Nachricht Nummer : 578
Übertragungszeit : 3 min 12 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam)
Antworten an     : wam@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 21 Februari 1995
Kopienempfänger  : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR
Erstellungsdatum : 21.02.1995 17:41:00 W+1

Zagreb 21 Februari 1995

Dear Diary,

Dobar Dan,

It is not always easy to live in a country at war, ofcourse you can be
talking all the time about the facts, the possibilities. And those facts
and possibilities on the moment are a bit limited, since Tudjman ordered
the UNPROFOR to leave the country the end of next month and the Zagreb
and Kinin government have decided that the Z-4 plan for Croatia is
stupid and not exaptable everything is open again.

Even when Granic, minister of Foreign affairs, said some weeks ago that
the Z-4 plan actually afterall wasn't so bad, that it had a lot of good
starting points in it for a new negiotation. If this new rounds will
come is rather unclear. It seems that every thing has to be played on
the edge of the knife. The principle is clear no talks about rights of
Serbs in the area's which are now not under Zagreb control when those
area's are still under controll of Knin.

Strange enough the highway through Sector West, through a part of those
areas which are not under Zagreb control, is still open. And not only
are more and more Croats passing through, the road to f.e. Slavonski
Brod is shorten with a few hours. And even the official buslines are now
using it. But also Serbs from those areas are coming to Croatia, not
only to tank on the tank station just on the Zagreb controlled side,
but also to buy products in the supermarkets near to the front-line on
the Zagreb side.

People more or less get used to it, they come back from a trip with wild
stories that they have seen real Chetniks near to the road and more of
those things, but the road stays open. Even when there are some times
some moments of tention and you get the feeling that all will be over
soon.

Even in places like Pakrac, whenever there will be a war, that probably
again will be one of the first frontline, people are making plans. IN my
mail this morning the qeustion if I could help building up a radio
system for the town, not for propaganda, but just for the local
information. Investments in a place from which nobody knows what will
happen in a few months.

In this atmosphere you don't really know what will happen soon. I hope
that there would be another open war in Croatia, but I know that I can
beter start planning to be prepared when it is coming. The schock when
it will happen is less when I am ready for it, and maybe it all wouldn't
happen. Never the less it is always in my mind.

Under such tention you are not really able to talk about it. It all
comes back to more personal things. Things which is also not really
"allowed" to talk about. Besides all the violence and all the grieve why
should you talk, feel sorry for small "unimportant" things. This is part
of the psychology of living in indirect war. We have to get ride of the
tention some how, the big tention and the small ones.

You slowly start to survive, you, yourself, nobody else, only my life,
my survival is important. The pain, the grieve it can cost others is not
really important, it is a strugle, the survival of the fittest.

This strugle can lead to strange things, one of the most outer remarks
is a growing feeling that only pragmatism can solve the problems, and
keep you alive, or even more than that, keep you going and it would give
you the possibility to maybe come out better or at least less worst than
you went in. This pragmatism can even lead to situation in which old
principles are putted away in the waste paper basket.

Feelings are maybe the hardest thing around, the be able to talk about
them are if possible even harder. Some feelings can change suddenly,
other rocks, other possibilities to survive arise, new hope, new
possibilities to put all behind you. Never trust something what may be
real and visible for you today, it may be far gone tomorrow. Fighting
against it isolate you from the reality, you have to except, the
situation is abnormal, so why would normal things happen to you.

Yes, a freind said to me, never in any case, trust somebody, trust
yourself, and even yourself you can't trust. Things has happen to us
which have demolished a lot more than you can see. Our minds, our
feelings our destrroyed, we some times can say things, act, do things we
never would do in any other situation.

Like f.e. throwing out the UNPROFOR, but that is only the top of the
iceberg. We like to forget you know, we like to get that bloody war
behind us. And all what will remind us that it ever took or will take
place again.

I am a foreigner, it is my strong part, since I am not involved, I can
go when I want, it is not my war, not my grieve. Everybody kept saying
it to me, time after time, when it get rough you can go, we will stay
behind and have to live with it. Even after 3 years and moving my house,
my home here I am still a foreigner. I still can go, home, where ever
that may be.

How often haven't I heard at the end of a discussion that I can always
leave them, that I am not really involved. I know, I also know that they
talk the true, I can go. I feel it strongly, what is keeping me here is
a war, a war which is hopefully slowly over. What will happen afterwards
I don't know.

Yes, it is much easier to talk about football, get drunk with some
friends and forget all about it. Also your problems in your personal
life, but unfortunately, my dear diary, I am NOT a machine, I have my
feelings. The only thing I should concer is my pride, or as my mother
said always, the person who beat himself is stronger than the one who
concer a city.

Love,

   Wam :-)

P.s. Tyche, Pjort and Rik you father think about you, still, also far
away as he is.
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