** Topic: Zagreb Diary **
Response   9  of  67
** Written  1:03 PM  Apr 28, 1992 by ark in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Diary

 Zagreb Diary 23/24/25 April

Eric from germany has ask me to write something about peacework here, since I wrote only about war. Maybe it is clear that peacework in Zagreb is different from peacework in a land in peace. Even when the bombs are falling some hunderd kilometers away from us the war is nearby, it is part of live if you look well or spend some time to recognize it. Another fact is that you can't just say that you are against the war, since everybody is against the war, you see the state posters everywhere (STOP THE WAR IN CROATIA), the war is just there and basically the feeling is that the aggressors has to be stopped. If you against violence from both sides you are indeed wrong in this society, you are not only a bad Croat, you are even less than a Serb.

Organizing popconcerts against the war is simple you get some good bands and you have within no-time a few ten thousands people together. But it is just that small different to be against this war or to be against war in general, so against all fightings. To be opposition in a country in war.

ARK is therefor not so populair in Zagreb, on top of it everybody in ARK is tired, they already are busy for 9 months without any break. The creativity is a little bit used up, so it is sometimes pulling to get some new activities started, on top of it the Slavic mentality, and 40 years of communism, being not the best feeding ground for own creativity and taking responsibility yourself. People are used to take orders and talk more often than they do.

Nevertheless we have a lot of work. I will try to list the activities: 

ARKZIN 

a regular (sometimes monthly) magazine, which can be called one of the only free medias in Zagreb, this cost a lot of time and rewriting, in a war news change with the day. You have to run all over the city to get the articles together in one computer and have to talk a lot before we can use the DTP machines of some other newspapers. Articles by the way come from all over former Yugoslavia. 

CO project 

The is a law for refusing active duty and do civil service, but hardly nobody knows about it. The law by the way is also not finished yet, so people who like to make use of it are still sended to the front until the commission can make a decision. About 100 people are regristered on this moment as objectors, 40% is now in active duty, they others have already returned and 10 are killed on the front, nobody has recieved an answer so far. We try to give information as much as possible and have talks with lawyers about the law. In the future we will have regular hours for CO.

Women Shelter

A project which started before the war, but became much more acute when fustrated soldiers return from the front. This is a very active group which has their shelter in a sqauted house and do their best to keep it open.

Osijek project

Besides from nonviolent conflict resultion trainings with foreign trainers, who come here to train local people for some days and searching for groups who have experiences with mine cleaning, involving the local people (not army orietated) this project is ment as a Serbian-Croatian contact project. Together with Beograd we like to make plans for what can be done to rebuild normal life in Osijek as soon as possible. The last days the situation in Osijek became more acute, not only because the bombing continues, but also since about 40.000 refugees from Bosnia arrived in the town.

VIS

Organizing meetings in Zagreb with authorities and students from Vis who live here in Zagreb about the demilitarisation of the island. In a few weeks we will start with a Peace Office on Vis (the highest armed Island in the Adriatic). The idea is to create on Vis an alternative economy, now the 3000 islanders are depended on the army (bread, electra, water, etc. is coming from the JNA baracks). The Croatian government is openly against this project, but with the help from friends on the island and from Ljubljana, Austria and Germany we hope to be able to recieve the first international peace activists already this summer. In the future Vis must become a pilot project of possibilities. 

Travels abroad

Nearly always somebody of the group is somewhere in europe making speeches about the situation in Yugoslavia and try to raise small amounts of money somewhere.

Reacting on the News

Especially Zoran spend most of his time writing articles for local and national newspapers to react on the actual situation, unfortunately most of article are not being placed due to the internal political control of the state.

Talking with visitors

More and more people pass by or call ARK to talk about something, this we try to structure some more since it is often a break in what we are doing. Especially foreign geust which just drop by for 2 or 3 days can be a big time investment, they like to know verything in no-time and are coming on the strangest unexpected moments.

Small symbolic actions

Mostly the ideas are good, but there is no time or money to really bring them to an end. Talks with representatives of official organisations Not so useless, but a big time eater are talks with official poeple from big international organisations for peace or/and human rights. You need to prepare your documentation (what means running around the city) and the priorities sharp. I hope to organize some rolegames practising this talks a little better. 

