Topic: Zagreb Diary 
Response  67  of  67
 Written 12:46 AM  Jul  6, 1992 by wamkat in gn:yugo.antiwar 
Subject: Zagreb Diary

Zagreb Diary
5-07-1992

Dobar Dan,

The amount of refugees in Gasinci went over the 2500 today and became now the biggest camp in Croatia, it even was announced on television. I am worried about the situation over there and I hope that at least some things have improved in the last two weeks, but according to the latest news we have got they only have putted up more tents. The kitchen is not bigger yet and still there are not enough showers and toilets. Today I spoke with some friends around Europe in the hope they could do something, but every thing is such a short notice. 

One of the things the "alternative" movement could do is e.g. sending solar shower down (portable), I have seen a lot of them in Istria and they must work in this climate. The last days it was more then bloody hot.

We probably also needs some tents for our workcamp there since the place is totally overfull at the moment and we can't kick people out to make place for our volunteers. 

It is summer and the summer holidays around Europe have started, nearly everyday we get now visitors. That is nice, but most of them are coming only for one or two days and wants to squeeze all the latest information out of you and since I am any way a little sick, due to a virus I am not so talkative as normal.

Eric (Bachman) from Germany, who goes to Beograd next week, came yesterday with some presents, money from a Swiss organisation and a registrated version of a BBS software package. So our dream to have our own BBS ZA-MIR-ZG (ZG = Zagreb, this stand on the numberplates of car in Zagreb) is coming closer. Hopefully ZA-MIR-BG (BG = Beograd) will follow soon. What we now need is an extra telephone line and a nice AT computer and we can start. 

Adam (Curle) is at the moment in Osijek to do mediation training there and it seems that it is rolling in that town. Joel is even thinking of moving over there in the future, so things look a little more positive. But still it needs a lot of help.

The planes from Zagreb Airport in the direction of Sarajevo often come over our house and it is a good sound. Those heavy Hercules military aircrafts carrying food and medicines to our friends over there. Nevertheless the fighting in and around Sarajevo continues. Today there were again reports of the use of fragmentation- and napalmbombs. But the guys keep on flying, you see it wasn't so impossible as everybody said. It just need the will to do it. I never liked the sound of aeroplanes, but in this case it is different.  The last days the music festival in Split is taking place and I must say that it is a little weird. People making fun and doing if nothing is going on. But on the other hand it is good to forget the war for some moments, to have some idea that one day it is all over. Also in Sarajevo people are sitting in the sun and drinking a beer (when it is available and the can afford it), whenever the shelling stops for some hours.

It is a bit like the series of Hemingway, which is now running on Croatian television. Yesterday I saw the part where Hemingway is war correspondence in Madrid during the Spanish civil war. It was recognisable. Okay in Zagreb the bombs and grenades are not falling, but I have been in places where that was normal. And after awhile you get a little used to it, not that that is good, it is still totally un-normal. 

Still I have problems with all those dead bodies I see daily on the television, it will take years and years to find out what really happened and how many people has been killed in this war. It seems to become a never ending lists of smaller and bigger massacres. When you just have heard of one, the next one is already on the news. There is no end to it.

I try to do my best to gather news from Beograd, since the demonstration are really getting bigger and bigger all the time. But the more I hear to more I don't understand. Clear is that Milosevic has lost a lot of support in the last months. But I will be happy if Viv from GreenNet get the lines to Beograd open on GreenNet. It would be fine to get the news out of the first hands and not via the filters of the different news agencies. When Eric is next week in Beograd we will see.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)

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