From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:32:28 +0100
Article-I.D.: ZAMIR-ZG.4nOKoLlJtC
Distribution: soc


  

Zagreb Diary
06-10-1992

Dobar Dan,

Today we have put on the central heating system and that 
means that it is cold in our house, even with nearly 30 
people inside who are sitting packed but still seems to enjoy 
it. We haven't found an other bigger place yet where they all 
can sleep, since in the whole town all the responsible people 
are or at the frontline or abroad, or nobody knows. Which is 
of course not the best situation when your are looking for 
somebody.

Outside is it raining like hell in a few minute more water 
comes down than in the Netherlands in a day and I can imagine 
how the people in all the refugee camps and destroyed houses 
must feel themselves. Out of some kind of solidarity I maybe 
could put the heating system off again, and the electricity 
and the water and the telephonelines and hope we don't get 
all mad from frustration, but I think we are entittle to have 
some kind of luxes, we are anyway sleeping with over 30 
people in house and life under very improvising conditions.

I wrote about our telephone lines, which is not special 
something for the war, or for Croatia, you have this problem 
everywhere outside the most "modern" industrialised 
countries, and often worst then here in Zagreb. Anyway our 
two numbers 439928 (which is our normal line) and 438713 
(which is our data and fax line) have both doubles, one is 
439713 which are our neighbours and the other one is 438928, 
which is from somebody we don't know of somewhere in Zagreb.

Since we any of us use the telephone we disconnect the other 
part of the double line. The results was that our neighbours 
and that other person had no phone anymore and that meant for 
the other parts of the doubles that in the last week they had 
no telephone anymore. Yesterday we changed the fax line from 
the normal line via a splitter to the data line and the whole 
morning somebody tried to send a fax over the other line. 
After a while the line was dead and stayed dead for the rest 
of the day.

What I think what have happened is that somebody who couldn't 
reach us started to mix up with the other parts of the double 
439 and 438 are not far from each other and our neighbours 
were already complaining that they got so many phonecalls 
which were for us. So the double for the other line probably 
made the same experience and disconnected his line, by taking 
the hook of. The result is a quiet day without ringing 
phones. But those who came through by fax where all a little 
angry about us being unreachable.
   
I also got the first payment for my book this afternoon, 100 
Dmarks as pre payment, the German version is updated and goes 
to the end of August, in totally 80 pages, they print only 
300 copies, but I hope that soon the reprint has to be made. 
But I hope that if it gets reprinted that more contributions 
in the form of stories, pictures and other things can be 

included. I am still a little ashamed about it. On computer 
it is not so dangerous, but in written form it is a real 
thing.

I also got a shadow today, a Dutch journalist which is 
following me the whole day and makes interviews in between 
with me and the people I am coincidental talking with. It is 
a guy which I remember from years back in the Netherlands, he 
was from one of the group with whom we did the blockade of an 
atomic plants in the beginning of the 80'ties. Strange how 
during this war I get time after time confrontated with my 
and others past. Lot's of activists from the anti-atom and 
peace movement (or mostly both) are passing by. It is 
sometimes a kind of reunion of old activists.

Most of them are not longer full time activists anymore, they 
are journalists, writers, trainers and more where they never 
learned for, but somehow rolled into in the last 10 years.

Jo-Jo the Dutch journalist brought me a tape from the 
manifestation in Amsterdam, which took place on last 
Saturday, it was far not as full as we heard it is, Jojo that 
there where not more then a thousand, the tape with speeches 
are good however. 

Beginning with today the UNPROFOR will openly publish the 
insensitivity of the attacks from either side on Sarajevo, up 
to now they keep a bit on the plain (as we say it in Dutch), 
they only responded on questions. Also the resolution for a 
fly zone over BiH was discussed, on the news Karadzic (the 
so-called leader of the BiH Serbs) said that he withdraw 
himself from the peace talks if such resolution would be 
adopted.
 
Still shelling on Slavonski Brod, Sarajevo, Bihac and so many 
other cities and villages, a rising tension in other parts of 
former Yugoslavia, a coming winter with food- and other 
important things shortness in Serbia and Montenegro (because 
of Boycott, in BiH (because of war), in Macedonia (indirectly 
because of the boycott on Yugoslavia and directly because of 
some type of boycott from Greece) and in Croatia (less, but 
still, because of their part in war in BiH, because of the 
number of refugees and because of the bad economical 
situation). 

The sun is now shinning over the hole, between the clothes, 
the little houses on the hill are standing in a light bowl of 
golden light, no telephones are ringing, all the 30 
volunteers are asleep and I am enjoying the panorama in front 
of me. It can all be so beautiful if you forget for one 
moment the stories behind all those black windows, the 
rumours whispering in the air during the day, the fair to be 
different from anybody else. Maybe live here is a lot like 
manic-depression. The one moment you reality is manic and 
full of hope, they other moment it is depressing full of bad 
fairs for the future and now.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,


                            Wam :-)
--------------------------------------------------------
Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different computer
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I dedicate Zagreb Diary to Tyche, Pjort and Rik
to know what their father was doing all that time
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia