Nachricht Nummer : 397
Übertragungszeit : 3 min 39 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam)
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary on 6 February, 1994
Kopienempfänger  : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA
Erstellungsdatum : 07.02.1994 08:16:00 W+1

Zagreb Diary 6 February, 1994

Dobar dan,

This morning I had a radio interview about a topic about which I don't 
really like to talk. In a couple of days the European Community seems to 
vote about a boycott against Croatia and now are all kind of Dutch media 
people tracking me down to have a few words about the Croatian Army 
in Bosnia and what I think about a boycott. Maybe I have lost my 
neutrality a bit during the last two years or I don't see what the rest of 
the world seems to see. But suddenly the Croatian participation in 
Bosnia is a big question, still beside the mobilisation from in Croatian 
living Croats with BiH pasport (some times already for more than ten 
years) in December and January nothing really big happened. As far as 
I know there haven't been suddenly thousands of Croatian soldiers 
passing the border of Croatia in the direction of middle Bosnia. 

Of course there maybe a few thousands Croats from Croatian with 
Croatian pasport fighting in central Bosnia and the government in 
Croatia is not particular playing a low level role in the fighting's, but 
since months nothing really special happens. Besides that I am against 
boycotts as a whole after I have seen the nearly none effect of the 
Yugoslavian Arms embargo which years ago and the uses who 
Milosevic has made so far from the rump Yugoslavia boycott, at least so 
far. 

Besides from the fact that hardly nobody in Croatia takes the threat of 
boycott serious, it is not the first time and people take the threat of 
boycott as the Bosnian Serbian fighters believe the threat that they are 
being bombed if they don't give the UN the possibility to land on Tuzla 
airport, with other words not at ll. Nevertheless even when there is going 
to be a boycott, it will have not so much influences on Croatia in the 
beginning, other than political. There is hardly any money on foreign 
banks, the border is too big to really be controlled. 

But a situation like in Serbia, where it is still unclear if the boycott or the 
politicians and the black marketers are actually responsible for the 
economical collapse would probably be not the best what could happen 
towards Croatia. And for that matter towards the 300.000 or more 
Bosnian (Muslim) refugees in this country. It will for sure be oil on the 
fire of the extremists and a a slap in the face of all who believe that 
Croatia is slowly busy with a normalisation process now the economy is 
slowly starting to stand on his own legs.

Anyway a bit of a boycott is already going on, not in Croatia, but at the 
Slovenia-Austria and Slovenia-Italy border. Since a few months the 
Slovenes are asking for taxes from Humanitarian Aid convoys and cars, 
especially when their papers are not 100% in order, which is happening 
a lot, not every private group or initiative, which is coming for the first 
time knows precisely what papers they need (and it is very hard to find 
out). The result is that they have to pay import tax at the border, which 
they get back at the Croatian border, minus, of course, the cost of the 
transit papers. Some small private convoys suddenly had to deposit 
sums like 20.000 DEM and therefor had to return to their country of 
origin.

In the later afternoon I bumped into a guy, who came from Mostar, and 
is now working for some embassy here in Zagreb. The journalist, who 
was still with us wanted to know how it was possible that BiHarmija had 
"suddenly" so many heavy weapons, like tanks and other rolling 
equipment, from which it is clear that not all are been taken from one of 
the other fighting forces. He especially was curious how it was possible 
to get those equipment into surrounded cities like Sarajevo, we all 
started to laugh. "Money, my friend, makes the world go round, their is 
no siege so strong or you will be able to find a corridor which you can 
buy with money". 

"And further on the Croatian coast has nearly over a thousand island, 
from which over 90% is without population, but big enough for small 
aeroplanes to land on. Neither is the Croatian coast guard big enough to 
control all those islands and if they were their monthly income is so low 
that a few thousand extra DEM easy made money is a very serious 
temptation, and you can't blame the guys, they often have to take care 
about their whole family and that is hard with about 200 DEM per 
month." The journalist looked at us and said "I am not made for this part 
of the world", which of course again made us laugh, "There isn't any 
other part of the world were it wouldn't work the same", we replied.

We drank our coffee and each of us was in his own mind, the journalist 
thinking about what we had said, his girlfriend, who just came out of 
Sarajevo, thinking about the fact that for the first time in two years she 
was sitting with her back to the crowd (outside a pub in the sun), 
probably also thinking about the 66 people who had been killed 
yesterday, when a grenade fell on the "green market" in Sarajevo, the 
guy from Mostar about his beautiful town, which is nearly shot to pieces, 
his girlfriend, about the hometown of her family, Sibenik, where 
according to her the war is still on, and I, as always I think about how 
this whole mass has to be cleaned up ones and that for the coming 
years this area will be "my homeland".

Mir from somewhere in Hrvatska,

							Wam
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