Nachricht Nummer : 573 Übertragungszeit : 4 min 52 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : wam@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 28 January 1995 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR Erstellungsdatum : 28.01.1995 01:13:00 W+1 Zagreb Diary 28 January 1995 Dobar Dan, An diary with a lot of improvisation this time, since Andreas car was stolen last weekend in Budapest, with my notebook computer in it I lost all the diary tools I slowly builded up, like worklist and so on, intro and footer, so I hope that you don't mind. Actually I was writing a lot the last month, not much in public thought, maybe I will remember, who knows. Today it is than official that Sarajevo is 1000 Days besieged. Or yesterday, for me the siege started already more or less when those first bullets where fired from holiday-inn in the first days of April '92. I will forever remember those pictures a the crout in front of the parliamentarian building and suddenly that running and screeming. Heard something about those brothers, who were shooting, but honestly I forgot. It is more than 1000 days ago. It was a chaotic time those first days of the war in BiH. I was basically sitting behind the fax and the computer in the old ARK office together with Edin. Kilometers of fax paper we translated in to hunderds of email messages. Following the horors meter by meter, much faster than CNN could follow. But also that is 1000 days ago. I still was a big lover of Yugoslavia in those days, or rather the yugoslavian dream. Tito was so good, his ideas so strong, how could that be broken, how sorry that my dream was broken. The dream became a nightmare for me. A nightmare not of what happen but of what will come, one day this maybe will call something with Yugoslavia again, or at least part of second Yugoslavia will find eachother in a possible form of cooperation. How will those people live again together. The dream died more than 1000 nights ago. The last bus out, I knew somebody on that bus, and read about it in the book "Balkan Express", but also met her in person. I remember how well dressed she was, how we talked about it, and learn slowly to understand it. This was not our picture, even not them from Croatia what we had in mind of a refugee. Today it is 1000 Days ago that she arrived I don't know where she is now, I wonder if she ever went back when the air bridge started. That has certainly not been working for the last 1000 days, I wonder how many days that bridge really has been working. It never really worked however for the citizins of Sarajevo, besides the UN troops it transported however thousands of journalist, aid worker, peace makers, adventures, tourists and what ever. Or Sarajevo people on mission of course. Strange when they pass by in Zagreb on their way "home" from some far away "safe" country. Most friends we know came and went back, not a jump into the war, but quick jump out of it. 1000 days however people have been trying to escape from the town. For long, for short, if not with the airbridge, it was possible by buying your way out, smuggling yourself via small paths up the mountain, just past the guns, firing away at the city, that became later a real job and still is for a growing number of guides. Or through the famous tunnle. 1000 days as mouses in a trap. What can you say, brave people those people in Sarajevo, a town of heroes, send them letters (they can use them to heat up their houses, only wood heats Sarajevo now, a cold which never really leaves), sned them food, send them medicines, the right ones, those which have been asked for. Stop a war after more than 1000 days would be more effective. Peace or I shoot, sign or you die. The impossible became possible, the Serbian republic (remember from Milosevic) is NOT in war with any other nation, the JNA, one of the biggest and best equiped armies in Europe, which had a lot of concentration of weapons in Serbia, from which was said that even 10 years of war would been nema problema. That Serbia is now weapon important, like all they others at the moment. 1000 days during on Sarajevo alone more grenades where falling than on the whole Post Yugoslave Countries together in the Big War (WWII). 1000 days ago I heard for the first time the national hyme from BiH, Mirna Bosna, peacefull Bosnia, 1000 dreams, 1000 and more villages and towns, but above all many, many thousands of people killed, much more on the run. A lot more than 1000 days, see what has happened so far in Croatia, will be needed to repair the first damages. In will cost many many of 1000 sleepless nights more before the wounds start to heal. If they ever will. 1000 days in a life time, it sounds like nothing, if it weren't your 1000 days, if it where your first 1000 days, or your last, or you never made it past the first 26. Will you life the next 1000 days. The stones will stay, the monument maybe rebuilded and the priceless books elsewhere became a bit more priceless than they already where. 1000 days it is nothing, not even half your primary school training. Or 1000 days it is like a life time, the famous summer of love, about which every body is talking still lasted not more than a 100 nights. 1000 days, 1000 stories, what happened, everything, every body against everybody and with everybody. Criminals became heros and criminals again, one executed on a highway in Belgium. An army of broomsticks, as people so poetic said it, grow into a fighting force which is strong and motivated enough for another 1000 days it seems. What is there more to loose as life. The war between the Croats and the Muslims in BiH has cost the Croat side (I am not sure Croatia) at least 3.000.000 Dem per day or so. It can be a bit higher, wasn't sure if it were dollars or DEM, never mind, you get the picture. It were certainly no Croatian Dinars in those days. It were not 1000 days that they were fighting, but I think fighting with the armies around wouldn't costs much less every day. With that 3.000.000.000 we could make a nice start to rebuild something, unfortunately we haven't got even 1/1000 of it. UNPROFOR cost per day almost the same, some times even more, they are also more than a 1000 days active in Sarajevo, first to get the hell out of there since their neutral headqauters for their Croatia operation was suddenly in the middle of another war. And than later to get back to defend the people which they first left. And how popular the UN is in Sarajevo, the big boss himself found out some months ago. People normally put that active between " ". The qeustion will they stay a 1000 days more or will they leave when their friends have to go from Croatia. Almost 1000 days peace, let's say no real shooting, besides some, if you compare it with Sarajevo f.e., shooting at East Slavonia and the Zadar region, in Croatia. A 1000 days of UNPROFOR presents, what will happen, will they go, what will happen then, a new war, and where, in Pakrac, what shall we do. But also an open highway to Beograd, that took more than 1000 days. No road to Sarajevo but who knows, maybe peanuts will grow next year in the streets. Almost 1000 days ago that the last real shelling on Osijek took place, it never reach the 1000 off shelling but still, yje town was really damaged, although than I learned how much power you need to destroy a house. How much power that Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombardment really was, or what happened in Rotterdam, or London, Berlin, Dresden, Beograd, Liepzig, Cologne, and all those villages and towns where people lived. All this here today and than a lot more in a few minutes, a big blast, clean, fast and cheap. It sounds absolute not like modern warfare, 1000 days besieged. More like an old fashion mid evil war. Somebody from Sarajevo remind my on the town Leiden in the Netherlands (back home), where they still haave a festival every year to remember the big besieged some hunderds of years ago. I don't know if the Spanish army even made the 1000 days. In Osijek they have repaired much of the city in the last 1000 days. It looks a lot better than f.e. Berlin back in 1948. 1000 better days there, although thousands of refugees and displaced people in the town and don't forget it still can be frontline again, soldiers enough. Yes, guys, there on the other side of the telephone line from ZAMIR-ZG and not those in Germany, but those down on the map there on ZAMIR-SA what can I say, I wished you much more happier days let's hope the world turns this in the 1000 good days. Let's hope and think possible, not 2000 days, or 7 years......... As always for Tyche, Pjort and Rik, whose last 1000 nights were save, Mir, Wam :-) ## CrossPoint v3.02 ##