** Topic: Zagreb Diary **
Response  50  of  67
** Written  3:15 PM  Jun 15, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar **
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
12/15-06-1992

Dear Friends,

Back in peaceful Zagreb after being for some days in parts of the countries where you don't have to listen to the radio to know if something is going on. You just count the explosions you hear echoing through the hills. 

I felt good being in Osijek again, strange how fast you get attached to some places here. The train over there was as I thought pack up with returning displaced persons (displaced is people from Croatia who live somewhere else, refugees are people from other countries (mostly BiH) living in Croatia at the moment). Now the peace seems to stay for a while in Osijek people dare to return. For the rest it looked a lot like an army train, almost all brigades from the Croatian army were gathered in the train. 

The travel was a lot more relaxed than the last time, at least for me, don't know how Christine felt, for her it was her first visit to this area. I remembered my first trip some weeks ago, just before we left Osijek went through one of their roughest nights and the whole time I looked for place were we could shelter if the alarms would go off. Getting closer to Osijek was like leaving the normal world and entering a place were dead can be at each corner. I don't know if you can describe that feeling in words. It is a tension which you feel, but don't want to talk about.

Osijek now is more and more alive, some of the broken windows are already replaced, and the hard boards which covered the shop windows were taken away. Lot's of the highschools started to work again and all those young people bring somehow life back into the city. A city who never really was not alive, the people who stayed behind managed to let the town living, even under the hardest attacks. Katharina had to admit that Osijek never have been that clean as during the last 9 months.

Our first talk in Osijek was with the centre for social work, where I met some people I learned to know during the earlier visit. It is obvious that everybody is somehow more relaxed thanks to the bombfree period, more free from that everlasting tension, which had them in their hands during the last months. More than last time the had openly critic on the government in Zagreb. Zagreb left them in their eyes alone in solving all the problems and now thinks that they can organise the return of the displaced people back into the occupied territories centrally.

One of the things which was new for me, but is more and more understandable is the fact that people in Osijek, but also in other parts of the country are afraid for more waves of refugees from BiH. People are already sitting with their hands in their hair (as we say in the Netherlands), the thoughts that app. 500.000 more people will come to f.i. Eastern Slavonia makes them really panicing. How to solve the problems. Often you heard a kind of reaction can't they stay in BiH in the safe parts (if you look at the map you will find out that safe is very relative, the cities and villages which are not included in the war can be counted as it where on one hand).

We decided that the workcamps we would like to have in this area takes place in a camp near Djakovo, were some days ago the 1200 refugees from BiH arrived which were held captured some weeks ago by the "other" side for some time. I think I wrote about it. In Osijek most refugees are placed in the houses, which are left by Serbian people or were families from JNA soldiers lived. Like in the schools, they know that when more people starts to return to the town this will give a lot of problems, but for the time being they said that help in that camp near Djakovo is more needed.

To explain a bit about those houses which are appointed by the town or any other institution to refugees and displaced people you have to know that all of that happens more or less in a time of chaos. It happens more then ones that people came back and found others living in their house with an official permission. A problem which will enlarge as the situation will become more quiet in this region and more people are coming back. Especially a lot of problems are happening with those from mixed marriages, f.i. a Croatian woman married with a JNA soldier from Serbian nationality. 

Back at Kathrinas place, at the ninth floor I hear the story about that grenade which hit her house a month ago when Vesna T. was phoning with her. It entered the kitchen of her neighbour, left a hole of app. 1,5 meter and worked his way through that apartment into the hall, next to elevator. The night afterwards somebody work his way into Kathrinas apartment and took everything from value away. Something what seems to happen regularly in abandoned houses according to what people talk us. The political situation in Osijek has also changed over the last weeks, Glavac, the former head of the defence from Osijek has appointed himself as head of the town council, taking all the real power in the city in his own hands. Glavac belongs to the ultra right wing of HDZ, who consider Tudjman as a very weak politician and openly criticise his policy, especially when Tudjman tries to picture the world that the war is over in Croatia. If it is up to Glavac Croatia should immediately try to "liberate" the occupied parts of Croatia by force. In many ways Glavac can be seen as a local dictator, who has a lot of support from the people. Especially among those who stayed behind in Osijek to defend the town. But also among those who left in the first place and came back later, they compensate their earlier "escape" with a strong Croatian standpoint, as it were.

During the night the light outside more regularly went out again and on some moments you hear, also rather close, explosions, but it were no attack from outside. Since the bombing has stopped already 2 weeks ago more and more houses from Serbian inhabitants are blowing up. For Chistine this was a little hard to get over, but I think after a few nights in Osijek she will also got "used" to it.

The next day (Friday) we drove (in a nice Yugocar with red crosses all over and but also with extra ventilation (due to grenade who went through the door and the side windows) to Djakovo to see the refugee camp, which is build on one of former JNA practice places just about 15 Km from the city. A practice place which is still used by Croatian army by the way, according to the camp"leader" the explosion we heard were not from the front, but from practising.

The camp now enough for around 500 people was already occupied by nearly 1000 mostly Muslim woman and children, 2 weeks ago 1200 arrived, but some were taken away by relatives. But when the buildings are ready it must be able to cover the basic needs for around 5000 refugees. It is run by a staff of 7 people and for the time being they have food enough, together with us some trucks from "Nachbar in Not" arrived at the spot, bringing food from Austria and Germany (around 100 trucks arrived during the weekend at the different refugees camp, this form of sending food rather then money is much better to avoid that money is spend on other things).

