** Topic: Zagreb Diary **
Response  40  of  67
** Written 10:37 AM  Jun  1, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
01-06-1992

Dear Friends,

It is clear that it are surely not all the people in Serbia who support the war and the politics of the government in power.  According to HTV the elections didn't work out so well, lot of people did not went to vote. And it was a little strange to see Milosovic voting and not knowing in which of the about 7 boxes he had to throw his different papers. 

What works are the demonstrations in Beograd against the war and Milosovic. Just a few days ago a demonstration and blockade of 1 hour was organised in the streets of Beograd by the theaterplayers and other artists. Yesterday a small peace demonstration grew spontaneously out to a giant demonstration of a few tens of thousand of people protesting the government and the war. 

And today people will start to camp on the streets in Beograd and they are determinate to stay their until Milosovic is gone, the war is over or ..... (put in yourself, for the time being there are also a lot of people in Serbia believing in the war and what those powers can do and will do against this campers we will see). Anyway it are positive sounds coming out of Beograd (all according to HTV television and Croatian radio).

In Zagreb hangs now on the main square a big banner stating in English: "Military interventions NOW !!!", so that position is clear as well. 

Also for the first time in a long period some positive news from Sarajevo, one of the transport (from Split) came through and for the first time in many week people recieved food and medicines from abroad. Today at 6.00 am an armistice is agreed upon and let's pray that it will work. Over so many days it would be a big relief for the people to be able to come out the basements and shelters for some time. But up to now most of the armistice in these countries didn't hold long. The shelling went on during yesterday and last night , by the way.

Like the one (armistice) which was agreed upon yesterday for 3 am in Dubrovnik, it didn't even started, the shelling from the hills went on, as it went on in Slavonski Brod and at other parts on the Croatia front.

At the 9th of May we found an article in one of the newspapers in Croatian that 2000 Chetniks were arrested, it looks a lot if that messages had to do with the story about the 2600 children, women and elderly men which are held in a football stadium for over a month, according to  Zoran B.Djordjevic (the Authorised Representative of Republic of Serbian Krajina, as he signs his messages on e-mail). The name of the town, Odzak, is the same and the dates almost. I checked it yesterday after reading Zoran's message one more time, since I can't imagine that all those story are just lies.

Also the stories about a torture chamber run by HOS units sound not totally impossible to me (I don't know the Muslim Green Berets, haven't meet any of them), I have seen a lot of HOS soldiers here in Zagreb and I can imagine that they use torture on their victims. But as said so often before both stories can be absolute untrue as well.

Why I write this, with the big possibility to be called Chetnik again, is to make clear that in this war people never should try to simplify the things, there are no good and bad guys, like in American westerns. On this moment the whole world turns against Serbs and seem to forget that the good guys (in this case the Croats and Muslims) are not so nice guys either. I refuse to believe that ethnical speaking, the Serbs are aggressive dangerous lions and the Croats poor harmless lambs, and the Muslims just poor weak deers, which don't do anything else than suffer (for sure Muslims in Sarajevo suffer, but so do Serbs, Croats and Albanians in Sarajevo and in other parts of these countries).

I hope again that I offended nobody with these lines, it is easy to attack me and very harmless (I am not picking up a gun and visit your home you know). But it is not so easy to find out the true and write about it, when you are getting only one-sided information.

Rather then accusing the other from his terrible acts, it would be good if some people start to look for the splinter in their own eyes, which is also a line out the bible, just like to one an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, which is often use here as excuse for their deeds.

The ones who or more or less innocent are the thousands of civilians who are killed in the fights and the hundreds of thousand refugees, which have not much more left than the clothes they had on and the things they could carry. In Split they arrive again in big waves. The local hospitals run totally out of medicines.

On the meeting of peacegroups from all part of former Yugoslavia, which was held this weekend in Vienna is it therefore been decided that we as peacegroups dedicate more of our efforts on the problems of the refugees, which are now all over the different countries. And unfortunately the bigger refugees organisations are not able to respond quick and effective. If they just solve the problems of one wave of refugees the next one already came in a week before. 

The meeting was rather succesfull, by tomorrow morning you will find the results of the meeting on the net, yesterday they only send this urgent fax with a list of medicines which were needed now in Split. Agreed is that we are trying to coordinated the information about the different refugees streams more among eachother and get the information out to the world as soon as possible, rather then trying to solve the problem on local level and getting totally frustrated from the impossibility to do so.

Also the importance of more international long term volunteers was noticed, and rather then splitting me up in a lot of small pieces or overworking me totally they ask me to put the word out that in nearly all parts of these countries volunteers are welcome to do the same what I am doing here. Do not hesitate, and come. Even when you see bloody pictures on your television every day, former Yugoslavia is big, whole areas are not in the fighting zones, and some of the fighting zones, like eastern Slavonia (yesterday they made a small start with removing some of the 10.000.000 landmines, a dangerous job, for people with really strong nerves, Ben, a friend of mine which was doing that, nearly crack down under the tension), are cooling down, Don't wait with your help until all the fightings have stopped, there is already a lot of work (also rebuilding work) to be done in the other parts of these countries, work what has to start soon. 

This lines were a reaction on the feeling I get from public opinion in western Europe. The newspapers and the general people think that the bullets start to fly around your head as soon as you pass the former Yugoslavian border and that is very far from the through, if you don't want to be involved in any fighting or if you don't want to see destroyed place, you just go to f.i. Rijeka, like the tourists who are arriving there again, they only thing what may border you there are the refugees on their way from Dalmatia to the north, over 250.000 want to leave these countries immediately and unknown is how many already went. 

I don't know if I have told about our energy group, but that is a group which is busy with making an alternative energy scenario for the future, one of the things they try to find out is the possibility of decentralised produced energy production, especially with the use of windmills in the Adriatic region. If you know that f.i. Zadar is already for some weeks without electricity, you will understand how important it is to find alternatives for the centralised electricity production policy, which is still hold in this country, also by the Tudjman administration. 

Just got a phonecall from Vis from Vesna J., they like to come back on Wednesday from the island, but don't know if they can catch a bus from Split to Zagreb, sometimes in the last weeks in went, but now with the fighting around Zadar it will probably not going. And the ferry from Split to Rijeka is probably also full with refugees. Abnormal things, but every days reality in this countries. On Vis itself every thing is quiet, the people are happy and feel real a part of Croatia now the JNA soldiers have left and with a lot of official things the Croatian flags was errected above the former JNA barracks.

With Love and Peace from Zagreb,

Wam:-) ** End of text from gn:yugo.antiwar **