Nachricht Nummer : 516
Übertragungszeit : 4 min 14 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam)
Antworten an     : wam@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 4 September 1994
Kopienempfänger  : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA
Erstellungsdatum : 08.09.1994 14:22:00 S+2

Zagreb Diary

(Due to technical problems I can't do any spell check)

Zagreb, 4 September 1994

Dobar dan,

Back in dirty Zagreb, the last part of the trip by train through the
mountains between Rijeka and Karlovac the weather was rainy outside, still
through the rain you could often recognise the places which are more or
less the second defence lines of the Croatian Army. There has been some
action in this area two years ago. Although the soldiers are still around
it is quiet now and this is not even as far south as you may be able to
travel. The road which the buses from Karlovac to Dalmaticia are taken
over Sinj are far more to the frontline than this railroad. The last half
year it has been extremely quiet on those lines and also on the frontlines
between the coast and sector North and South (Knin area and south), that
has been different before.

About a mounth ago there were a lot of rumours in the air that at the
first of this mounth the UNPROFOR should go and the war would start again.
The discussions in the newspapers were often radical against UNPROFOR and
half half organised by the state the displaced people blocked all the
UNPROFOR checkpoint between Serbian Krajina and Croatia controlled area.
For over a month UNPROFOR wasn't able to pass from one side to the other.
You often could hear stories from people that they were not really willing
and ready to fight again, but if a new offensive should start they were
ready for it. And then suddenly Tudjman appeared during a special speech
on television to tell that the mandate, ending on the 1th of September,
would be prelonged with another 6 months. And as snow for the sun all the
rumours disappear.

I wasn't so affraid that the fights would start directly in the beginning
of September as some people said with were absolutely sure. The tourist
session is still going on and already during the summer it became clear
that the Pope would come next weekend and I couldn't imagine that Croatia
would risked that visit, since last time when the Pope visit Albanian it
was clear how jalours the Croatians were. At it shows at the moment how
the coming of the Pope is bringing the country together again. In the last
months this unity some times was getting looser and looser, but at least
for the catholic Croats there is something were the all can talk about
again and I think that the President is very happy with this. Without the
Pope, probebly a bigger of smaller war would have been the only other
alternative to re-establish that unity. How strong this new catholic
Croatian awareness is at the moment and especially how long it will last
is unclear, but for the time being the catholic church seems to fill
almost half of the news bulletins, explaining the preparations, as well as
the other Croatian made programmes, explaining how important this visit
will be.

Almost 500.000 (that is every 9th Croat) are expected to come to the
airport to welcome the holy father. I remember that in the early 80'ties
the Pope also came to my home area, which is the most Catholic area from
the Netherlands, they also expected 500.000 people, but only 50.000 came.
Anyway I have no doubts that in Croatia this enourmous amount of people
will come. So every evening somebody is explaining how the people have to
travel to the airport and which coloured card gives entry to which part of
the airport. It will be one of the biggest events since the independance
of Croatia it seems. But when I arrived at the station in Zagreb I saw
that the rough rebuilding work there maybe happy, but I am sure that this
works would be ready within the next week, knowing the speed with all this
work has been done in the past two years. And especially knowing that this
summer far more streets and places are under construction than in the two
earlier years, the last months it looked if a the street in the whole
inner town had to be renewed, in one of the next days I will go into the
town to see how the rest is looking at the moment.

At arriving in Zagreb we also noticed that the newest ARKzin, which would
have been printed on last Thursday (after a month summer break) wasn't in
the kiosks yet. Back home Vesna told me that he wasn't even printed yet.
in the time that we were on Brac the printer of the Macintosh on the
editing place broke down and all possible alternative were out of the town
for holidays. So Vesna could the bad news on arrival and like me she is in
reality still too tired to really jump into the work again. But with a
little bit of luck ARKzin will be printed tomorrow. It always a problem to
get ARKzin out in time, not so much because of not enough copy, but more
since the finances are always an ongoing trouble. Never the less the
amount of sold numbers is increasing every two weeks, the last months
about 7000 were regularly sold. But due to the incredible low price of the
other (state owned) newspapers the newspaper had to be sold far under it
production costs. Still it is far bigger than the state magezin Danas and
a lot of other newspapers.

The only independent one which really beats ARKzin in big numbers is Feral
Tribune, with 50.000 sold copies every week it is still the major opinion
newspaper. More and more I hear people complain that the qaulity of the
articles is going rapidly downwards. People are still buying it for the
jokes, but the serious part has lost a lot since it beginning. Some say it
is some times even more right wing and sensational them f.e. Globus,
another weekly which have to live from scandals and sensations. And on the
bases to be not to offended towards the government.

In the last months a famous Croatia "youth" magazine is re-created again.
It calls Start and in the past before the war it was rather popular among
progressive people, althought it was probably partly sold because of the
naked women on the cover and between the articles. In Start, "the new
generation", the editorial line is the same, between the relative good
articles the half porno photos take care that they get the less
interesting readers to buy it. One of the arguments given is that in a
state as Croatia which is becoming more and more conservative it is
progressive to break the upcoming tabu on this kind of photos. The state
is not so happy with Start and althought it is very unregularely published
it succes. The old Start was state owned and like with the Danas case two
years ago now something simular is happening. Two years ago the editing
team of Danas decided to continue as independent newspaper, called "Novi
(New) Danas", that was stopped by the state publishing house claiming that
only they had the right to use the name. Althought that publishing house
haven't published Start for some years they again start this producedure
to stop this new initiative. By the way in the new Start there is nobody
involved of the old editing team, it is a totally new team, which only
took over the old name and idea.

When I compare the amount of newspapers in Croatia with the amount in my  
home country I am always surprised how much more written material is  
available here. And especially for the low costs, in comparance with  
newspapers abroad magezines and newspapers are unrealistic cheap in this  
country. I hardly can believe that all those punlication are financially  
sound and I am sure that the state is putting in a lot of extra money  
every month to keep them going.

Mir od Mene,
            Wam :-)

## CrossPoint v3.02 ##