From: pnmideast@igc.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Re: Zagreb Diary
Date: 20 Jul 92 05:41:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1475300286:cdp:1475300287:000:6429
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!pnmideast    Jul 19 22:41:00 1992


From: <pnmideast>
Subject: Zagreb Diary

/* Written 11:34 pm  Jul 19, 1992 by wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org in cdp:yugo.antiwar */
/* ---------- "Zagreb Diary" ---------- */
Zagreb Diary
18/19-07-1992

Dobar Dan,

For one or another reason I always end up somewhere during 
the night writing my diary. Or rather early in the morning 
with some coffee from Netherlands in front of me. So the 
first workcampers are arriving, the girl from Northern 
Ireland was not impressed by all the uniforms on the street, 
but others were.

I think the biggest worries are over now with the workcamps, 
at least this one. It looks like if we got the minimum funds 
for the camps organised. My only worry is that in Gasnici the 
situation is becoming so worst that there is hardly not food 
enough for the refugees, so the workcamp is 30 more empty 
stumics to fill. But it is possible that we organise a few 
hundred tons of food within the movement, isn't it ?

No, serious folks, the situation is that in some of the camps 
we really see problems with the food supplies. The refugees 
really is getting a huge "problem". Especially now Slovenia 
also to have close their border. Yesterday a train full, 2000 
people, we stopped at the Slovenian-Croatian border and were 
standing there for hours. A most embarrassing picture, when 
refugees become beside their already desperate situation also 
victims of political battles.

And then you hear that West European left-wingers are 
discussing types of boycotts towards Croatia to punish the 
country for her nationalism and input in the BiH war. Like 
all the reporters which are passing by sometimes are only 
interested to hear how fascistic Croatian in fact is. I am 
nearly feeling guilty for expressing that view also by 
writing about it.

If you noticed in talks with by-passer time after time that 
they press more and more on that point, you get a little 
hopeless that we are going to get a type of self for filling 
wishes. By boycotting you higher up nationalistic tensions 
and that gives extra grounds for new boycotts.

Rudies (from Berlin) experiences in Beograd were also that he 
noticed that the boycotts only hurt the normal people not the 
leaders or the rich ones. You drive them as it were in the 
hands of extreme right (if that is permitted to say). 

All the visitors and I think soon we are going to open a 
special busline for activists between Beograd and Zagreb have 
more or less one thing in common, there complain about the 
leak of interest for the problems here from their 
homecountries. Sometimes I have the feeling that we have to 
pump them up, they come to tank new gas for their battle at 
home, rather then the other ways round. The universities are 
closed and they start to come, as promised by me, and at ARK 
the people are tired. I am full of energy, the virus which 
bordered me for some weeks is gone, I think. Since this flow 
of foreigners started I am back in my element. 


I can study my German, Dutch and other languages again and 
get informations from the outside world. What is happening 
there, how do you discus about the situation here. And what 
do the people think, have I become a Croat after 3 1/2 months 
or am I still on the edge of the needle. The interviewers are 
coming asking me to have an interview with them, they have 
heard of me. That was not the ground of coming here. So a new 
rule is that they may interview if they only write "the fool 
from Limburg" or something like that. 

Those who knows what that line means more and more find out 
that I am here, and I got letter after letter stating that 
they were not surprised to find out that I was in Zagreb, 
they more or less counted on it. The rumours about me in 
Europe are, I know it, numerous. It seems that everybody who 
is in the peace or environmental movement on international 
level in this continent ones at least gets confrontated with 
me or have heard about me. That scares me off like hell, I am 
just a fool, never be able to choice really what I would like 
to do the rest of my life.

Absolute un important that I am here, it could have been 
anybody else, the heroes for that matter are the members of 
the different peace groups around former Yugoslavia, don't 
forget it is their country, not mine. I am just a fool 
passing by.

Sorry, I just had to say it before I become a short of 
movement figure head, trust the people from the Peace groups, 
don't trust me. Trust is the most important weapon in this 
"battle" for peace in former Yugoslavia. Trust in each other, 
trust in the future, trust in strangers, and each time that 
that trust gets hurt it is another reason to go down in the 
spiral of nationalism and isolation.

That happens on top political level, but for the same reason 
on normal person to person level. If people promise things to 
ARK or the Center or anybody else for that matter, we have 
the hope that people know what they do. Mistrust is not doing 
the relation any good. 

I gamble on the edge of the needle to organise this 
workcamps, when I started I really didn't know from where to 
get the money, and honestly at this moment I still have only 
promises, but I trust in them, and am sure that the 
solidarity out there is big enough to pull it off. But those 
who know me a little better know that I like to gamble with 
such things. I can tell them in Sittard and Freiburg that the 
gambles are here a lot harder, since there is more on the 
table. When it goes wrong you will find out that there is no 
safety net. 

Zagreb because more and more colourful the elections are 
screaming from every wall. Those with the best posters are 
obvious the ones with the best foreign support, since I 
wonder who else can pay for it. At least the printing 
industry has got a good injection. I wonder if all the 
parties, I guess over 30, will join the wall papering, 

besides the 5 big ones which are now doing it. Then really 
those open publications places get really 3 meters more in 
diameters. If you understand what I mean. If I pass by in the 
morning one party is just busy to overglue another party and 
by lunch time the next one is just finishing his art work. 
And by dinnertime the next party has found a nice place for 
their posters, just over the others. And so on.

So Now I got to the Center to see how many volunteers came. I 
will tell you later.

With Love from Za-mir-greb,

Wam:-)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china