Nachricht Nummer : 538 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 15 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : wam@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 10 November 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 10.11.1994 01:06:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary, 10 November, 1994 Dobar Dan, Just few days ago I described how brave bits and bytes were marching from our ZaMir-Zg system to ZaMir-Sa, and on date day I was so looking at those bytes and bit's going through that line that I actually forgot to at watch the text of messages. Ed in his functions as pnbalkans@igc.apc.org saw it and posted it back to us. The message comes from Kenan Zahirovic (known in Email land as K.ZAHIROVIC@ZAMIR-SA.ztn.zer.de) wrote under the subject: "Sarajevo - "safe area"" "Sarajevo,08 Nov. 94 Today at 16:00 Bosnian Serbs have attacked Sarajevo. One shell has fallen in the front of primary school. 5 persons are killed, 4 of them are children. More then 10 persons are wounded. That school is my ex-primary school. There are no soldiers in that school, only children. Sarajevo is still "safe area". Kenan" It is one of those messages which I take out. Just to realise how close it is and how ugly real the things are we are in contact with. You can write Kenan and tell him that you received his message. If Kenan has time, electricity and telephone at the same place at the same time and our BBS is able to prick through the lines their is maybe post back from him, or somebody else in Sarajevo for you. We are planning in Zagreb (on ZaMir) a direct open line to the InterNet and even connect ourselves in the world wide web. Than we are going to hyper connect the war directly to your computer, live from Zagreb or Pakrac, with sounds and pictures, every thing in real-time. Instead of writing I record my stories and take digital pictures and link them into the web of computer, if somebody in Tokyo clicks a button about war, he finds the Balkan wars next to second war world and one click further his is live in Zagreb. I haven't got the picture yet of this digital global village but it is much more fun tan sim city. I was with Ben part of the day, explaining Vanja, who is now real leaving the Pakrac project, how Ben and I met eachother. The whole thing came a bit as reaction on some criticism that we co- operate with people who are or were fighting in our reconstruction work. And some pacifist say that a real pacifist never would want to have any connection with those people, otherwise than convincing that they are wrong, or something like that. We were lucky that they didn't knew that some of our volunteers worked this summer on building a shelter behind a school (a very tricky thing), but now the whole world knows it. Anyway tell me who in Pakrac wasn't in one way or another related to the fighting's. 5 days after I arrived Ben and I met the first time. He was 48 hours on leave from the Sisak front, trembling like hell because of his mine field clearing activities. But Ben, the old activist from who everybody told me that they never would imagine him in uniform, rather among the first going to jail in refusing the mobilisation. He more or less check me out, with tricky questions as how the Dutch reacted on the German stills and on the Vlamish people and what about the role of violence in the liberation war in Nicaragua. One hour later we end up crying in each others arms and swearing to be friends forever. And we weren't really drunk either since I didn't accepted so many people and they finished it in half an hour. Not my vegetarian food by the way, but that has changed over the years, I am still vegetarian and not lonely any more. Ben broke on that evening suddenly all the prejudices I had against soldiers, or rather people who went to defend themselves. The Sisak front was 30 Kilometres from Zagreb and god knows how the situation in the country was and how the media put oil on the fire. Maybe six months later he would have decided otherwise. Who knows he made the decision on that moment under those conditions. I don't know what I would have done in that situation and so who am I to say if it was right or wrong. And by the way trying to avoid every type of contact with the army or defenders would have make the amount of possible contacts in this area rather small. Maybe my pacifism has changed, I don't know. During the blockades of the UNPROFOR checkpoints by Croatian refugees from the UNPA zones this summer it was not possible for us to go directly through the checkpoint to the "other side" of Pakrac (so both camps one from Zagreb co-ordinated on "Croatian" side and one from Beograd co-ordinated on the "Serbian side existed without contact). Ofcourse their where ways around it, we could go over "illegal" via an unblocked UNPROFOR checkpoint in the forest. Or talking our way through with the officials, we choose to wait. Now things are quiet again and the connection works again. We also could have forced our way non- violent through the non-violent blockades by all kind of actions. I don't know I think we would have lost a lot of friends and trust we have made on the "Croatia" side. Maybe our friends are wrong and we should stand up for our right to be pacifist and make peace. Not knowing what is good and what is bad. What is the thing you should do next. What is this peace building all about, and where are the results. We don't know we try. Mir za somewhere in or around 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. ## CrossPoint v3.02 ##