Nachricht Nummer : 376 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 57 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 10 January, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 10.01.1994 14:14:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 10 January, 1994 Dobar dan, This morning David left us, after 2 1/2 months back to the states, to Texas to be precise. 10 weeks he has been following us with his camera, what a relaxed week it was when his camera was broken, and now back home with a week video of this area, a piece from our life here. David asking about peace work, David asking about police, David asking about a question he asked yesterday and he wants a deeper answer. Discussing about the battle at Kosovo (where the Serbs were beaten by the Turks 600 years ago) and white American history (for the white people America was even not existing yet when the battle in Kosovo happened). But above all David who always run out of tape or batteries when something really happened. No, David as David, part of that interculteral school we are living in. Looking through a microscope at a microcosms. Every time when you have done an interview, not only with David but with all those people who are passing by, or phoning, or what ever, you have that feeling. It is every time so easy to tell weird stories how bad everything is and you don't have to go far to find a reason for a story. In front of me stand an empty bottle of Blatina Mostar, a wine produced during or just before the early days of the war in Croatia. On the label the bridge, the Most from Mostar. Or the wrapping of crackers on which somebody has put mini labels with "Croatia" on the line where stood "Product of Yugoslavia". Or a friend who is happy that after two years he get's his Domovnica. You can focus on all the bad things, follow all the stories from the (world) news about this region (although our friend Viktor was mentioned by Reuter today) and everybody thinks that we have to walk around in bullet-proof jackets. There are in Croatia about as much people in bullet-proof jackets as their are people in Holland on wooden shoes and living in windmills. And the amounts of time that a guy points with a gun at you demanding that you are going to order his next brandy since he is too pissed to stand up are countable on the hand of somebody who worked or had worked in a wood factory. They make good stories though. War's you see through your television screen and in your newspapers, not the war, but the front line. That's not war, that is the smallest possible part of it. The rest of the countries are a place were almost everything can remember you in one way or another that there is a war going on somewhere nearby, if you want. If you don't want you experience normal life, since the war often is forced away. Or more often something which has evidential to do with this war in your eyes is a cultural habit of a thousand years old and maybe has something to do with this war but in a total other way than you think. "this is the land of confusion's". One of those moments that you know that it is really bad in f.e. in Sarajevo is when you read in the reports of UNPROFOR that the military observers weren't able anymore to count the shells (because the blast are coming to close after eachother). Mostly this reports slip in with the statistics, some and some many shells of that and that type, came in at that and that time in that and that sector, killing an x amount of people and wounded so and so much. The last week however they can't count the shells anymore, only the wounded and the killed. Than the words of the first UNPROFOR commander come back in your memory, he said on a day that he hated cease-fires, every time when they were announced the fighting and shelling got worst (I think he said that somewhere in the autumn of 92). There was a Christmas cease-fire agreed, so maybe that's the reason that UNPROFOR is able to count the shells. Just a few minutes after I wrote these lines about Mackenzie I checked my mailbox if the afternoon mail brought something new and I was confronted with some parts from the message said it was written by Mackenzie and called "Peacekeeper". Maybe it's me been formed by living in a country in which facts, rumours and misleading (propaganda) campaigns makes you alert, maybe it is just being paranoid, but after reading it I first would really like to know if Mackenzie really wrote this book and if the quote's are real and secondly what he wrote on the other 200 pages which weren't been quoted. News, rumours coming in by Email are not particular always the most trustful ones, for that matter I could be sitting somewhere in Germany (as my .DE extension says) and just pretend that I am in Zagreb. It is more than surprising that almost all commanding and lower officers who are stationed in Sarajevo, but also elsewhere in these region, start to be rather honest in their criticism towards the UN, the press, the warring parties, and how they feel during their job down there (if you heard all the criticism of the Belgian General who is going to split this month you also will be surprised). I recognize parts of those feelings, even being far outside Sarajevo. The reality inside is so different as the picture in the media's and all what you say or write is only been used to give fundaments for that picture. For one or another reason all other things you tell are filtered out. So if Mackenzie really wrote that book I really would like to read it, just to know if the rest of the book is so bad, that this were the best quote's. But above all the find out of the rest of the book was filtered out to make Mackenzie become one sided in his remarks. With other words even if what you read is true, the way it is presented to you already makes the difference. A story has two, three, hundred sides. But maybe as said it can be a form of war paranoia and it could be easily been cured by seeing things more black and white. 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 ##