Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  65  of  67
 Written  7:05 PM  Jul  3, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
2/3-07-1992

Dobar Dan,

Today (2 July) I had to wake up at a time that I often go to bed, after working a whole night. The hour of the day that the streets are getting cleaned. When the man with the big waterpipes rule in the city.  Hundred thousand of litres of water is used every day to blow the dust and waste of the roads. I come from a country were drinking water is a problem, yes I come from the Netherlands (and the Holland part of the country is known for it's water, but still). If you consider that during this war millions of tons of hazard materials must have found their way into the earth and will reach the ground water level in some time, you may understand what kind of problem will raise in some areas of the country, especially area the destroyed petrochemical industries. But still the men with pipes clean the city every night.

Not the think about the fact that the people in Dubrovnik and Sarajevo have no water at all. In Sarajevo the situation, nevertheless the fightings who still continue get a little better, per day 4 or 5 transport airplanes make the flight over there with the live bringing loads. But in principles there are 7 flights a day neccessary to bring the normal amount of food and suplies which are needed for 300.000. After 3 months however without anything this is already a gift from heaven. 

So it is precisely 3 calendar months ago that I left my hometown in order to spend 1 month in Croatia. I went with big plans and absolute no idea what this war was all about. I would visit all the towns and villages, drop by in Sarajevo on my way for a short visit in Beograd.  Learn some people e-mail in the main time. Raise some money and maybe even would play a role in the contact between the peace initiatives in the different countries.

It is clear that not much of all those plans came through. I didn't stay a month, but am still here and determined to stay a lot longer. I didn't visit all the villages and places, the country is not only 2 times bigger than my homeland, but also a lot harder the travel. Moreover every village, every town has enough to "offer" to be "busy" with it for months, years. Sarajevo I only now from faxes and television and going to Beograd is totally out of my picture. About the rest I even don't want to talk.

I just passed by Karlovac (under attack just a few hours ago) in one of this nice long distance buses (no, nothing like the greyhounds) on my way with Nina and Branka , one of the co-leaders of the workcamps to Pula and Savudrija on Istria.

Like Osijek, Vinkovci and Slavonski Brod, Karlovac has a bit something of the end of the world. You can travel totally safe up to there, that is if you not consider the Croatian driving style as a possible danger, but in those towns already the war starts, beyond their border the war is real, there are the roadblocks, the front and the fightings. There is were king violence has it empire.

It is strange when you ride through this beautiful country side that just a hill away people are laying with weapons in their hands waiting for the next clash. It is so quiet and peaceful this morning.

The drive from Zagreb to Pula took about 6 hours, during the ride Branka and I had a discussion about me mentioning HOS in my diaries. She thinks that I am over estimating the role of HSP (HOS mother party) a lot. And by doing that I disgrace Croatia. I don't know. In many way I am a bit afraid of upcoming fascism in Europe and like to "fight" it with words by warning for it. On the other hand I think I have been writing a lot of good about Croatia as well.

In Pula we had a meeting with the regional centre for social work, which is in charge of all the refugees camps in Istria. In many ways it is strange that those centres have the responsibility for refugees beside all the work they have already. They have to take about more or less every social problem in Croatia. The unemployeds, run-a-ways, the divorces, family violence and a lot more and all of them are totally understaffed. On top of their normal work they have now the caretaking of about nearly 850.000 refugees and displaced people.

We had a nice half/half formal and informal talk about our plans to have at least one of our workcamps in Pula. After that they showed us the camps in this surroundings. It is a fact, even refugees camps come in different classes. One of the camps we visit was a luxes holidays resort, were around 300 people from Hercegovina found shelter. A nice luxe camping with one family bungalows next to a crystal blue Adriatic sea. You nearly forget that this is a refugee camp, until the moment that you see the empty faces of the people who are living there. All of them waiting to go home, children asking there parents when the holidays are over and they can go home. Nearly all of those children have seen the most cruel things I even don't like to write about. 

A part of the camping was also used for the normal tourists, which are still coming to Istria, which is totally spared by any war activities, besides the refugees there are no signs that there is a war going on a couple of hundred kilometres away. Already in Rijeka, during a short stop, we saw many of them, but here around the coast of Istria there are not that many as normal but still normal holiday live continues.

In Pula there were 3 camps like that, but the one which interested me the most was in an old army barracks in the centre of the town. 500 people packed in a straight army building without any really green grounds or play grounds for the children.

For Pula we had to take another bus, 3 1/2 hours through the heart of Istria to Savudrija. A beautiful peaceful landscape just walked away from the pictures of Italian renaissance painters. The camp in Savudrija opened end May in a holiday resort for children from Zagreb. It is now the shelter for 1800 mostly Muslim people from the north of Bosnia. 

Together with us arrived a small family which also travelled a lot from another refugees centre near Zagreb, were they had to sleep on concrete in a big hall, they thought that the camp in Savudrija was better for their small child. When we were waiting for the director of the camp I played a bit with their child, she remind me a lot on my youngest son, a beautiful child, laughing and when we played together with here doll she gave me a real warm feeling.

Life is hard for refugees, they can't just travel around the country and look for the best place to "settle" down, but are placed via the centre for social work. Nevertheless the fact that it was nearly dark when we arrived the family get send away, back to their original centre, 400 km away from Savudrija. When you see that happening the first moment you get angry inside, how can people be so hard to each other.

In this case there is however hardly no other way, every camp gets just enough materials for the amount of people who hosted there. If people are travelling from camp to camp to find the best camp, the deliveries for food and other supplies get totally out of hand. And this is not the only incident, the campleader told that he send today already more then 30 people back to their original camp.

A fact is however that the situation from camp to camp is a lot different, some people have in all the misery some luck and are send to a "better" camp then others. Here in Istria the camps are better supplied, with help from abroad then the camp in eastern Slavonia. But hopefully that is just a matter of time.

Savudrija can been seen as a kind of model camp, the organisation is tricky, but the director is much more relax then the one in Gascinci in Eastern Slavonia. He is used to run big holidays camps and have split his camp in 3 major units and together with his 5 man staff he really made the best out of.

Okay the tents are better (thanks to Italian aid organisations) and there was already enough facilities like toilets and so when they open, but never the less the disparate feeling I had after visiting Gascinci a couple of time, I didn't felt in this camp. The toilets and showers are important, since most of the refugees are Muslims, used to shower them self a couple of time a day, before having their holy ceremonies.

And to defend the campleaders in Gascinci I have to admit that the area, next to Adriatic sea, as well as the place is much better. In Gascinci the have only a small part of the space from this camp in Savudrija and have to host a lot more people. The sound from Slavonski Brod and the practising ground of HV (Croatian Army) are much more disturbing then the peaceful atmosphere in Istria.

Never the less also here they have also problems with the delivery of supplies, like in Gascinci clothes (especially for growing up children) and toilet material (shampoo and soap) is leaking. And with every transport coming in the situation with the distribution among the people is explosive.
In the middle of the night we took a bus back from Savudrija over Ljubljana to Zagreb. During the ride we had to pass to new European borders, which starts to look more and more real. 

After 24 hours we returned back in Zagreb, 24 hours in which I only had seen 1 HV uniform and 3 Bosnian uniforms, on the bus station in Zagreb however there was a whole load of them so I feel home again.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)



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