** Topic: Zagreb Dairy **
** Written  8:44 PM  Apr 10, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Dairy

Zagreb Diary (Sunday 5 April)

The first real changes I saw in former Yugoslavia was a border crossing in the middle of nowhere on the highway Maribor Zagreb. Somewhere in a nice green valley full of trees and wild streaming water a couple of office containers were placed and a long line of cars were waiting to be controlled before entering the free republic Croatia. The scene remind me a lot on the famous cartoons of this young french reporter with his white dog. In the album 'rocket to the moon' (made somewhere close after the second world war), there is a similar scenery. In took me since in this time of opening up all European borders, this is a new step backwards.

For the rest the countryside look peaceful, old farmers working on the fields like they have been doing for centuries. They only signs of the war were some half bombed out houses (if a house is totally destructed it is done by the Serbians with there tanks, if some walls still stay it probably was a house of a Serbian and was destroyed by the Croatian forces, my driver told me).

Arriving in Zagreb showed that the war was closer, about one out of four houses has taped windows against bomb attacks and the landrovers of the Blue Barets are all over the place. But for the rest life seems to go his normal routines. Saturday night fever on the main town square where boys and girls come together.

Although when you go in the restaurants you will stroked by a very strange and nearly kafka situations. We were eating with 4 persons in a huge state restaurant, which would be have been occupied with  about 250 people on a normal Saturday, besides us, the waiters and the folkband there was nobody.

And the reason is not that people won't go out because of the war, but simply because of the fact that it is too expensive for the Croatians. The war cost a lot of money and prices went skyhigh, life is not easy, people need to work on the side line to earn a normal income from which they can pay the rent and food.

On television, a special independent station from Sarajevo (independent since the say that they take no stand in this fight, but even the camera angel can already express more then a thousand words) I saw later thatnight a few interviews with Dutch women soldiers of the UN peace keeping forces. After the Lebanon this was just another job for them, they only big difference was that they were now transported by luxes touring car to their battle place, instead of by military airplane, which means that the war was a lot closer then normal.

For the rest it is spring in Zagreb, the new green leaves are coming out, the weather is nice, the birds are singing and in my room John Lennon sings that the war is over.

After 24 hours in Zagreb I came till a strange conclusion, namely that war is a macho thing, no war without machos who will fight it.  And the meditarianian area is know to be a really macho culture.

(5/6 April)

Sunday I spend my to do some sightseeing in Zagreb as a real tourist (one of this nice extras by the way that as tourist (in principle I am one) I don't have to pay on the trams, that means when they controlled my ticket (i didn't had one) in the tram and I had no of course (who is selling them ?), which I tried to explain in English, the controlled nearly cried it out, a outsider in the tram, and he thank me for coming) with Vesna as a real tourist guide, who showed me around. But probably I didn't act as a real tourist, I can't help but at this moment I am really hungry for warfacts and philosophies. What would happen as....

I can imagine that it is a little boring for Vesna and my other friends here that it must be a little boring to listen to all my questing. Sitting on a nice old garden in springtime, looking over the more richer part of Zagreb (were the villa from Tudsman is standing) talking about the winter and the bombings, blackout periods, about the nights they have to spend in the shelters, the airraids on daylight, during which more people were killed in traffic accidents than by the bombs (she showed me one of the bombed out houses), all the traffic lights and other lights were put off in that period (the system made it impossible to shut down at airraid, so they put it of for the whole period of the airraids). But really understanding it was next to impossible for me (I said that I would have stayed outside, but when I heard a big explosion during the nice walk (probably one of another drunken soldier which coincidentally fired his riffle) I automatically look for a place to hide, as nearly everybody did. This feeling is probably only understandable for people who really have been under such situations (a big different between the peace activist in Serbian and in Croatia and now Bosnia).

During this walk recognizing the warsigns was a lot easier as the day before. After a while you can't look anywhere without seeing nice macho soldiers with their camouflage uniforms, basically trying to tell their lovers and friends how huge heroes they are (the worst uniforms are those black ones from one of another private militia (HOS), whom has their headquarters nearby the station, they look a lot like NAZI SS troops). Or little children playing wargames in miniature uniforms, or the sandbags which are everywhere protecting the basements of the houses, some of them already are green of algs inside (they often have used transparent plastic bags), but most of them have been falling down and are now blockading the pedestrian paths. For the rest it look like a poor but normal city. The average income went down from about 1500 dm two years ago until 150 dm nows, prices however went up to western standards.The morning was however full of war, I just wanted to install mymodem and other equipment in the Green Action office when somebody came in screaming that the situation in Sarajevo could exploded any moment. The night from Saturday on Sunday the parliament building was occupied by all kind of people demanding new elections. Serbian militia, surrounding the city threatened to move in. As reaction tens of thousands of people went to the parliamental buildings to protectit. On that moment snippers started to shoot from the roof of the Holiday Inn Hotel on the other side on the street, persons were killed but most of them stayed in front of the buildings. Sorry but on this moment I started to realize the trivial actions we have had in the Netherlands, all the high serious squatting actions suddenly became so unimportant if I compared it with all those activists in and around the parliament building. Vesna managed somehow to phone with friends in de building and son afterwards a fax came in from Sarajevo.

