** Topic: Zagreb Diary **
Response  30  of  67
** Written 11:53 AM  May 22, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
21/22-05-1992
Dear Friends,

So I can't keep my Diary up always, there is often a lot of smaller things which have to be done, the coming days I will be in Osijek f.i. and I ofcourse will try to keep you informed from there, technically it is possible, but I simply don't know if I will find the time. Anyway back to day of today.

It is fantastic how this diary is traveling over the globe, messages come in from all over the place and those who don't know how to react, technically, just a (private) reply on this conference topic listing will be give a high changes that it will come to Zagreb one day. 

To put some mistakes right again, the confederation BiH-Croatia is not yet official, it has only been discused on a meeting of HDZ and SDA from BiH in Split and the prososal for an at least military conferedaration came out of that meeting, but is in no way yet been discussed on high political level in Croatia. Sometimes news travels faster then the reality and as said I have to rely on translations often and in this case I was too fast. Marko from Ljubljana noted that we really have to take care about verifying information before putting it on the net. I standpoint I agree and disagree with at the same time. Rumors are part of the warmachine and make their own reality, a reality in which people have to look for their own true. If they believe the warmachine promotion or not. 

If I would have put actual translations of the papers in Zagreb on the net I would have the same problem, most of those stories are interpretations and not 100% verified as well. But what Marko say is true, his example that he got a messages from Sarajevo telling that 700 Muslims were killed in a part of the town, he phoned back to the same policestation, got another agent on the line and that one told him that the other one was cracking down and nothing has happened. Both were Muslim by the way. But I hope that we can put of a link with Ljubljana to have the work more divided, a daily updated of more virified information wouldn't be bad. On this moment it is hard to find out what the true is, for us, but even harder for the outside world.

The 21st started with hard-core war news video for breakfast, Before I had something in my stumic I already was watching the horror pictures of victims of this crazy war. Followed by a very depressing discussion about how we ever can stop the hate among each other in the cities and villages which are destroyed. If you see what people can do to each other, you can't call it animal alike (animal do hurt each other this way and surely not kill their own species), it is nearly impossible to think that they ever will be able to live side by side again.

After that I started to type in the stories we have got from Ibrahim from Sarajevo by fax over the night. On a curtain moment there was a story about a Chetnik Unit called Valjevo Unit, a unit which has been active around Osijek and Vukovar as well. This unit was mentioned as being the co-killer of app. 200 Muslims on the 19th of May in the village Vlasenica. Nothing special you would think and indeed it is happening all the time, not so brutal and so many as in this case, but the messages about mass killings keep on rolling in.

This sticked in my mind since Sittard, my hometown has a sistertown agreement with Valjevo, the last cultural exchanges took place during the last winter, after the fall of Vukovar. And Valjevo Unit seems to be famous in Serbia as strong and hard fighters, who are often to be found in the frontline operations. Most of the information about them is coming from Serbian newspapers, in which they openly tell about their "heroic" actions.

Valjevo is also known in some circles for their high amount of deserters, to balance the story a little bit. But a fact is that the towncouncil from Valjevo openly have supported their Chetnik Unit and that I think that in my home town nobody knows about this (now they do, I dispatch the information to my home office). Therefore I have written an open letter to my town council asking them to establish new sistercity links with two cities in Croatia and BiH in order to show their concern about the war in this country and the will to actively do something in order to, maybe not stop the war, but help to rebuild these countries afterwards.

I don't want my hometown condemning the people from Valjevo, since first of all, I think not all people of Valjevo support this Chetnik unit, but even those who do are also mislead by an impressive war promotion machinery, thirdly I don't know if what I hear is the true. Okay in this case the first stories about this units came from Serbian papers, but nevertheless there are so many stories which have been published which are not 100% true.

When I told it that Sittard has this link with Valjevo and that our exchange went on even during the war period in Croatia people looked at me here for a while with a face if I was totally stupid. How could I live in a town which has friendly connections with the slaughters of Vukovar (Zagreb's sister city in Serbia is Beograd by the way), since that what this unit is named upon from here. I tried to explain that this part of the war was never been told in my home town and that I could imagine that hundreds of this cities links exists. Our town wanted to have a sisterlink with an east European city some years ago, but east Europe was them to east, so they choice Yugoslavia and some famous artists in 

This sticked in my mind since Sittard, my hometown has a sistertown agreement with Valjevo, the last cultural exchanges took place during the last winter, after the fall of Vukovar. And Valjevo Unit seems to be famous in Serbia as strong and hard fighters, who are often to be found in the frontline operations. Most of the information about them is coming from Serbian newspapers, in which they openly tell about their "heroic" actions.

