From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: 29 Sep 92 11:11:35 +0100
Article-I.D.: ZAMIR-ZG.4mlK7EXJtC
Distribution: soc


  

Zagreb Diary
26-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

Big working day in our house, every where you came there were 
people painting, building cupboards and doing other things to 
make the house more livable. It is really becoming more like 
a home than a house and if we can keep up this speed of 
redoing the house in a couple of days we will be ready. 
James, a ARK (a French non-violence community) volunteer, 
which came today immediately started to help, he is terrific, 
brought his gear box and after we are finished her he will 
start repairing the Peace Center so it is also more workable 
there.

In the afternoon we went to one of the biggest supermarkets 
of Zagreb, the Nama (one of the three supermarket chains in 
Croatia) on the industrial zone near the high way to 
Slavonski Brod. We had to hurry since Nina and I had other 
appointments later in the evening, from which we thought they 
were very important. After running to the supermarket and 
buying all the material so that people could keep on working 
in the house during the weekend we jump back into Nina's nice 
small fiat 500, from which the breaks are not working, the 
heating can't be turned of, one window fall down and can't be 
closed and is anyway 12 years old. It is a marvellous car 
since the 4 of us, besides Nina and I there was Astrid and 
Nina's small sister plus a huge amount of materials fitted 
into the car. She, Nina, already transported 4 chairs in her 
Fiat, by the way.

Anyway just before we went on the highway, somebody saw us 
passing by (on the side of this nice orange car it is written 
in big letter "Clockwork Orange") and called us, it was a 
friend of Nina, who know what we are doing. She was standing 
at the side of the road with a women from about 68 years old. 
This women, that became clear soon, was refugee from 
Sarajevo, who lived for some weeks in the Islamic Center in 
Zagreb, but ran away from there today. The Croatian police 
came there with 3 buses to get all the people around the 
Center out and bring them to Gasinci, earlier in July they 
also brought 500 people from the Islamic Center to there and 
now there were again over 600 people gathered in tents around 
the Center.

The old woman had only her plastic bag and a letter on which 
some message was written in order the give her entrance to 
another illegal camp. She was deadly afraid of being brought 
to Gasinci, "Chetnik will come there she said and kill us 
all", "Maybe it is not true, but who knows, they are all 
saying it". She was even so afraid that she had run away from 
the Islamic center when she saw the buses coming and forgot 
to take here belongings, some more plastic bags and her adult 
daughter with her. "I have to be in that camp before sun 
set", she said, "Otherwise the Croatian police will come and 
pick us all from the street and bring us to Djakovo". 

We took her in the overfilled care and I saw the fair in her 

eyes, people running like animals for their hunters. Further 
down the road, at the other side of the highway, near to the 
INA refinery we saw through the bushes a lot of people 
walking, it look a lot like a gypsy camp. The women started 
to shout and pointing to Nina were she had to go to. This was 
camp Resnik, a place from which we had heard already some 
times, but no Croatian official wanted to tell us were it 
was.

After going through some spaghetti curves to get on the other 
side of the highway we drove up the cobble road in the 
direction of the camp. From the other side a hyper modern bus 
camp within it 4 person in nice suits drinking beer or 
something. And than we stood in front of the entrance, "Close 
your car" the lady said, "They maybe steal your things". And 
we followed her when she went half running to the gate. We 
passed by some old Mercedes with German numbers plate 
(obvious gast-arbeiter from Germany), with in backs of their 
cars old clothes and even an old freezer.

Next to the gate a big shield with a text in Arabic on it, a 
small office and behind it the side of old wooden barracks 
around a huge sandy square. The lady thanked us, give her 
piece of paper to somebody at the gate and her Bosnian 
identity card and went in. On the big square we saw a few 
hundred people sitting in front of the barracks and some HVO 
army trucks. The barracks obvious had there best period some 
ten years behind and look more if they could collapse every 
moment than giving enough shelter for the winter. Since we 
still thought that we could be back for our appointments we 
decided not to go in and look if the inside of the barracks 
were as depressing as the outside, but we felt that it was 
probably even worst inside. We stood there for 5 minute 
speakless, after all we have seen in the other camps this was 
one of the most depressing sites. 

The way back to Suncokret was quiet, nobody of us really knew 
what to say, Nina took at least 4 times a wrong turn and we 
arrived hours later then planned, but full of will to return 
to this camp as soon as possible. Our intention is to send a 
few people back tomorrow to talk with the camp leaders in the 
hope to find out if it would be possible to organise some 
workcamp there already the end of the week, it is much easier 
for us to do it so close-by than on the other side of the 
country and it looks it is needed in this camp.

After twelve I finally arrived at Vesna J.'s place who had 
her birthday today, but I was to impressed with what I had 
seen to immediately talk about the nice things. We watch the 
late late news on which it was said that around 20.000 new 
refugee arrived in Croatia today. When the sun came already 
through the windows we were still talking about new plans 
which we could establish. Vesna and I designed an idea to 
make a type of alternative vegetarian restaurant in Zagreb, 
since more and more students are eating badly, and the food 
in the mensa and restaurant gets far to expensive.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,


                            Wam :-)
--------------------------------------------------------
Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different computer
Networks. If you can port it to another, please do.
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But please if you use something drop me a line.
You can reach me via wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de 
I dedicate Zagreb Diary to Tyche, Pjort and Rik
to know what their father was doing all that time