Now I am looking (1 o'clock in the night) at Yutel television from Sarajevo showing the fights in  and around Sarajevo, by now I start to understand some of the stories they are telling, but honestly I can't imagine that this is all happening a few hundred kilometers away from me. I had planned to go to Sarajevo this weekend, but that will probably impossible, trains and busses stop to run. And to come there you have to pass the Serbian troops, which probably won't attack me but certainly my  Croatian and Slovenian friends are less fortunate.Somewhere in the next weeks I will go with Vesna to Beograd and Osijek to discuss some joint activities around Osijek, a town I hope to visit in the coming weeks, we have to travel to Budapest first, since all means of public transport between Croatia and Yugoslavia is blocked. Also I hope to visit the island of Vis, a highly militarized island, from which most of the inhabitants has left. Some of the persons of the ARK (Anti Ratne Kampanje (AntiWarCampaing)) just returned and they told me from there plans to start to rebuild ecological and peace villages on this island. It would make an ideal place for f.e. Ecotopia.(On Vis there use to live over 10.000 people, mostly fisherman of course, but when the Yugoslav marine made there basis there to protect the country against NATO aggressors (VIS lays as it were in between Italy and Yugoslavia in front of Dubrovnik) most of the people left, now about 3000 of the original inhabitants are left over, the rest live in the states where they formed a very strong Yugoslav community on the west coast).'Talking of ecological villages it reminds me that I have discussed with me-and more people this idea to rebuild the destroyed villages in the war zone at least 79 villages and cities are totally distroyed (some even much worst then Osijek). People are reacted the same on this plans, it is a good idea and with help from the west it could be done. Especially good would be if we could bring youngsters from Serbia and Croatia, together to rebuild this distroyed area, like youngster from France and Germany did after the second world war in Verdun (later this project became the international known volunteer organization SCI (Service Civil International)Later in the evening I visit a meeting of working group of Green Action Zagreb who are busy writing a book about the environmental destruction of Croatia by the war (they are still looking for funding for the English publication by the way). The fact that I will stay for a month is seen as a very positive point a kind of more permanent link with west and the rest of the world, I nearly are feeling guilty that I have to leave in a few weeks from now. And I hope that somebody somehow will take over my place here, just to bring back some hope. 

The help from the west so far was only money, which is still badly needed, , almost everybody is more then broke and so are the organizations of course other countries in Europe suffer under high economical crises, but for one of another reason it can be said that Yugoslavia had to pay the bill of the revolutions in the other Eastern countries. Up to two years ago Yugoslavian had the good trading situation between the East and West block and got a lot of western aid. This is now gone, and over the last year most of the people lost their trust in the EEC (nevertheless the majority thinks that joining the EEC is the only solution for the future)

Zagreb diary (7 April)

I started this morning with trying to find out the latest news on Sarajevo, but hopeless the messages are now hardly,coming through and the first thing I have learned is that none off the official media is trustable. Stories are that Serbs have been shooting from the roof of holiday inn. Clear is that people has been killed during this shooting, how many is unclear.It weekend is over and so are the soldiers in the streets it is strange-to see the even war seems to have a free weekend, but be honest what is logical about war at all. If a civil war is fought the way like here in Croatia it you can nearly say that some way even a war has rules which are somehow respected by al sides. For instance why do the Serbs or the Croat kill only in the warzone and why not do they act as a guerrilla. There is surely no reason for it, for example in the warzone families are killing each other (literally I have heard stories about a man killing his wife and children and family in law killing each other), but a bomb in the middle of Zagreb or Beograd would kill a lot more "enemies" and it is absolute not hard to smuggle material into those cities.

Or what to tell from the story that the joint production of arms by the different Yugoslav republics is still continuing. The hyper modern tank, called M-73 (I think), which is produced in parts in all republics and putted together here in Croatia is still produced for export (basically Kuwait), they only agreement made between the different republics is that this tank wouldn't be used inside Yugoslavia, against each other. The money they get for selling those tanks is nicely divided over the different republics.

Or even stranger, Croatia is still exchanging oil for arms with Serbia, Serbs drives around in there army vehicles with Croatian petrol and Croats shoot Serbs with Serbian bullets. 

Try to imagine this

8 April

Most of the day I have spend to send faxes around to Croatian press agencies about the 10th of April, there are a lot of people who like to declare that day to a national day. On that day in the second world war the Nazi declared the republic of Croatia independent. Most Croats however react a little more sensitive, it is not so nice to be reminded on the Nazis, who killed a lot of the Jewish population in this area. The day before a left the German government declared that neo-Nazis has been fighting in the Croatian special forces during the last months, together with a national day on the 10th of April, the total economical crisis, this HOS soldiers, the total devotion for some of the army leader, you have all the things you need to make a fascistic cocktail.

During this work I was establish contact with faxes in Croatian, during one of this connections the connection broke and couldn't be reestablished, later that day I heard that the press agency was bombed out the moment that I was calling there and some people were killed in that office.

Later that day new news from Sarajevo came in and in trance I have been typing the news what people translated from Croatian, how many people were killed, fighting in the streets, medicines and food needed, etc. Later that evening I really flipped out, just at the moment that I thought this is enough I like to go to bed and dream from other things, Ecotopia f.e. on a nice Adriatic island, an alarming fax came in, over 1000 people were brutally killed in a small village near Sarajevo (by hanging, cutting their necks, etc.). And people around me started to discuss if that message was real or not. After putting it on the net I had to get out, I feel so hopeless here, they only thing what I am doing is standing in the way for those people who work here, and the thing I can do is typing texts into a stupid computer, and nearly 300 kilometer from me lots of people are killed.Afterwards we went drinking, for the time being I want to stay here, I don't there to go and leave those people alone, back to the civilized world, what civilized world, the riffles which are killing here are Israeli, Russian, Belgian, American, French, who is civilized. Those bloody Blue Barets stay in the kazerns they are not allowed to go out as long as the fightings go on.

Europe, World, how for the hell is this possible ? How is it possible that the world keeps on turning like nothing is happening here ?

Please whenever you see possibilities to help the people around here in any way, let me know.

See you tomorrow 

** End of text from gn:yugo.antiwar **