From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de (Wam Kat)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 13:12:00 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
08-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

You can plan what you want and every time something goes 
wrong. Now it were some volunteers who couldn't pay their 
workcamp fee since they were robbed on the way to Zagreb in 
Italy, if you have to work which such a close budget as we 
where every 100 dm more or less means that you have less 
playroom this is hard to overcome. Of course we can't and 
will not send anybody away when they ones make their way 
down, but it means f.e. that we can buy less play and general 
art and crafts material for the work in the camp (otherwise 
we endanger the next camp). It is not so nice to take such 
decisions, especially when you are looking at videos made at 
the earlier camps and you see how successful the work is and 
how the children are busy.

Tomorrow the group will go to Savudrija, it is probably the 
last camp we can organise their since the word is out that 
the camp will be moved soon to Rijeka, where and when nobody 
knows. From the Netherlands came the news that soon a new 
group of people will be transported from Gasinci to the 
Netherlands, they promised on Dutch television to do it 
better this time. Since the last group went the camp have 
been growing again and within a few days they will break the 
3000 persons barrier again. Any way there was also some 
positive news from Astrid, who is there now and whose 
official papers from the refugee center made a lot of 
impressions on the staff there, that they started building 
new cottages for the winter. So it looks if things start to 
move.

Vesna T. was less positive about the responsible minister for 
refugee affairs has changed and she thinks that the new one 
needs at least 2 till 3 months to work himself into the 
problem, which are indeed very important months. She is any 
way a little down about the future. She was still angry about 
the vague position Croatia had during the last important 
refugee meeting in Geneva. On the one hand saying that the 
refugees should be stay in this region and on the other hand 
saying that countries abroad should take them in.

Adam Curle had his meeting with the coordinators of UNHCR, 
who told him what we were saying for a long time, "Please 
make the world understand that military protection for 
humanitarian transport is NOT necessary". They made him clear 
like every organisations tries to explain to the leaders of 
the world that they should invest their money and energy in 
finding solution for the enormous problems, which these 
countries will face soon, send medicines, food and other 
supplies rather than tanks, bullets and more arms. You will 
hear these from about any field worker who is busy here. 
There is not much problem with getting the supplies to the 
areas were it is needed.

He was also agree with me that peace marches from Beograd to 
Sarajevo and dropping mediators between the frontlines 

wouldn't help much. It are nice ideas, but for another war. 
It is a bit like the peace camp which took place in Serbia 
last month. The reaction is that the peace group there is now 
saying, please don't send anymore NOT informed people, rather 
stay at home and do actions there. The local peace group 
seemed to be not so happy with what happened. When Phillipe 
from France went down there they especially asked him not to 
organise anything until the situation is been a little more 
cleared up. Hopefully we will be able to send somebody down 
there soon to find out what really happened after the camp 
and why the group has changed their mind so suddenly. 

Those messages are clear people who want to be involved in 
the mediation process should take time and be aware what to 
say and ask and what to keep inside. To fast a slip of the 
tongue is made and the wrong discussion is started. It has 
nothing to do with being honest or not, but with being aware 
of the tensions in the air. What for the one seems to be some 
unimportant can be a big problem for somebody else.  

Don't worry I am not down today, only a little realistic 
about some of the wild ideas floating in the air. I made a 
small speech at the workcamp today about the lands of the 
thousands possibilities (EX-YU), something I still believe 
in. But we also must take the war and the tensions serious 
and don't forget that the bullets are real. 

When I was buying vegetables to cook for the volunteers today 
on the green market I saw them standing again the people who 
have nothing left to loose anymore. Total freedom according 
to Janis Joplin, but if you see them they are in a jail, a 
jail which calls how to get enough money together before the 
end of the evening to support my family. People who have 5 
lighters to sell or 3 plants or just some small hand full of 
herbs, their old clock or some jewellry from their grand 
mother. People who were full of hope and dreams a few years 
ago when the economy went up and now they are sitting there. 
That is also war. A war which is not special for Croatia, but 
a war which take place in many parts of the world, the war of 
survival.

In the evening I went out with some Spanish war resisters, 
which is a very active group, they send about 4 volunteers to 
every workcamps (it is a pitty, by the way, that their 
material they had send to the last workcamps was lost on the 
transport to here) and now want to help to set up this draft 
resisters office in Croatia and make the contacts abroad for 
deserters (what a word) from Bosnia. Countries like the 
Netherlands are willing to give those man who went out Bosnia 
and normally are send back to their country in order to fight 
the same status as refugees. And probably their are more 
countries who have such a rule. Further on they like to 
collect money among war resister groups around the world in 
order to finance a lawyer in Zagreb. That was some good news, 
since earlier this evening I heard that a friend of mine 
probably lost his two legs. He was also somebody who didn't 
want to fight with arms so the HV ordered him to clear 
minefields. One of the coming days he will come to a hospital 
in Zagreb and I hope to be able to visit him there.

 
With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)