Valjevo is also known in some circles for their high amount of deserters, to balance the story a little bit. But a fact is that the towncouncil from Valjevo openly have supported their Chetnik Unit and that I think that in my home town nobody knows about this (now they do, I dispatch the information to my home office). Therefore I have written an open letter to my town council asking them to establish new sistercity links with two cities in Croatia and BiH in order to show their concern about the war in this country and the will to actively do something in order to, maybe not stop the war, but help to rebuild these countries afterwards.

I don't want my hometown condemning the people from Valjevo, since first of all, I think not all people of Valjevo support this Chetnik unit, but even those who do are also mislead by an impressive war promotion machinery, thirdly I don't know if what I hear is the true. Okay in this case the first stories about this units came from Serbian papers, but nevertheless there are so many stories which have been published which are not 100% true.

When I told it that Sittard has this link with Valjevo and that our exchange went on even during the war period in Croatia people looked at me here for a while with a face if I was totally stupid. How could I live in a town which has friendly connections with the slaughters of Vukovar (Zagreb's sister city in Serbia is Beograd by the way), since that what this unit is named upon from here. I tried to explain that this part of the war was never been told in my home town and that I could imagine that hundreds of this cities links exists. Our town wanted to have a sisterlink with an east European city some years ago, but east Europe was them to east, so they choice Yugoslavia and some famous artists in Sittard always went on holidays to Valjevo and so the link was made. I am only a citizens of Sittard and when I would have known what I know now I would have reacted a lot earlier.

I hope that my towncouncil follows my advice, I am sure however that they won't, they will cut the contact lines with Valjevo and try to forget that they had ever contact, since the links with a Croatian and BiH will costs them energy and money. Next year my hometown exists 700 years and that has to be a big party, politics and war should not been discussed. But they could give half of that money to Vinkovci and Mostar f.i. to help to rebuild the community centers in those destroyed places. They could invite citizens from all three villages to Sittard and try to make a city link between them over the fronts and hatress, they could indeed play an active role. But I know that they won't, they just not see this opportunity. This war is my reality and the reality of the people in this country, outside it is just another war and whenever the UN don't know what to do why should local communities than try.

About UNPROFOR, yesterday there was this nice story in the newspaper that UNPROFOR secured the peace in at least one spot of Croatia, namely in a discotheek in Zagreb, nearly every evening this place is full of UNPROFOR soldiers and they have the peace there fully under control, only a few fights with Croatian boys took place, but they are now going to another discotheek. That's what the paper write about them here. 

That the whole planning from the UNPROFOR operation in former Yugoslavia was a big mistake is I think almost everywhere in the world understandable by now. To even assume that UNPROFOR cooperate and helps JNA, what somebody suggested on this net is a little too far out I think. Saying that especially the Russian UNPROFOR soldiers have deals with Chetnik forces and JNA is I think out of the question, those Russian are having a great time here, they make more money in a day than back home in month, but nevertheless I can not imagine that they openly would cooperate with any of the both sides. If somebody has proof for that it should come out in the open, cause that would make a big scandal, UNPROFOR has to stay neutral under all conditions.

Another story I refuse to believe is the story that humanitarian aid (medicine) is been sold in hospitals and drugstores. This story came up when I found out that products from f.i. Germany were cheaper in the shop (up to 50%) then Croatian products (prices of luxury products went up with 50% over the weekend), somebody said for a joke that it was maybe out of the humanitarian aid. I can't imagine that this is been done on a great scale, and especially I can't imagine that humanitarian organization make the same mistake twice. By the aid to former USSR a lot of the material disappear and were sold on the black market, we heard that the Dutch Butter for citizens of Moskva ended up in the barracks of Red Army in the Baltic States. So the western organizations started to take care themselves about the distribution, why should they not do that here. But I will try to find more about this. I am not totally surprise if this happens on a lower level in the hospitals, if you see the income of some people, it is trying to survive all the way down.

Next week there will be a special UNPROFOR weekly coming out, made by Vjesnik, one of the biggest state newspapers, so I will after all get my English news. 

Just a tomorrow I will go to the real warzones again, I must honestly say that I am not happy about it, for days I follow the news about Osijek and the bombings which go on there. I haven't that build in mechanism yet which tells you where a bomb is going to hit, but as always I rely on my luck.

With Love and Peace from Zagreb,

Wam:-)

Sorry for the double part, but there was again a line break
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