The campstaff told that they were a little disappointed by the participation of the refugees in the running of the camp, but that story I have heard all over the place (and also in refugees camps I have been before in other countries). People are still confused about their situation and can't imagine that they have to stay for a while in tents, without a clear future.

Our offer to help them with our workcamps (and even the small amount of presents I brought with me from gifts we have recieved) were accepted with a great thanks. It is really a problem in those camps were over 60% of the population is under 20 years to find something to do for them. The effect is that most of the youth starts to become rather aggressive and the older ones really like to go back as soon as possible to BiH to fight.

The situation is the camp still far from ideal, as said most of the sanitairian installation still have to be build, but everybody is doing what they can. But I must say that I have to hold my heart (as we say in my country) for the moment that more people come (back) to this region and more refugees have to live in the camps for as long as the war last. Now the summer is coming and most of the live is outside, but in the winter the situation will be much worst.

In this area, very close to the warzones, you will find every where the signs of the war, not only is there a massive amount of soldiers and army machinery, but also everywhere you see in the small villages houses which are totally destroyed, mostly by blowing them up with dynamite, since they were from Serbian inhabitants.

Later that day we went back to Djakovo to meet Vesna J. parents, she comes from that place. Nevertheless the fact that also Djakovo was under a lot of alarm, most of the damages in the town took place during the fight in the autumn from last year around the JNA buildings. Like all the JNA barracks the places are full with bullet and grenade whole and the buildings around it as well. In Djakovo JNA was also shooting from their barracks at the cathedral a few street away from their mean barracks, but missed it lucky enough and the grenade hole can be found in the park behind the monastery.

Djakovo looks a lot like a huge military camp, everywhere you go you see soldiers, mostly carrying there guns around, something we don't see anymore in Zagreb, at least not in the centre, only around the station. Vesna visit some of the places she normally went to in her youth, hoping to meet some of her old friends. But ofcourse a lot were in the army and not in Djakovo, they were fighting or in BiH or in the region around Vinkovci and Osijek were the fights have started again in the smaller villages over the weekend.

I spend most of the evening with her and a guy who just came back from the front and more or less did not know what to do next, for the time being he is barman in a pub, but also would like to go soon to Austria or Germany to make money. He also just returned and told about his own person to person fight in which he at least killed one person with his knife. It is hard to imagine that on most of the hands of the soldiers in this region there is blood for the rest of their life. We drink and danced and try to forget the war for some hours, together with hundreds of soldiers (the discotheek was nicely painted blue, covered with sandbags in different nuances of blue, worth a picture if I had a camera).

From Djakovo we went with the parents of Vesna to their summerhouse, app. 15 km north of Slavonski Brod, a beautiful peaceful area, with the only peace breaking sound the explosions of bombs and shooting in Slavonski Brod and some little towns and villages west from there. The whole day and night you could hear the thunder sounds, sitting on one of the hills you even could see the explosions. It is crazy to sit there and watch woodpeckers in the trees, here an explosions and turn around and see the smoke coming from over the hill.

In this area most of the heavy equipment of the Croatian is pulled together in the woods, waiting for what we think the final attack on the so-called "occupied" areas. Nobody knows for sure, but most soldiers I have been talking to said that they are ready to go and are more or less agree that they have to wait so long. The UNPROFOR soldiers are more see as outside intruders who keep them from fighting then as peace keeping force, they are mostly not agree with the way Zagreb wants to continue the war and peace talks. 

The soldiers in this are are mostly from the occupied territories and joint the army during the fights in Vukovar. When I was in one of the houses they used as commando post it was strange to see how they were drinking and watching Serbian television (Zagreb HTV is hard to receive in this area) and telling the civilians about their heroic fights and their views on the war and the mistakes made by Zagreb. In this village about 6 or 7 (summer)houses were occupied by Croatian army in each of them a small group (app. 7 till 8 soldiers) and everywhere cables through the trees for fieldtelephones. Between the forest app. 250 meter away from Vesnas parents house a tank bataljon with 7 tanks from all kind of models (Russian, Yugoslavian and American as far as I could see and recognise). On each corner a soldier reading their newspaper, listing to rockmusic from a ghettoblaster and smoking in their hands automatic riffles. Regularly shoots echoed through the hills and forests (followed by loud screams when they wanted to reach somebody which went for a walk or to piss and didn't came back in time they shoot in the air and cry their name).

The citizens from this little villages are not so happy with those soldiers in thier region, to get them out they higher up the price for home brand brandy and wine, but this is normal reaction for small villages, which are nowhere in the world so happy with strangers and this village was never under attack.

Even the normal people in this are are sleeping with the gun next to their bed, since often in the months before small groups of Chetnik forces were seen in the villages. Among most of those soldiers HOS is very popular, from all the political parties they (HSP, HOS mother party) is the only one who say the true in their eyes. They say that HOS just is honest, they say they are going to fight and they are fighting, they others sell the country to safe their skin abroad and make a lot of money. Especially the fact that Tudjman organised for himself (and for the Presidents after him as he said) an luxes aeroplane, house on the same island as the summer house of Tito and other things are seen as a direct hit in their face.

After a very tiring trainride, the train was overfull, the next day we came back in Zagreb and found a lot of bills which have to be paid soon, it is back to normal again. When we turn on the news on television we were back in the reality, Sarajevo was a little quiet today and yesterday, the pictures showed the mass destroction of the twon. The BiH forces are busy to "liberate"  airport themselfs, since they are tired waiting for the solution via UNPROFOR and the food convoy which reached the city couldn't bring their food to the places in the town which are still under attack from the hills. But it looks if the situation is changing, the news said that at least one of the hills was now under the control of BiH army. With Love and Peace from Zagreb,

Wam:-)

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