Nachricht Nummer : 343 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 40 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary on 17 December, 1993 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 21.12.1993 13:36:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 17 December, 1993 Dobar dan, If we say early we mean early, it was about the middle of the night when we left Zagreb and just a few minute later we are hiding for the highway. He is surprised when we pass by the oil fields just a few tens of kilometres before Kutina. He didn't realise that Croatia had it's own petrol, I tell him that the big oil fields near Vukovar and in Northern Bosnia are also still working, the oil from that fields keep the Serbian economy more or less alive. A little further we pass by a small convoy of trucks, when we pass the trucks I get rather surprised, on the backside it stands with Latin and Cyrillic characters that those trucks are coming from Banja Luka or at least some villages in that neighbourhood. Also the numberplates are still from the old Yugoslavian times. I am surprised to see those truck here, they are obvious hiding back home, the two small UNPROFOR jeeps who are "protecting" them I nearly overlooked. They probably have loaded in Zagreb and busy to get back to their city via the highway, if they drive to Okucani and take there the small road down they will be back home in a couple of hours from now. But it makes all the thoughts and so you have about war a little different if you sudden see trucks of the "enemy" on the highway. The JorBat soldiers at the checkpoint entering the UNPA are as friendly as always (i have to explain the journalist ones more that this is a checkpoint between two parts of Croatia and not a border or front line). Entering Pakrac I can't do anything else as showing him first Skorpija, since how can you visit Pakrac without saying that pub from the inside. Than we walked up to the school, which the BBC repaired and further on to the hospital. Radio is something different than television or photo journalists, you think you in principle could record it everywhere, just fill in some background noise. But back in Pakrac I notice that the atmosphere is so different from Zagreb, the question here are different. When we walk up the road to the hospital I explain that about two months ago this road was considered as being totally unsafe and that normally nobody from the Croatian part of Pakrac would walk here. There for it is rather special that we find a big Christmas tree with burning lights in front of the hospital. It certainly not put here for the people of this part of Pakrac, but as a sign for the "other side". In the Christmas tree we found a huge Croatian weapon of arms, also lighted. "That makes a wonderful shooting target" I react, "I wouldn't be surprised if that symbol is shot at this night." We stand a while in front of the hospital and I tell for the thousand time about what happened in this place. After that we go back to Skorpija and I show him on the map how the border of the UNPA zones are looking like, the card he got from UNPROFOR is not particular clear about it and a Dutch contact in UNPROFOR in Zagreb has told him not to cross the line at the moment. I wonder why. Looking at the map, Jura comes to sit with us and ask me if I am making new borders. I laugh and say that he should know better, I am not the one who is making the border. The journalist leaves for Beograd, normally a few hundred kilometer drive if you could use the highway, but now he has to go all the way up to Hungary and than down again into Serbia, he hopes to arrive there in time to be there during the elections. The next person I meet is a very down Ana, the big Christmas show she was busy to organise for tomorrow evening seems to be cancelled by the police, she wasn't fast enough of telling them that we had organised it. The minimum time is 48 hours, so we go together to the police station to file another request for Sunday evening. The towncouncil was agree with our proposal and at the police station we heard that somebody from the ministry of Education had phoned to asked why to show was cancelled. We wonder how somebody in Zagreb knows about that and say that we are really sorry that we produce so many problems. The police chief say that it probably wouldn't be a big problem to do it on Sunday, but that the final yes or no will not come before tomorrow morning. In fact I run in and out the police station this afternoon about 4 times, normally you wouldn't come there for weeks and sudden we have to do everything official. That is something rather new for us, but hopefully it wouldn't go wrong. In the house I see the new calendars made by the BBC for the orphanage in Lipik, the place wasn't opened as planned by the Iron Lady, but by some other important English person, whose name we have forgotten. Also the new designs for the winter sweat shirts (made by Ludovica from Italy, ants with father Christmas clothes and small bottle of Rakija) for the project are ready and most the volunteers are having them on. Everybody is more or less in a hurry, since tonight we will have a party with the leaders of the working brigades in our own pub and food and drinks have to be prepared. It has been quiet all week they tell me, not much shooting during the last days, only an APC from ArgBat drove on a mine, they lay sometimes very close to the road and it seems that one of the soldiers was killed and the other heavy wounded. 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 v2.92 ##