From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de (Wam Kat)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 92 23:15:00 MET
Organization: ComLink-Network Germany - For Peace Zagreb
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Zagreb Diary
06-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

This morning there was a razzia on the green market, that is 
the place in Zagreb were farmer sell there products from the 
land. But after the farmers have left all kind of people take 
over the stands to make some money, so not a green, but a 
black market. They are selling there goods, or just some 
things like lighters, postcards or other things which they 
can make money with. The razzia was not against the black 
market, but to pick people from BiH with had no or the wrong 
papers. 

Since there were some people from a Japanish human right 
organisation in town (they visited the Center all day 
yesterday), they immediately came in panic to us in the hope 
we could stop it. Of course they were a bit disappointed to 
find out that we also can't do anything more than taking down 
there story. But that is war, we often have to stand there 
and look at it. The most incredible things is that in 
principle they, the Croatian police, not really break any 
international laws (you could only blame the government to 
break a kind of humanitarian basic moral, namely to send 
refugee back into a war area).

Trying to rent a house in Zagreb is an experience in itself, 
you meet all kind of people, which have so their own reasons 
to rent out their house. Besides the normal ripe-off people, 
who like to rent out houses far above any reasonable price to 
Westerners, you have the people who are pressed due to 
financial reasons in order to survive. Or the ones who like 
to leave the country and want six months rent in advance in 
order to "buy" their future in the West. 

But all , except from the ripe-off people, will tell you 
their life story. How hard the war came down on them, who 
they lost or what they have lost and how black the future is 
looking for them. Renting out their house, often people are 
still living there, means that they have to go out and find 
something smaller and cheaper for themselves. It is a hard 
step to decided that the place were you have been "fighting" 
all your life is too expensive for you. Most of them already 
have sold their television, their freezer and everything else 
what is of value in the hope that the times would change, but 
the situation only went worst.

One of the hardest stories is those people who lost a man or 
a their only son in the war. The house they had was totally 
depending on him, since he brought in the money, or it was 
planned that he would live their, or something like that. Now 
there is nothing left anymore, the 2000 Dm they have got from 
the state as help to overcome their big lost is mostly just 
enough to pay the funeral. This 2000 Dm is by the way the 
only money they ever will get and only those people will get 
it, who man or child is killed when he was in the official 
army. I am now writing this story in Zagreb, but of course in 
Serbia the situation will be similar or even worst (about BiH 

I can better keep silent in this case).

This morning was also marked by the news that in Indonesia 
the leaders of the Islamic states more or less have decided 
to help the Muslims in BiH. The first rumours we heard from 
the Islamic Center were that they decided in Indonesia to 
teach those Western countries a lesson. If West Europe and 
the USA are not willing to help the Islamic countries will 
put an army together and come to BiH to help their Islamic 
brothers. A Dutch saying that soap is never eaten as hot as 
it has been served, but still we were a little shock by this 
news. Lucky later on the real news the decision taking in 
Indonesia didn't sounded so militant, but still... We looked 
at each other and were quiet for a while. 

This threat from a clash between large armies is coming near. 
And when I read back my diary I see that this military 
intervention is now in the air already for over 4 months. 
Nearly every second week something has happened which give us 
the feeling it will happen in the next ten days. Each time I 
try to imagine how it will be and what will happen. How long 
the war will last. I even sometimes think full worries about 
the things Nostradamus wrote some centuries ago, let's hope 
it is just a bad dream.

With Nina we sorted out drawings of the refugee children, we 
got 1000 USdollars from UNHCR for our first 3 work camps, but 
in return we should ask the children to make pictures about 
their live in as refugee. Besides some pictures from tent 
with numbers and loudspeakers in between (with little tables 
in front of the tent with flowers on them, build by the 
people them self), they all draw houses. Children drawings 
seems to be more or less the same all over Europe (maybe all 
over the world), since in most of them I recognised the 
drawings of my own children. Nice friendly houses, with 
flowers in the garden and colourful windows. Some 
psychologist will say, see they all want to go home, but are 
not all children drawing houses.

Only in a few cases the houses were surrounded by tanks or 
aeroplanes, most of them were rather peaceful. The only 
remarkable thing was that a lot of drawings were made a 
little spasmodic (not the best word, but couldn't find any 
better), the lines at the paper were hard sometimes. If you 
look at the names and places of the children you got a little 
quiet, Goradze, Bihac, Sarajevo, Mostar, Visegrad, Foca, 
Banja Luka, all those place and you start to think what those 
little children eyes may have seen and hope that they were 
out before it real started. One girl from Goradze (now in 
Savudrija near the Adriatic Sea), who probably never saw the 
sea in her life draw a whole series of livingboats, which 
looked like normal houses, inclusive roof, chimney and flower 
pots in the windows, but laying in the water.

For the rest was it just a Sunday in Zagreb, on the main 
square the people gathered to see their friends, scattered 
over the square you see small groups of men and groups of 
women. In the women groups you see the older people in the 
original dresses of their areas. They come from Dubrovnik, 

Dalmatia. Herzegovina and other parts of BiH. People talking 
with each other over their experiences, and probably over 
their homes.
  
With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)

  

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