Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  62  of  67
 Written 12:21 AM  Jun 30, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
29-06-1992

Dobre Dan,

Maybe Mitterand was blocking the steps and actions of the EC towards Serbia a bit the last weeks, I don't know, that is a little hard to follow in the press here. I know that his visit at least gave a lot of hope to people in Sarajevo. It is a pitty however that the promised planes with food and medicines didn't came.

Even when I have notice on the pictures from French and other foreign television on HTV today that the politicians around the world (especially in France) weren't so happy with the move of Mitterand, they accussed him from publicity seeking, he is until now one of the only ones who really did something. And he moved the situation a lot. (Later tonight the first airplane with aid came in)

Just some minute ago I heard via the world receiver, which Rainer from Berlin gave me, from an amateur radio station in Sarajevo, between all the bleeps and peeps, that the Serbian troops (literally what they said) has moved from Sarajevo airport. Suddenly it become a matter of hours (or days if we have to believe the UNPROFOR commander in Sarajevo, airport personal and more UNPROFOR troops have to brought in from Northern Bosnia and that takes at least 2 days) before the real relief of the citizens of Sarajevo will begin. 

Also I hope that they establish new telephone lines soon between Sarajevo and Zagreb, I have seen on GreenNet that Ibrahim was able to send news out again to London, but both him, Nada and Semra are not able to reach us, neither we them. And I must say I am missing them a lot. Whenever there is a change to be on one of those planes which will go down I am willing to give up my decision of never flying again and go with them. I love to see them, alive.

In Croatia the shelling also continued, for the first time in a month Osijek was under fire again last night (without airraid alarm), only 2 shells, but nevertheless it is a step backwards. Of course I worried about Nick, Joel and Aida (plus Norwegian friend) who are these days in Osijek, but just after I heard the news Nick phoned that they arrived save and sound in Zagreb (they didn't know anything about the shelling, during the night there were some explosions in the town, he said, but that is normal (what is normal in this case), but nothing serious had happen to them). Also nobody of the nearly 120.000 people, who are now in Osijek was wounded. So nobody has to worry.

Following the news from Beograd in Zagreb is hard, I really don't know what to think about those demonstrations, if you see it here on HTV it is nearly unbelievable that it is happening. It looks somehow so unreal that they can build up a big stage in the middle of Beograd, when you hear at the same moment that the fightings in Bosnia and Hercegovina and Croatia are continuing. The sleep in the streets and nothing seems to happen against them. Here in Zagreb people are putted to court if they only say something nasty or so about one of the governmental leaders and in Beograd they openly protest, well organised against Milosovic. Somehow it don't fit in the picture.

It is clear that something is happening in Beograd, it is not clear if this protest is only against Milosovic, or it also directs itself against the war. But nevertheless I am waiting until somebody establish a contact between us and the Centre for Anti War activities in Beograd, since it would be nice to know what to think about all this sudden actions.

By the way it is funny to see the difference in picture on Beograd television and other television stations (both are shown here on HTV) about the demonstration, only on beograd television you could see obvious Chetniks standing in between the crowd and the pictures were mostly taken that way that it gave the image that not many people were at the demonstration.

Now the elections are coming closer the stress on people to get the official Croatian citizenship is also getting stronger. Some of my friends, especially men are really afraid of it. If they let them self registrate as Croats they also can be called up for army duty. New mobilisations are taking place (but also people are getting back from the front). Something what worries some friends more is that they would not get Croatian citizenship, since their fathers were (are) JNA officers (I know a few who haven't heard anything from their families since the JNA troops went out of Croatia during the winter) from Serbia (or Montenegro) and they are not Croats (often not even born in Croatia, but in Serbia or Montenegro). They don't know what will happen if they go to get registrated. 

Today I have spend some hours to write, with dictonary, Hrvatski Vojnik and Hrvatski Zrakoplovac (or something like that, Croatian Soldier and Croatian Airforce) a glossy magezines about the Croatian army (which you can buy in all kiosks and are very populair), I try to spell the article about the glorious succes of Croatian Army on the Islands of Vis and Lastovo. But it gave not much information, since I was not so interested in all the type of riffles, tanks and jets which were described and in nice pictures showed from all sides (to be putted above your bed).

What still surprise me after all those weeks here is the total ignorance of the police for traffic rules, not only do they walk them self through all the red lights, but with all that police on the street you would think that traffic violations would be punished immediately. Forget it, you can break all the traffic rules, pass by a police car with a motor, driving at least 80 km an hour, in the middle of the pedestrians zone and no reaction. If you walk around with a bag saying "Peace Island Vis" however, you make a good change to be controlled at any corner. 

Vesna J. told me that there is special traffic police, but the only ones I have seen were agents who try to organise the traffic when some traffic lights were out and made a mess out of it in no time, so that's not there strongest point. The police you normally see on the street have nothing to do with regulating the traffic rules however, their job is looking for deserters and other "criminals". 

The tramline alone the building (the Sarajevo Bank) which was bombed about 8 weeks ago is still not working, in fact the whole street is still closed for traffic. The restaurant in that street have put now tables and chairs on the street and the whole thing looks a lot better. The building however is still under police control and it looks that that will stay that way for some time. 

The train station is again full with refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina so our friend in Gasinci can expect some buses full of new people for his refugees camp within the next days. This camp is really going to be overfull soon. I hope that the situation in Pula, where I am going on Thursday will be better. Anyway if some people like to know what is neccessary to improve the situation in the camps a little bit, realize that only help from abroad can change the situation. To feed and shelter all the refugees and deplaced people in Croatia there is an amout of 62 million dollar needed per month. You can understand that no country like Croatia can 

Some days ago the body of Mile Barisic (hope I spell the name right), who killed the Yugoslav ambassador (Vladimir Rohovic) in Sweden, back in 1972 and spend 12 years in jail in Sweden, and came back to Croatia just before the war, got killed in the area of Knin, somewhere last year, was brought to Zagreb and burried with all the honuors of a Croatian hero. According to the news nowerdays he only killed the ambassador only by accident.   

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)


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