Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  59  of  67
 Written  6:00 PM  Jun 26, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
26-06-1992

Dobre Dan,

So the sun don't shine so hot today, but the air pressure makes you tired and feeling enormously sleepy. Joel arrived yesterday evening and brought us a suitcase full of nice presents (coffee in all tastes you could imagine, I never knew there were so many different tastes of coffee available in the states). He also brought among a lot of other things a nice red-white and blue badges with a peace dove in the middle, with made all of us laughing immediately, without him knowing why, until we explain him that red-white and blue are the colours of the Croatian flag (and also from the new Yugoslavian flag by the way, without the red star in the middle, just like the Dutch flag).

The book about help for disable children was immediatly occupied by some of our Croatian volunteers, who already work in one of the refugeescamps, she faces the problem discriped in the book day after day.

Joel with his bright laugh brought a lot of new spirit yesterday when he arrives, something we all need ones and a while.

Most of today I have been busy tracing down statistic information about the displaced persons and refugees in Croatia. That is not easy since not all institutions are making that difference between the two groups. A difference by the way which is made according the Geneva law, displaced people are those who have flee from one part of their country to another part and refugees are those people who left their country in order to be safe. Also their status towards the Croatian state is different, displaced people get beside shelter, food and health care also some money (when it is available), the refugees have only the right to ask for shelter, food and health care.

It is not so easy to find out from all those statistics, who many people there are in Croatia at the moment belonging to one of the two groups, sometimes the different between two organisations can be over 200.000 persons. But roughly it is clear that the amount of displaced people and refugees must be somewhere between 900.000 and 1.5 million, but none of the organisations ((inter)national, regional and locally alike) knows for sure. Part of the reason is that not all the displaced persons and refugees registrated them self, or cancel their registration when they go home. Lot of them find a place with relatives who take care of them.

Anyway during the weekend Nina and I will try to compile so information material out of all the information we have gathered, this information material is for the volunteers from abroad who hopefully come to the workcamps we are organising.

Eden (the friend of Milena) came back from Mostar some days ago, he was on it's way to Sarajevo, but couldn't get further then some kilometres passed Mostar since the fighting in that region is still severe. He went their to make a video film for some television station from abroad, the bloody bastards gave him only 100 US dollars to risk his life. However even when they didn't pay him at all he would have gone, but nevertheless... The picture he showed from Mostar just a few hours after JNA, Chetniks and other Serbian irregulars went out of the time are horrifying. Comparing with what I could make out of the pictures the destruction of Osijek is just like a Saturday night party. Most of the bridges are destroyed (except the old and famous one, which is only damaged a bit), the big supermarket is total loss, all cars in the city are not more then all lot of burned out old iron, dark spots on the asphalt marks the placed were people got hit and so on and so on. 

The orthodox church just outside the city, which was about the only undamaged building in the city was severe damaged by the Croatian and BiH forces, when they tried to occupied it in the last hours of the fights. Some soldiers from JNA or Chetnik forces used it as their last strong hold from were they shelled the city. According to Eden stories, he showed a picture of the church before and after it was hit by some grenades.

It becomes more and more clear that the war in BiH is much more worst than the war in Croatia, how stupid that may sounds. The cruelness and destruction in BiH seems to even overshadow what has happened to this country. And the fights still continue. On this moment there is a start of a cease fire in Sarajevo and maybe it will hold long enough for UNPROFOR to take positions on the airport, but who knows, we have seen it time after time, even the citizens of Sarajevo are skeptical about. 

We joked yesterday evening about inviting Dan Quayl to come to Sarajevo, if he is not able to help the people in Sarajevo he is at least helping the people in the states with going over there for a while. Until now however all high animals (forgive the word) brought one good thing to Sarajevo, namely a cease-fire and since Quayl is anyway in the neighbourhood, for the G7 conference in the beginning of next month in Munich he could make a Detour over Sarajevo, in order the give, maybe, some relief to the citizens down there. Just a few days of peace will be enough to bring in food and medicine and bring in the wounded and others out. Better would be if it stopped totally, but since this cease-fire came from Serbian side it gives new perspectives for the future.

Maybe all those discussion about yes or no military intervention are not necessary anymore and the "discussion problem (and difference in opinion (also here among the peace groups))" will solve itself. However after seeing the pictures of Mostar I am afraid of the first clear pictures from Sarajevo. Until now the pictures we recieved on HTV were always full of snow, exploding houses, running people and chaotic situations in the hospital, which operates already for weeks without enough medicines and running water.

With Ben I talked ones more about the disappointment that Public Enemy didn't came, as well as some other bands, mostly hardrock groups, with fancy names as Napalm Death and so, who also cancelled their concerts in Ljubljana because of the war. But especially Public Enemy could have make a hell of a statement by playing in Ljubljana, sending a message of hope to everybody. But they made clear, what is clear already for a long long time, we are living in former Yugoslavia on an island. The world don't know what is going on and even Ljubljana and the whole of Slovenia were no shot has been fired since last year mid July is still seen as a wild west area were bullets are flying around your head as soon as you pass the Austrian or Italian border.

Since nearly 3 months a newspaper picture from two nice Dutch female UNPROFOR soldiers is hanging next to my computer. They are smiling and waving to the people of Zagreb welcoming them as the peace makers. I wonder were they are in this country now and how they feel. 

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)

p.s. I have a special bank account now in the Netherlands, on which groups and persons can donated money for the international volunteers here in Croatia, due to some burocratic things they couldn't open it under the name of ARK but never the less all the gifts will come here one day.

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