From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de (Wam Kat)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 12:04:00 MET
Organization: ComLink-Network Germany - For Peace Zagreb
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X-Gateway: US SHLINK [shgate V1.91]


Zagreb Diary
09-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

Early this morning two young French UNPROFOR soldiers (21 and 
28) were killed in Sarajevo. They were on their way from 
Beograd with UN supplies to Sarajevo and drove straight into 
a fight between the Bosnian defence force of Sarajevo and 
Serbian irregulars. At first the message was that Bosnian 
troops opened fire on the 40 vehicles big convoy when it 
drove on the runway from the airport, but soon eye witnesses 
said that there was already a heavy fight going on before the 
convoy arrived and that neither of the sides was aiming on 
the UNPROFOR convoy. In the last 5 months 13 UNPROFOR 
soldiers lost their lives. 

The situation in Sarajevo became a little better over today, 
in some part of the town they could repair electricity. And 
there were plans to also restore some parts of the water 
supply systems, which haven't been working for over a month. 
Unfortunately an exchange of prisoners planned for today in 
Sarajevo didn't took place. The Serbian fighting groups came 
with nearly 600 "prisoners" to the meeting place, but none 
came from Bosnian side. A spokesman from the UN said however 
that only one bus full of captured soldiers, the rest were 
civilians. The spokesman said that some of those civilians 
were just taken out of their houses some hours before and 
that indeed this could been seen as ethnical cleansing. 

Very late last evening I was talking with one of the Danish 
volunteers, he asked me if all these things which were told 
on Danish television were true. And tried to make it 
understandable to himself that people from his own ages are 
doing this often horrible things. How can people do these 
things. I told him that it is not good to blame it on the 
individual persons, but that he should try to understand the 
psychology of war. War don't start with this horrible things 
in the beginning, it is like a small woodfire, it can start 
with a cigarette and then gets bigger and bigger, worst and 
worst. By the time woodfires are big enough that they make 
international news they have reached a state of alarm. So are 
wars, they don't start with mass killing, shellings and other 
for "fresh" people unbelievable things. 

Then he asked me if I could understand that he wanted to go 
to BiH and see it with his own eyes and if I thought that was 
strange. I explained that he was certainly not the first one 
who told and asked me that. That is also a part of the war 
psychology, it attracts people, that nearly daily people pass 
by who like to go there, but that you have to absolute clear 
about what you want to do there and why you want to go there, 
since it makes no sense to go there and stand in the way of 
others. And that the help he could give in the refugee camps 
was as important as he could think of. We don't need to have 
unknown heroes who likes to risk their lives, there are 
enough of them already.
    
A fax from Astrid came with the latest information from 

Gasinci. According to her news a non-governmental 
organisation from Denmark will start to build a type of 
houses there soon, they say that they will build 3 per day 
and a total of 100. Further on they will send containers to 
live in. Nobody in the camp, neither on the governmental 
office however which Danish organisation it is. So in 
principle there will be houses enough for everybody in the 
winter there. The situation for elderly people, however, is 
not cleared, in the ward they have electricity, but no water. 

Furthermore she told that next week 800 people from Gasinci 
will go to CSFR, which made Bicky worried if there were 
enough people there to organise a workcamp, the experiences 
so far however is that when people go, within no time there 
will come new ones. Were I am a little afraid of is who will 
keep the contact all those people abroad, by now the refugees 
from BiH must live all over the world. It must be hard for 
them living so far from home in an other culture.

A country of thousand possibilities I have called it. 
Yesterday I have got the news from Oggy, who is assistant 
camp director from Savudrija that he would like to open as 
soon as possible a house for orphans in BiH. I told him what 
my father and his friends did after the second world war in 
the Netherlands. Just one day before the Nazis surrender they 
more or less occupied a military camp of the NAZI and 
collected all the orphans they could find in the country. 
They had Dutch children from Jewish parents, from 
collaborators, for resistance members and all other who lost 
there parents and relatives in the 5 year before. The 
children more or less run the camp themselves and hardly no 
fights between the different backgrounds took place. In no 
time the children realised that they had to life and work 
together to survive. When the camp in Savudrija will be 
closed then Oggy wants to put his energy in realising 
something similar as soon as possible in BiH or in Croatia 
for BiH children. Of course it will be hard to realise but it 
is a start of the reconciliation work.

Some people in the AntiWar Campaign are more or less angry on 
our new foundation SUNCOKRET, they say that we are 
cooperating with the government and that this government from 
Croatia is fascistic. I am surprised of that since I am just 
pragmatic cooperating with every body which shows interests 
in bringing relief to those who are suffering. Of course it 
is maybe a fascistic government, maybe not, but that is not a 
reason not to cooperate with them. We also cooperate with 
other organisations which whom I otherwise never would 
cooperate.                                                                                                      

Bicky who just made last week a trip through Eastern Slavonia 
has the first reports ready about the destruction in that 
area and what could be rebuilder with foreign aid and 
volunteers, of course she complained a little that it takes 
so long before the official information was compiled. But 
that is the reality. I noticed it myself in the beginning of 
my stay how hard it is to work fast and effective. Waiting 
and hoping is something you have to learn, but it takes so 
much energy often.


With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

       Wam:-)



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