From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de (Wam Kat)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 23:52:00 MET
Organization: ComLink-Network Germany - For Peace Zagreb
X-Z-Path: ZAMIR-ZG!LINK-ATU!LINK-HH!SHLINK
X-Gateway: US SHLINK [shgate V1.91]


Zagreb Diary
03-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

The story with the refugees from Gasinci, who went to the 
Netherlands is not over yet. This morning I talked with Marc-
Jan in Amsterdam and he told from a report they saw on their 
television yesterday evening. The refugees were transported 
by bus to Zagreb, to travel from their by train to the 
Netherlands, but arriving in Zagreb at the station, some of 
them weren't on the lists of names of people who were allowed 
to go on the train to the north. Which of course was very 
emotional to see. Crying people, friends who had to split up 
their friendships made in the camps, since some were able to 
go and some had to stay behind. In order to find out how many 
people and who were send back we phoned with the camp in 
Gasinci, but nobody there knew anything. They seem to very 
surprised by our question, they even couldn't say how many 
people really went.

When you are becoming more and more part from such a chaos 
and disorganised situation you start to ask yourself things 
like if this is the way people should be helped. It looks 
more like if organisation are sifting cattles around the 
countries, not really knowing how is in charge and who knows 
what to do what. At least it starts to look like a giant game 
in which people, real human being, with feelings, who went 
through the most horrible experiences, are pushed around like 
wooden pawns on a game of risks (a wargame which is very 
popular around activists in the Netherlands). 

I more and more wonder why the different countries put the 
hard work of deciding who is allowed to go and who isn't in 
the hands of Croatian authorities. Not because of the fact 
that they are not capable to do it, but because if something 
goes wrong they, the Croats, get the blame and the receiving 
countries  wash their hands in innocence. If countries up 
North takes the future of this people serious, what they 
obvious do as soon as they arrive in those countries, since 
there are always huge press reports if they arrive and they 
show on television and newspapers how good they like to 
receive them, they should start their work in the refugee 
camps. Talk with the people there and try to find out how 
social structures are build up. Things like what now happens 
is more rule than exception.
 
Of course I am happy that people can get out of Gasinci, at 
this moment there is again airraid alarm in that region 
according the television and even general alarm in Slavonski 
Brod (airrraid alarm means that aeroplanes are flying over 
the region, general alarm means that the place is really 
shelled or bombed). But if you concentrate you more and more 
on the human part of this wars, you notice that every single 
persons, every refugee has his or her private sad story. When 
I was shortly on the office there where two women from Bosnia 
sitting (app. 50 years old) who would like to go to Germany, 
they even had document of their relatives in Germany stating 
that they guarantee for them, but the German embassy didn't 

want them to give a visa. Full hope they went on their long 
travel to the North, but were already send back at the 
Slovenian border. With desperate eyes they look at you, 
holding to  every small spark in the hope they can be helped. 
But what can a small organisation as we do. And more and more 
of this cases are coming in. Of course we don't know where 
they already have been, before they turn to us. 

I just read the first three months of my diary, at least the 
edited version which Jim Forest from Peace Media Service made 
from it, translated in German (some small peace organisation 
wants to publish it) and I was surprised how I am changed in 
my writing over the last 5 months. I am still struggling with 
the problem called war, but my subjects and interests have 
changed so much. I wonder if it still is interesting to read. 
Especially the last week were it looks if I am in a total 
chaos, which maybe is the case, but that is also war.

Just a few minute ago ago Astrid phoned, she came back from 
Gasinci and talk with one of the people there we would like 
to help to get to the Netherlands. He was not able to go on 
this convoy to the North, since he has no papers or anything. 
People from the Netherlands promised him that they would help 
him in a few days, but I write before, don't promise anything 
if you are not sure how to keep your promise. This is a real 
war, with real bullets, real killings and real refugees, even 
when it takes place in Europe it is not an action of some 
sqauters (people who take empty houses to live in). The 
authorities are real and the rules are real, if you don't 
know them you should think they are not there, even when it 
often looks like total anarchy (the word anarchy used in the 
sense that there is no control and total chaos).

In the evening I went to see a flat, a rather a room to live 
in in the coming months, since I have to move again. During 
the talks with the owner of this flat I found out again how 
useful it is to talk with people outside the direct ARK 
circles. People are so afraid of the winter and how to 
survive it, you often forget this things if you are together 
with foreigners. But the reality of most people is that they 
live on the edge of total break down. On the other hand they 
are so afraid of every thing, so afraid of talking freely, so 
afraid of taking a risk.

The lady I was talking to tonight had to sell about every 
electronic machine in her house to be able to life (basically 
to pay her electricity bills) and still the winter is coming. 
She is afraid of the winter which will come, for her job and 
for the stories she hears on her work about social uprisings 
during the winter months. When people have no money to pay 
their bills and to buy food. She survive since the place 
where she works give here sometimes some food and other 
things, but otherwise she would have no possibility to live a 
"normal" life. That's also the reality and I hope that she 
takes me in, because maybe I can help to get through the 
winter without food problems. Let's just hope, since I feel 
more and more deeply for this countries and the people in it 
and I really hope that that secret UN report I wrote about is 
just a bad dream.

 
With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)


  

Xref: sparky soc.culture.yugoslavia:8363 soc.culture.greek:8246