From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: 6 Oct 92 06:14:17 +0100
Article-I.D.: ZAMIR-ZG.4nGKYX73tC
Distribution: soc


  

Zagreb Diary
29-09-1992

Dobar Dan,

We had some problems with the electric wiring in the house 
today and guess hardly the whole system was deadly dangerous. 
When I start to check out the wiring in the house I came to 
the conclusion that nearly 90% of the wiring was done by some 
idiot who probably never learned how to connect things 
proper, but the thing what stroke me the most was the fuzzes, 
from the 50 fuzzes in the house 45 were broken and somebody 
repaired them by putting electric wire inside of them. When I 
went out in the town to buy new ones I found out that fuzzes 
are as hard to get as spoons or forks. The major supplier of 
fuzzes, a shop keeper told me was a factory which is in 
Serbia. In fact only a part of the fuzz was made in Serbia I 
found out 10 shops later and they seem to have managed that 
the Croatian firm which use to produce only toilet pots makes 
now also this parts of the fuzzes.

And this in one house where the wiring is bad, I wonder how 
the situation is in other houses, if everywhere people has 
repair their fuzzes with some homemade time bombs the 
situation is ready to cause some accidents in the winter when 
people start to put on their electric heaters and powerlines 
are really getting hot. 

Of course we are happy to have electricity at all I got a 
phone call from somebody from Split today she wanted to have 
information about our activities and gave me her faxnumber, 
when I said that I would fax it straight away she said that 
that was impossible since they had no electricity during the 
day, only after 17.00 when the factories don't need the 
electricity normal houses and offices get a little juice. And 
than I just remember some people in our house complaining 
that the laptop computer which we have runs out of juice 
every 4 hours and has to be reloaded for 8 hours.

Today also the numbers of murders outside the war areas in 
Croatia came out for the month August. Figures from before 
the war are not known, but according to a friend who worked 
on the center for social studies before his department was 
dumped in the past it were about 2 till 5 a month, what is 
still high for a population of 4,5 million. But the figures 
of August beats them, at least 100 registrated killings. And 
that can be bar fights, vendettas, neighbour fights, etc. 
With some many weaponry laying at homes (especially 
handgrenades and but also landmines or similar things) and 
some many people carrying their revolvers always around wild 
west shot down are happening. 

It will take ages before this country is disarmed totally. If 
you remember that story about this old partisan which still 
had his home made riffle of the second world war laying 
around in his house, you can imagine a little bit how many 
riffles and munitions is laying around in private houses at 
this moment from which no officials know about. That they are 
also used for killing people other than the "enemy" is clear. 

People who learn to kill are not fighters on the frontline 
and angels at home. 

And the police, even when they are around in huge numbers 
can't be every where. If I write about Croatian police I have 
to tell you that I am still wondering what most of them doing 
except of walking around in their uniforms and looking a bit 
around. I know that it is not fair of me to judge about a 
system which I don't fully know but in this case I really 
have the feeling that it becomes time that the Croatian 
government starts to look into the effectiveness of to many 
police agents hanging around the streets doing nothing or at 
least seem to do nothing. I feel in as very demotivating for 
the role of the police. When we have to park our car 
somewhere and we know that a parking place in the centre of 
town costs 130 HDR per hour and a parking ticket for flash 
parking about 200 HDR where do you think that we park, the 
change that you get a parking ticket is next to nothing, even 
in front of the police stations. 

Somehow this feeling of not knowing why there is so much 
police on the street and still knowing that in front of their 
eyes you can break all the traffic laws is simply improving 
the chaotic atmosphere. It looks real but it isn't. When I 
went to the railway station to change some money officially, 
there were at least 10 police cops in the corridor where the 
exchange office is. Still more than one person approached me 
if I want to change money, somebody even went in with me in 
the exchange office and kept me offering a higher exchange 
rate when I already gave my money to the lady in the box. 
That all happened in front of this police cops. Of course I 
like this type of police better than those fanatics who give 
you tickets for every small thing, but still I really have to 
get use to it. 

From a friend in the UK we got a telephone call asking if it 
was true that their were fightings again in Croatia. Not 
again I told him, but still, but why are you asking. Since on 
the news he just saw that an UNPROFOR helicopter on it's way 
from Daruvar to Zagreb was shot at about 20 Kilometre outside 
Zagreb. He couldn't imagine that somebody in Croatia would 
fire at an UNPROFOR helicopter. I told him that we didn't got 
the news yet and that none of the newspapers or television 
news had reported about it yet. But according the information 
he gave me it must have been above a territory which is 
consider as fully under control of Croatia, where no fight 
are reported from since the end of last year. So that if 
somebody really had shot on those helicopters it most likely 
should have been somebody who operates from Croatia side. 

Still no flights today to Sarajevo, snow is falling in the 
mountains already and slowly the count down starts, will the 
figures come out, the amount of predicted dead during the 
coming months by the winter. The figures varies from 100.000 
until 1.500.000 people. It starts to get colder, it is really 
going to be a hard winter.

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,


                            Wam :-)
--------------------------------------------------------
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I dedicate Zagreb Diary to Tyche, Pjort and Rik
to know what their father was doing all that time
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia