Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  66  of  67
 Written  3:00 AM  Jul  4, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
04-07-1992

Dobar Dan,

For those who are reading this diary now for 3 months it must be clear that I am always looking for details, trying to find marks which surprise me. One on the details I wrote about in the first month were the numberplate on cars. The day before yesterday when I was in Pula I noticed e.g. again that there is something remarkable with those plates. 

In some way it has to give a message that e.g. in Zagreb nearly the half of the car has changed their numberplate from Yugoslav plates into Croatia number plates, or at least has put a Croatian weapon of arms on the read star of the numberplate. In Pula however, as well as the whole of Istria, most cars still have Yugoslav number plates. It is maybe not so remarkable for you as for me. Put I think that it shows for e.g. that the national Croatian feeling in Zagreb is much higher in Zagreb than for e.g. in Istria. But I maybe can be wrong ofcourse.

As wrong as I can be about the deadposters, which you can see every where you travel. It is an old habit to announce the dead of somebody on a small (a4 size) poster with black borders, you see them on trees, on houses, on special bulletin boards, and other public places. I see this posters as a symbol of protest against the killing, a protest against the war if you may say so. They are not meant that way, but I see it that way.

But they maybe represent the upper side of it. Nevertheless the dead we are free now, and the posters are representing arguments to keep up the fight and follow the heroes who dead for the country.

I don't mean the real reason why people put them there, since that as I said is just a custom. But I mean the influence of seeing those posters everyday on the thoughts of people. How many times don't you hear in talks that all the killing may be awful, but that it was worth it. The freedom of Croatia was enough reason to fight for, to suffer for. Look what Serbs have done, they were planning it a long time, not Milosovic, he is only a puppet in the machine, but Serbs as a whole.

No, I don't believe in it, it is not worth deading for and it is not worth to get your country and culture (monument, environment) getting blown apart for. And I am not confinced that it was inevitable, even when so many people say it and say that they knew that it would happen.

How to judge after what has happen in Krjiana and Western Slavonia is a different thing. This happened already long before Croats surrounded the barracks. Don't worry I am still confinced that violence never can solve anything. Nevertheless I can understand why so many people became natiolistic (homeland awarness), maybe don't call it nationalistic, but something like lovers of their roots. Something what don't have to many associations which can be explain wrongly.

I don't believe that anybody on this planet was planning this masacra a year or 3 back. And that there is nobody who can say that he or she thought already 2 years ago that it was worth it. We are all reacting on what we see, what we live through, we have to accept the reality. After all these killings, and after the manifestation of power and destruction people may say it was worth it, it was all planned. We can't go back to the point were it maybe could have turned. It simply didn't is the reality is the situation of today.

We have different republics in which in every republic there lives groups which totally hate and are afraid (hate as reaction of being afraid, it is not so that one groups hate and the other is afraid) of the others. If this reality is build on facts or propaganda is at this moment not so relavant anymore.

It has lead us to a point that e.g. Lord Carrington is now in Sarajevo punishing his brain what to do. Since finding a solution for the fights in BiH maybe also a solution for fights in Croatia and upcoming tentions in other parts of former Yugoslavia.If you see the ethnic map of former Yugoslavia in front of you. There are a lot of them around nower days. And you imagine that a lot of the people here absolute not hate their neighbours (even when they are Croat, Serb, Muslim or what ever). It is absolute not so that every Serb kills Muslims and Croats and every Croat and Muslim kill every Serb they come across.  

I think that this is a war of ideology, of power and this whole ethnic thing slipped into it. I am not Lord Carrington, it is not my job to solve the problem. In that sense I think I am also not capable to give any type of solution for this situation. What I see is a giant mess and part of the world full of misery and traumas. And what I ask myself is how to build these countries up again. I know realistic that we in Zagreb never will be able to stop the war in the sense that sitting in front of the government saying that the government have to go and the army should withdraw never would become such a huge movement as in Beograd.

 On the other hand I am not confinced that the withdrawal of Tudjman could speed up the end of the war, neither do I think that the withdrawal of Milosovic would stop the war any faster, than it would stop anyway. I am not confinced that a change of politics in Beograd makes suddenly people stop fighting or it must be a total radical politic, like disarming the whole country immediately and ask UNPROFOR to do it. 

I thing that ARK is willing to fight along for such an answer, a total disarmement of former Yugoslavia and International commitment to secure the safety for everybody, that would certainly would make things in the near future a lot easier. But it is naive to think so. Neither can I imagine that any of the sides would start to put such demand forwards at this moment.

Even when tentions now would calm down and Serbia as country should totally stop every involement in this war, including total dismanteling of her regular army, condeming the troops which are still fighting and total ban every transport from arms over there terrotories of any of the still fighting groups. Even than it would take a while before people here in Croatia for e.g. will get the feeling that they are safe. There fore we need all the reconseliation experience which is on the planet.  It is full summer now in Zagreb, it is bloody hot. But things are not always so hopeful. Let for ones again try to see some positive picture in our eyes. Joel is terrific, he brings a lot of spirit in Ark. And the rest is going also a lot into the right direction. We nearly have are workcamps full. Today we had a open meeting for Croatian volunteers and over 30 people came. With some posters and a lot with mouth to mouth commercial a long students. It seems that we are able to get it all working. We have the cooperation from the people in the refugees camps, we nearly have enough foreign volunteers, we have enough Croatian volunteers and maybe the Italian SCI can help us with a nice grant from their government.

If we succeed with our workcamps is important, maybe more than we realise. It is a big learning experience for all who are involved. Not much of us have ever organised a workcamp or something more complicated before, at least not on such a sort notice. Nina and I started about 2 months ago making plans. Important in the sense that we get the feeling that we can do something. But more important to learn about other cultures. In most of the camps we are going to work there are a lot of Muslims from Bosnia. Most of us, both foreigners, as well as Croats from Croatia have had much contact with that culture. 

Important is also that if this works and the international non-governmental network of grassroots based organisations starts rolling and get something running like this workcamps and the Osijek project it means that we can do more.

It is important that this happens internationally, the best thing was bringing young people from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina together, but at this moment that is a dream, at least if we want to bring them together in Croatia. Still the conversations, the new views on the war are important to opening the willingness the communicate. There fore I am so happy that this project is now also carried by a lot of Croats, it is not something exposed on them from outside, but something we have done together. To many organisations come here and work from abroad, the involved Croats are helpers and translators, but never really on the same level.

There fore I am proud on this camps and Osijek project. It are the result of networking. An other style of working. We hope that this camps and the Osijek project will be the first stones in the pound, but that this stone will multiply itself by success.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)

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