Helping were ever it is ask

Dispatching faxes from Sarajevo to the outside world when the libes are bad again, helping refugees from Bosnia to escape via adresses of friends (we try now to get through to Beograd to organise people from Bosnia who want to go to family in Austria, but only can travel over Beograd). Helping fundraising for all kind of groups. Trying to find solutions for the most actual problems in the town via alternative channels.

Offering place for other groups The few rooms we have are also used by a lot of other starting groups, one of the ones I like to most is the Ananda Marga, which does good work with the workshops and meditations.

Trying to keep the center running

The most practical stuf as ansewering mail, getting things copied, arhieving information, reading foreign (peace)magazine, following up good advices from abroad (thanks by the way), organizing peace forums and small demostrations, keeping the boys next door quiet, cleaning up, finding a new place, etc. it all takes a hell of a time, That's about it, ofcourse we love to do more if we had the humanpower and the moeny we certainly could, there are ideas enough for workshop and other activities, but time is not always on our side. I would love to write about the weekly workshop in nonviolence conflict resolution training we want to organise, the refugees children project with foreign volunteers, a weekly e-mail meeting with the groups in Beograd, Sarajevo, Novi Sad and Ljubljana on line, the monthly peaceboot (small 10cm long boots with candle) action in the Sawa, so the boats will drive through the frontline to Beograd as peacemessages, a weekly peace cafe, organising open radio discussion with youth radios in Beograd, having an international alternative fair with all kind of new social movements of the west and the rest of Eastern europe (producers of ecological food, renewable energy, etc.), making an international peace bulletin together with the other groups, helping Ljubljana with their Peace university, selling t-shirts, having street discussions, getting artist together against the war and make art manifestations, getting deserteurs out of the country (prepare there coming back), opening another women shelter, getting help for trauma patients from the front, opening a peace park, calling upon groups around the world for sending tree and flower seeds, so we can seed a new international peace forest in the city after the war is over (seedsw of hope), organizing big peace conferences with important peace scientist from all over the world and so on and so.

Sorry it are just ideas,maybe they come maybe they don't come, you never know, war is living with the day.

Peacework is also getting the group together, organising joint activities, trying to get the tentions down, helping eachother, loving eachother. Trying to overcome the fear of loosing eachother if somebody goes to the front or the tentions in the war are turning and we realize that we are only 25 km away, talking about the frustrations with eachother, making people joking, keeping the hope up. Being happy with every piece of news from Sarajevo, knowing that our friends there have it harder than we and that we must keep them happy as well.

Neither I, neither the others (which didn't ask for the war and do not have a free choice to go like me) have ever trained to work in such conditions or doing peace work at all (I am better in general organizing and doing radical peace work in the west, but never ever worked so close in the frontline). So we are reading like hell in our spare time to learn what scientist all over the world have writen on this topic. Unfortunately the time is short, the books in the wrong diffucult languages and far to theoretic (not practical to do something with it fast) and implementing needs time. Basically we have to relay on our own ideas and feelings and hope for practical help and advice from more experiences groups from outside. That we have to get trained to train others.

I known f.e. that I have to get some time to get a good working exchange between e-mail on the local adrianet to APC and vice versa, but I need so guiet nights and patient for it to keep trying again and again until I have a free line without noise on the line. That is very hard to find here during the day, most of the time the screen is full strange signs (especially during direct connections with London, vias my own x.25 connection in the Netherlands, which I use in urgent cases when the direct connection really fails this is mostly not the case or at least less, by direct connections within former yugoslavia only the local connections to Zagreb and the international connection to Ljubljana works well, to Sarajevo is hard and Osijek only in the night, Beograd ofcourse unreachable). Hopefully I will be able to find the time and quiet place to do this work, it is neccesary.

My laptop has some problems, like he is not relayable, every now and then the juice goes out without any reason, but it is on the other hand terrific to be able to right whenever he and I want.

love and peace from a quiet Zagreb

wam:-0 -peace world!!

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