Nachricht Nummer : 379 Übertragungszeit : 4 min 1 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 12 January, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 14.01.1994 10:01:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 12 January, 1994 Dobar dan, Today the newspaper announced that Mercep is going to bring Globus (another independent most commercial weekly, which is specialised in publishing all kind of scandals) to court and ask them for 800.000 DEM for spoiling his good name. Two weeks ago Globus started to publish some documents about Mercep and what his unit had done. This seem to be highly secret documents and the big question was how did Globus got them. For about two weeks the security people and high country politician didn't discuss the content of the document, which is a long list of all kind of war crimes, which have been according to the document committed by Mercep's units, but who has taken it to Globus. Tudjman reacted that he didn't knew the existence of the document, but also was present at the discussions about who in the staff of the government would have been the "spy". Mercep reacted already weeks ago, when he was accused of responsible for a series of war-crimes that whenever he has to go to court he will drag along a lot more people, he said that he know all the names and all the facts. That discussion like this are taking place at this moment in Croatia means that the unity in HDZ (the party from Tudjman, started as a peoples movement for Croatia) is cracking. Since their congress in October and even a bit before, the different wings in the party are publicly "fighting" eachother (in October people were speaking about the "Partisans" (a wing were a lot of old politicians from the former regime are involved, like Mesic, the last president of Yugoslavia) against the "Ustashes" (mostly brand new politicians)). Tudjman up to now was able to stay out of this fight and act as a kind of grey mediator between the two fighting wings, as a father looking at his children. It is obvious that the publication of the Mercep documents are part of this fights. And in his defence it is clear that he is aware of what he and his units has been doing during those first 6 months of the war. A moment that there was a kind of total anarchy and laws and public order were put a side for the time being, the state Croatia is now regaining his control, but in BiH this is still the normal situation (or rather not normal). It also means that when Mercep speaks the true there are more people, and probably also in high places, who are also involved in war crimes or knew from it, or maybe even order it. Up to now Mercep never really denied the accusations by the way. On such a moment it good to hear that the power which parts of the army had given themselves is pushed backwards. After more than a month of quietness in Split, an army unit again started to throw people out of their flats. This are people who live in flats which formerly were from the Yugoslav army (JNA) and now probably are owned by the Croatian Army. Since the beginning of the war people, who lived in those flats, often relatives (or friends) from (former) JNA soldiers (mainly officers), or people who worked in military hospitals or so and since the JNA was the third biggest army of Europe you can imagine that there are a lot of them, were throw out, some times officially with court papers, but also times without any official order what so ever, just an army unit who wanted to have a house for their group or somebody from their group. Yesterday evening two families were threaten again by such a group and they phoned the civil police, up to now the experiences are that civil police is not really willing to stand in a conflict between the armed soldiers and the civilians. But this day an unit of the military police stopped the activities of the soldiers and that sounds hopeful. Tudjman promised in the beginning of December that there wouldn't be any of this thrown outs happening again and he (and the rest of Croatian authorities) seem to keep his promise. In the evening I was together with a friend of mine which works as co- ordinator of social activities in some refugee camps. He had a bad day, since a friend of him just committed suicide, the man was camp-leader of one of the camps and although they think that the basic reason was personal, they know that part of it were the problems, or rather even the (un)normal situation of running and living in a refugee camp (although as foreign camp leader he didn't live in the camp, but near by). My friend was also depressed since the organisation he works for is cutting down on his activities. They like to tell their donors back home how many houses the have build, how money people they have in their settlements and how many metric tons they have distributed. In that list social work is not particular an impressive activity. So a lot of the projects he started in the camps have to be cut down, the organisation who runs the camps accept them, but they shouldn't cost any money. He told me how hard it is at the moment in some camps, especially under the youth. He compared camps were the population has both Croatian and Muslim background (displaced from Vukovar and refugees from Sarajevo and Tuzla) and a camp where there are only Croats (displaced from villages in West Slavonia (near Pakrac) and refugees from Central Bosnia). He told me that in the second camp the problems often went sky high and in the first they hardly have ever problems (only ones in a whole year). A normal situation can f.e. be that youngster (Croats) from central Bosnia put music from their area on the ghetto blaster in the community room. Five minute later those youngster from the country side of west Slavonia will turn of the cassette, shouting that they don't like to listening to ugly Muslim music (although the music is made by Croats). This mostly result after a while in a little fight And my friend told me that you need a youth leader there the whole bloody day, because otherwise you haven't any equipment left over in a few weeks. 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 ##