Nachricht Nummer : 373 Übertragungszeit : 4 min 14 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 8 January, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 07.01.1994 20:00:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 8 January, 1994 Dobar dan, "Do they know it is Christmas time at all....." So you just have finished a day work of cleaning stones of a destroyed building next to the major UN barrack and suddenly you hear some whistling noise, somebody shout something in Croatian and a second later all the local people of the working brigade go in hiding. 5 seconds later you are also behind some trees and stonewalls, since that are real bullets. That what happened to three from our volunteers yesterday afternoon in Pakrac. Soon afterwards they went to UNCIVPOL to make notice about what happened, they filled in the forms and were tipped to go asking the Croatian police what was going on. In the police station they heard that it was just Christmas at the "other side", so they had their party and they didn't that notice of the incident. "So this is Christmas........" That the "other side" had their Christmas was already clear, Jan told me on the telephone. The whole night through we heard detonations. A lot more noise than last week and two weeks ago on Catholic Christmas. Later that evening the Croatian news told us that 16 small grenades were fired during the night on Pakrac. No real damaged and nobody hurt. But our volunteers will think twice this morning before they go out to help at the same working spot and yesterday evening they didn't went to Skorpija, your first bullets always makes you think about a lot of things. I remember how I was trapped last year, north of Mostar, for two days behind a rock. Also more or less forgot what day it was, you know it, but if you are not surrounded by all the preparation like in Croatia with Catholic Christmas you forget it easily. Croatian television hadn't forget it, in the prime time news the spend at least 15% of the time on that topic (I didn't time it, but later I thought it could also have been precisely 12.5 % of the time (being the amount of people of Serbian nationality in Croatian at the latest people counting in '91), you never know). Glavas visited in Osijek an Orthodox Christmas party and talked a lot about "Mir.... Mir...... Mir......". Also some other churches were shown and a Serb, who just was released from Croatian jail (accused to work for a hostile army) and who refused to be exchanged with Croatian POW in Krajina, he wants to stay in Croatia, if neccessary in jail. I had some friends from Citluk over, who came to collect some help to pay of their telephone bill, they also had a nice Christmas and New Years evening. Like last year everything was used that make noise. It even went over the sounds of the fighting in Mostar, 15 Km down the road. We talked about the enormous amounts of food which is brought to this area at the moment, or more or less get dumped their by private humanitarian organisations on their way to Sarajevo or Middle or North Bosnia and can't get further than Hercegovina. They don't like to return full and leave aid in Medjugorje. It stands outside some of the houses of foreign organisations now, they told me, the storage place are all full. A few weeks ago they even had to destroy some tons since the really were far out of date. 20 Km further on people are nearly or really near to starvation. And not only those who are living on the other side of the front-line, even in Croatia controlled Hercegovina there seems still be problems with the logistics. The Ravno area, were we want to start rebuilding next spring, f.e. is forgotten by almost everybody. People think about Mostar and Dubrovnik, maybe even Stolac or Caplina, and of course Medjugorje. But they also noticed that some of the foreign organisations are pulling back from Medjugorje and out of BiH. There are now more pilgrims coming then last year, but only when a new wave of refugees pass by and sleep in the tents behind the Church (with almost 40.000 empty beds in private Hotels in the same village), it is a bit full, for the rest it is still the empty tourist city of session (and Christmas use to be one of the high sessions). A town of mir, mir, mir in the middle of a fighting zone. Don't talk about the bridge in Hercegovina, they tell me, most people really are agree with it, and it was every thing except an accidents. The rumours went that the old bridge was used a lot for smuggling, from weapons and food. According the rumours this smuggling was mostly don't by UNPROFOR and other UN and International Aid organisations, they didn't bring food and medicines, but also ammunition and arms. No that attack was well planned, you can't smuggle so easily over the pontoon bridge, they can see you from far away. I remember the photo's from Edin, when he was with one of the first groups into Mostar after the joint HVO-BiHArmija force had taken Mostar from Bosnian Serbs forces and JNA. The went with this small rubber boats over the Neretva, just 50 meter down stream of the bridge. Absolute safe they told me later, no bullet can reach you there. The bridge didn't look that safe the days just before he got his final shot. In Ravno the situation a year later is precisely the same, from Ravno village you can look straight into the Bosnian Serbian tank on the other side of the valley (walk about 10 meter away from each other, they never waste a bullet on one person, they told me) and nothing can be done there, but for the rest the area is safe. Most people, especially with children, didn't returned yet, their houses are not more than a pile of stones and for the time being staying in a refugee camps give more security. Only the old people came back yet and they could help a few with building material. Since there or so less people in the area and the region is rather big the logistic of humanitarian aid is a daily problem. And that is also the problem in other smaller villages. The towns they remember, and the names of those small village when they get attacked or destroyed, but afterwards, there are thousand of Ravno's in BiH and Croatia. Like with Pakrac I fall in love with Ravno, although I hardly can imagine how it ever looked like, the whole villages need to be rebuild only some walls and floorplans are still standing. Mir from somewhere in Hrvatska, Wam P.S. Vanessa didn't came (yet) in person, but the last day we have at least one of her films on HTV. ------------------------------------------------------ "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 ##