Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  63  of  67
 Written  4:08 PM  Jun 30, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
30-06-1992

Dobre Dan,

Some days ago I thought I have seen all the horror possible on television, but yesterday evening Slikum na Slika (HTV) showed amateur videos from dead bodies, the result of a massacre which were found in a small village north of Mostar. More I don't want to write about it. Anyway nobody will ever be able to tell what the picture showed.

Thinking about however kept me awake nearly the whole night. Why and how is it possible. I even do not think about that they shouldn't show this pictures anymore. It is the reality. This is where war is all about.

The last days, weeks, I have been writing about HV (Croatian Army) in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Officially they are not there, but the stories are clear enough. Today we got a phone calls to some friends in HV, who are in Dubrovnik, who told that they were asked to go to BiH. They furthermore told that HV soldiers who are going to fight in BiH are removing their official HV symbols from their uniform. So the story that the Croatian soldiers active in BiH are only from HVO (Croatian soldiers of BiH nationality) and HOS seems to be not true. 

Other things they told us were that the fights in BiH seems to be rather rough and that a lot of the Croatian HV soldiers who went there as volunteer has dead. Much more they said then the news on radio and television and the newspapers make us believe. But also that was not such a surprise for us. We have heard more often that the official dead figures are polished a lot.

Just like the news get always polished, when they tell about shelling, like yesterdays shelling on Dubrovnik (about 250 shells hit the town, killing 4 people), it was, even according to "The Big Blue (UNPROFOR programme on HTV) an attack from "Serbian" side. The same sources told me however that HV was again the first one who shoot. And that was surely not the first time that HV shoot first. Even UNPROFOR have already  officially ask the Croatian government to order their army not to attack or shoot at the borders of UNPROFOR sectors. And to return to there position as hold at the moment that UNPROFOR took over control in those sectors (21th of June).

Canadian UNPROFOR is now on it's way from Croatia with 1000 men and 80 armed personal cars. Their aim is to assist the 38 French UNPROFOR soldiers on the airport in Sarajevo and hold the cease fire around the airport, so humanitarian aid can be flown in. Nevertheless the less inspiring words of Mackenzie (UNPROFOR commander in Sarajevo) of yesterday, that it would take some days before the first airplanes would land, the first plane already landed 3 hours after the "Serbian" tanks has left the run way. Up to now around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday 3 airplanes have landed bringing at last some relief for the 300.000 people in Sarajevo. Things suddenly seems to move.

From other part of BiH, however, very heavy fights are reported. Maybe for the outside world this reliefs for Sarajevo looks like the end of the war in BiH, that is certainly not the case. I have got the feeling that the fights, also on the Croatian front get more intense, harder and reports of shellings in and on Croatia cities again more regular in the last three weeks after a time of relative quietness.

The sudden reopening of hostilities in South Dalmatian has hit the international press that we noticed. Like Public Enemy it scared up to 15 of our aspirant international volunteers for the works camp next month of (starting at the 19th of July). Pula and Savudrija are laying however in Istria, Savudrija only a forty kilometres from Trieste. In an area which is totally undamaged by war. And Gascinci lays at least 15 Kilometers from the nearest possible battle zone. In most of the big cities around the world more people get killed by murders and traffic accidents, than at this moment in Croatia by war. Not to jeopardise the war, it is crual, but relief work is also neccessary to be done. People shopuld not be afraid for some pictures on television. Most of the parts of at least Croatia (about BiH I am less sure) are safe to visit. I am sure that you can visit Zagreb, even without noticing what is going on.  

When of the first things Vesna T. noticed when she came back from Rio some days ago is that there were hardly no "blackies" (HOS soldiers) around on the streets. And indeed they seems to be nearly all gone from Zagreb. It is already some days ago that I saw the last one passing me by on the street. A full nest however I saw in Osijek when I was there about a week ago and in Tkalceciva there is often a car of them park, for the rest I haven't seen much from them lately.

What we however see more and more in Zagreb are war invalids, during the first months I hadn't seen one at the streets. But the last days I see more and more men with one leg, in wheelchairs or without an arm. Not as much as on the streets in Beograd people have told me about, but still a lot more than in a "normal" city.

Also you see more and more tourists in the town, searching for war symbols, but as I wrote there are not many left and most of them you overlook in the first days, weeks, when you still looking for symbols of violence. But it looks if it is going to be a full summer in Zagreb and hot.

If you like to come, you can prepare yourself for your trip by reading one of the many books, which have been published around the world by the hundreds of Balkan experts. In nearly every languages we have heard from books about what the reason was that the fights in former Yugoslavia started and who made which mistakes and what should have been done to prevent it from happening. I am not a Balkan expert, I am just here, and ...... I would like to see some books about how the war to stop. 

In "The Big Blue", however, had today the most naive story about the war between Serbian and Croatia, a cartoon film of Zagreb Studio, made somewhere last year. In this picture (the history from 1940 until 1991) a Serbs comes again and again with a red flag to collect money and when the Croat decided to stop giving and breaks the red flag, the Serb starts to shot. Next shot is that the Croat pulls down a nice Croatian landscape out of nothing and get's an apple on his head and see what is happening, just as you thought, the twelve stars from Europe.

 With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)



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