Nachricht Nummer : 464 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 42 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 30 March, 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 12.04.1994 02:15:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 30 March, 1994 Dobar dan, In the morning we drive on to the sand road to meet up with our friend from Okucani, he is owner of the construction company who is working together with UNPROFOR and this is a good change to see his men working. We meet him half way the road and drive in front of him to Pakrac, at the checkpoint half way (between Serbian and Serbian controlled area's) he stops, he is afraid that we take him over the front- line, but we explain that we don't come on Croatian controlled territory and that we agree with him that this checkpoint stands on a strange point. In Pakrac we first drive to the school, behind it the would like to have a kind of small basketball field to have at least a place were they can do something like gymnastics when the weather is good. He looks at the place and thinks that it is a little small, but the teachers who come outside convince him that it is a good place. After that we go to As the place where we mostly eat on this side. The guy looks around, he never ever have seen this place before, before the war he lived in Novo Gradiska, which is now in Croatian government controlled Croatia. He also never was been in Okucani he told, he only passed it by as most youth from this region on the way to the discotheque in the Spa from Lipik. He heard a lot about Pakrac and the fights he tells us, but to stand here on the hill and look down in the valley is a different feeling. He had seen the destruction in Okucani and south of it, but this is a city and it looks totally different, also the fact that the "other side" is so nearby. South in the sector it is different and the North of Bosnia is also something totally different he explains. He looks around and is surprised how people can live in those half finished houses (they were under construction before the war) with the bullet and grenade whole in them, which only in some cases have been closed with some wood. I tried how I found Lipik and Pakrac on "the other side" about one and half year ago. Bt it is hard to explain if you never have been there. But I can't take him down to show it. After that we go to see some houses the town council offered us to rebuild for kindergarten or elderly house. He looks at the walls and say, that if we would have asked him 2 years ago he maybe would be able to save the building, now it was cheaper to take it all down and rebuild it. I think about all the houses in a simular condition on "the other side", if he is right we have to take down at least 30% of the houses down there. When we look at the building Fatima (an India woman, who works for UNHCR) passes by and standing on the street she updates me about their seed program. If we can supply from that money we have got oil for the tractors, some bulk seeds and some other material she will be able with UNHCR and ICRC to cover all the displaced and small families with seeds for family use. I promise her to talk about it with the "officials" in town. After that the guy drops us of at the house were I am staying and there I meet the last Muppet, the other two are on holidays in Poland, with their blue UN passes they can go back without being afraid to be arrested for refusing the army. Our friend returns to Okucani and Stephan and I have a nice talk about how to continue and what we have done wrong so far in the grass in front of the house. When we are sitting there we hear some heavy explosions, like somebody is shooting with heavy artillery, but we hear no siren coming out of the valley so we come to the conclusion that somebody or some animal or at least something stood on a mine in the forest. Later today somebody tells us that the explosions came from a stone mine nearby, were they use dynamite to blown pebbles of the rocks (for that sand road) and we discuss what people down in Pakrac must been thinking at the moment. The sound of explosions landmines you hear by the way a few times a week, since there are less soldiers in the forest it often happens that dears or other wild animals jump on one of them. The big shock however comes when we walk back to the main village to start playing with children and somebody there tells us that just around the time that we heard to explosions there was a shoot out somewhere on the road to Pozega. They told that a sniper probably from Croatian side shot one of the local guards who was on duty at one of the Serbian Krajina checkpoint in the forest on the road in the stomach. His brother came to help him and was shot in the head and died at the spot. The others from the patrol tried to save the other but the bullets flow closely over their heads all the time. So I heard that the both guys are brothers, they are family from the family in whom house I sleep and also former workers in the forest company. Although the news the children are playing wild as always, from the english lessons, both groups today are mainly women, is not much to expect today, they discuss among eachother what has happened, a good double function of this lessons, it gives the women the change to be together. In the evening I went to Dzakula for a talk about the seeds as agreed some days ago, but he is visiting the families of the dead soldier, they other one is brought to Banja Luka in the main time and seems to be able to survive it. Let's hope..... 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.ztn.zer.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.ztn.zer.de, to order a file send a message with subject "SEND " to same address. ## CrossPoint v3.0 ##