** Topic: Zagreb Diary **
Response   8  of  67
** Written 12:58 PM  Apr 28, 1992 by ark in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Diary


 Zagreb Diary -26 April

The last days were rather intense, there were a lot of westerners (about 12) coming for the Green and peace Forum we organized in the last part of last week (Wednesday until Sunday). Due to the enourmous amount of refugees in Zagreb (about 30.000 officially) we weren't able to get things organized the way it had to be, but who will blame us in wartime. It is at least something that we get anything organized around here.

After coming back from Ljubljana last wednesday evning I have lived in a type of human overdrive, running like hell and thinking on top speed, up to now the war wasn't that close to me. But now I get involved slowly into the refugees problems, both here in Zagreb and in Ljubljana and via Mi Za Mir even in Amsterdam (that are basically deserteurs from Croatia and Serbia) and found out that my ideas about organisations like f.e. the Red Cross are not near the reality.

They, the Red Cross, do ofcourse fantastic things, but can't deploy anything rapidly, in these situations days count, like I can imagen the problems with the Kurdish refugees. The train station here in Zagreb already is over full with people, I estimate that about 1500 are sleeping and staying there and most of them have not more than the clothes they have on.

If I look at those little children sleeping on the cold floor I think about my own two sons, far away in Sittard, sleeping in their nice beds and having everything they want (except from their father which is here), not knowing a thing about war, having no food, even having no toys to play with. If you see the numbers in the paper you may feel something, but if you see the stationhall in start to become reality. At that moment you feel absolute helpless, I just have enough money myself to survive here at a level which is a little higher than most people, but still a lot less than at home, and with the few hunderd marks I have I can't do anything, only starting a mass.

I have help a woman from Ljubljana to write a few fundraising applications to get money to continue her work in the refugees camps, knowing that I will take at least an other half year before some results will come. She does social work in the camps, organised volunteer working camps with some Western people for a week to have activities for the children and youth in the camps. The only thing she needs is a few thousands DM and some volunteers with some fantasy. But everything takes such a time.

With a half eye I am looking at the television, my trip to Bosanski Brod is useless, the town is nearly gone and the citizens, for sofar not killed or deported by chetniks to KZ in Serbia has left the city, except for a group woman and children, which just have been liberated by teritorial defence and given ti UNPROFOR soldiers for further transport.

Saturday the leader from the Chetnik group the "White Eagles" was arrested in Beograd, up to now that hasn't have any effect on his fighting group, only that they have grown, more JNA soldiers went to this private Chetnik group (even according Beograd television) and their crimes became harder. For the rest the fights in Bosnia has became a little bit less, but the bombing of Osijek is a lot worst over the last two days. Chatrine from there arrived today to talk about our project next weekend in Osijek, but even the more or less safe road is now hit by granades. Life continues however in the shelters, when the bombing stops for a while, people come out and start immediatly to clean up the mass, to get the feeling of the war far away.

Petrol prices in Croatia went up during the weekend with 200%, result very long lines on friday for the tankstations and people who use up there last resources to drive their cars, but the amounts of cars in street is still the same, I wonder how high the prices have to get before people stop driving. A full tank cost now about 1/4 monthly income, so I believe that the system in the Netherlands to get people out of their cars by highering up the petrol prices wouldn't work.

Nives from Mi ZA MIR, who works with the deseteurs in amsterdam, but is Croat from born (lives however already more than half her life in the Netherlands) has a hard time here. Her boys backhome went already before the war in Bosnia started and couldn't tell her how high the tention are in Zagreb against Serbs, but also against deserteurs.

Today she had a speech at the university of Zagreb, I haven't heard how it went yet, but she was yesterday already trembling after talking to her friends, so I can imagine how hard it is to do the same thing at the university, knowing how much students went as volunteers to the front. I have a great respect for this woman and feel sory for her boys, they will have a hard time, whenever they come back. Running away from the army and your country is if possible a bigger crime than being against the war in principle, like we (they also call us Serbian colloborators or even Chetniks in a drunken mood) She brought with her this laptop, a 2 diskdrives 5 year old Sanyo, without harddisks, but perfect to type. This is one of the 30 I help to smuggle to the east before the revolutions, so it has some history and has been through some hard times before. For the time being it is a blessing to have a nice portable machine and a working modem again. 

I use them already a lot to move files from one office to another, to avoid to much running around. But I need some time to get everything working and showing everybody how it works, since still I have no help from more westerners.

The westerners who came has mostly left already, I have promised them to send them as soon as possible some concrete projects they can start fundraising for at home, hopefully I find the time in the coming days to get something on paper, otherwise it has to wait untill I arrive on Vis.

with love and peace

wam:-)

p.s. nearly every day there are reports that explosions have been heard on Vis, maybe JNA is blowing up the ammunition piece by piece rather than all at once like the island population is afraid of 

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