pakrac and somehow this bird never really makes me happy (to much memories on the film "the birds"). I came in this time about two years ago, or rather made the decision to come in these days. In Pakrac not only snow is coming down after every snow fall also part of the walls are coming down. The snow and the water are getting into the stones and when it is freezing it break them more and more, like the roads. So it is really dangerous when it above zero the wall next to the empty destroyed houses. Not only grenades can destroy houses, now the roofs are gone the houses get more and more destroyed. And not only in Pakrac, every where it is happening with simular houses. Every day, every winter, it takes longer to repair it the destruction goes on and get worst and worst. I was talking with friends in Mostar, one friend of mine, who is in HVO has his brother and parents still in Sarajevo, he knows that I was planning to go there and phoned me if I could help. The problem is that his brother is like him full blood Croats, he has been fighting in the defence of Sarajevo. e got wounded about a year ago but recovered in the last 12 months and is now according to the state of BiH ready to fight gain. As Croat he don't want to fight in BiHarmija, at least not when that armija is fighting against HVO, in which army his brother is an officer. So he ask me if I could find him a job in a humanitarian organisation or something to be able to free him from his army duties. In Zagreb nearly everybody I know who was teacher english or had some International contacts or at least some skills who are useful for foreign organisations and speak at least a few words English are now working for foreign organisations, like UNHCR, ICRC, UNPROFOR, IRC or any other organisation, they are working legal or illegal (without paying the local working taxes, in the last case those people can have a lot of problems with the financial police, which get more and more active). It are the best paid jobs in this region (they pay less than their foreign workers, but still often 4 till 5 times more than every other average job) and give a lot of people work. But it is artificial working places, one day all this organisations will pull out, one after another and leave those people behind. The result is that a lot of the relative young intellectuals have a relative easy time to survive in this mad house. At least if you put them next to the people who weren't that luckily to get such a job. But also that new local initiative and local organisations have a hard time to find skilled people. A local initiative like f.e. the newspaper ARKzin, which is with 10.000 (in one year from 500 to this amount) copies not a small newspaper (two time bigger than f.e. the state weekly Danas), has a hard time finding people who can work for them. Working for a non-profit organisation like ARKzin has to be paid, since hardly nobody get really unemployment benefits and how else can they survive. At this moment the newspaper is feeding direct and indirect about 40 people, which is not particularly a small amount. But 8.000 copies is by far not enough to pay all those people and so my girlfriend Vesna, who is the editor, has a hard time every month of getting the money together. And that is just one of the problem she has. In Croatia there is f.e. also no law for non-profit organisation, which results that profit or non-profit making organisation has to pay the taxes. On top of all of course their political situation, ARKzin is not particular the most governmental loving magazine around. Which makes the situation not particular easier. Anyway ARKzin is just one of the many local initiatives which has this problem. And the reason for me to write about it is to make clear that grenades and wars are not the only problems around. Or rather like people in Sarajevo said to me today by satalite telephone, the guns are not quite yet, but freedom and normal life is a long way ahead, we don't live now under pressure of being killed every day, but we can't leave the city and we can't live a normal live yet, the war and all it problems are not over yet. 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 ##