Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 22:30:00 CET
From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Reply-To: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Distribution: world
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary 17 November 1992
Organization: Zamir = for peace, Zagreb
Content-Length: 6744    
X-Gateway: UC xclhh [UZERCP V3.99]

Zagreb Diary
17 November 1992

Dobar Dan,

The night and evening was a strange mixture, it started with the Belgium 
soldiers who wanted to have a lesson in bad and dirty Croatian words, after a 
while only their majors were left over, which were getting a little drunk like we 
all were. People from BiH, who survived the most horrible experiences to get 
to this place. Volunteers from Croatia, Ireland, Germany and Basque country.  
All together in a small army tent in the rain of Savudrija. 

One of the Belgium majors use to be an ice-cream seller as he said, an EC-
monitor, during the earlier months of the war. He was in Vukovar (which fall a 
year ago today), Vinkovci and Dubrovnik. His stories were so different from 
those who John told from the same place, besides Vukovar, he had been 
fighting in all those cities. He, the major, lost his heart in these countries he 
said. He nearly lost his life as well, the room of the Hotel in Dubrovnik were he 
was sleeping was blown away about 2 hours after he left. And now he came 
back with a whole unit to do something more practical, as he concluded his 4 
months as Ice-cream seller.

His commander had some problems with all those pacifists, who came to 
Savudrija to work as volunteer for Suncokret. I told him that I refused the army 
as well and that I rather stayed in jail for more than a year to learn to kill for a 
king, a flag and country as he said he was believing in. But after a few more 
cups of brandy the situation was a lot less complexed.

During all this time Jasmina was singing songs about Bosnia and Vesna was 
talking with the director from our school and his friends about the experiences 
in the detentions camps. She was surprised, she told me later, that those 
people were not full of hate towards the guards in the camps. I remember the 
stories from friends and relatives from my father who survived Dachau, 
Ravensburg and other camps from which the names have still nearly 50 years 
later a sound of dead. 

The next morning the children waked us up again and I just looked out of the 
tent or I ran into a Belgium reporter, who thought that I was a refugee and 
wanted to know what I felt and what me experiences where in BiH, how I was 
able to get out of that war, and all those question in rapid French, without 
leaving me a minute to explain that I was not interesting for him to be 
interviewed. On the way to the main store at the camp, we bumped into an 
Italian television team who were busy to collect children for a shot. In front of 
them was their translator who bought shots with candies and coffee.

Just before we left we met the girls from Suncokret radio again, for who I 
brought a new cassette recorder for their camps radio, which Mark Jan 
bought for them in the Netherlands, they had scored some coffee from the 
Belgium soldiers and wanted to know what to do with this type of coffee, how 
do we make it.

At  the bus station in Umag they told us that the bus we wanted to take to 
Ljubljana didn't was seen for months, it was still on their schedule, since 
nobody had told them that it was cancelled, but since the beginning of the 
year they haven't seen any Slovenian bus anymore. So we decided to take to 
first bus out to Porec, in the hope to catch a bus from their to Rijeka. The bus 
prices raised with about 35 till 40% overnight, since the oil prices went up
again. But like always if they don't give you a ticket the price is a lot less. That 
is how bus drivers make some money on the side line.

In Porec we were luckily, only 10 minutes later the bus for Rijeka left and we 
were nicely on our way. In Rijeka we just had to wait 2 hours, during which I 
tried to reach Sura or Uta to meet with them, but I couldn't get through and we 
catch the last bus to Zagreb through the rain and snow.

During the busride through the night we spelled the newspapers. Big on the 
last page stood that the busride from Zagreb to Rijeka was now 8750 Dinar 
and we pay only 6000 for the both of us, when I joked about it Vesna said that 
I had to close my mouth, maybe he would come back and asked for the full 
price.

I was dying to find out if the big strike was still discussed, but that storm 
blown over and we couldn't find anything back in the news paper, neither 
about the concert, which was planned on Sarajevo airport some months ago 
by an US American relief organisation for children, since that one phonecall 
"We will send the best and have everything already organised" we haven't 
heard anything anymore.
 
Another item which was spread over the newspaper is the fight between 
HDSP and HSP, the people from HDSP said that they were the only real 
party of law and that Paraga was just a criminal and all decisions taken after 1 
June '91 by HSP were illegal. They consider themselves as the only founders 
of the Party of Law and broke away from Paraga Clan last year in the summer 
to form the HSP-Dr.Ante Starcevic (Ante Starcevic was the original founder of 
HSP long ago).
 
Paraga opened a large scale political and press attack on the Tudjman 
government. He called the process against him and other members of HSP, 
during a press conference held to react on the taken of their passports by 
Croatian state, an act comparable with the old Stalinist politics and presented 
a dossier full of crimes against their Human Rights by the Croatian state 
towards the president of the council of Europe, Mrs. Lalumier, who visit 
Croatia last week to talk with members of the opposition.

Last but not least the tax on building materials in the war zones of Croatian is 
taken off in order to speed up the rebuilding of the country.

Bog I Love from Za-Mir-Greb,

							Wam
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Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different electronic networks, it is 
copyright free and can be ported to any network or other means of 
communication you like, but please drop my a line, you can reach by sending 
a message to wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de or wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org. 
Zagreb Diary is dedicated to Tyche, Pjort and Rik, so that they found out what 
there father have been doing all that time in Zagreb.
Financial support for Suncokret can be send to our bank account in the 
Netherlands, Postbank Amsterdam, account number 5110, on the name of 
SUNCOKRET, AMSTERDAM. Or by sending post checks made out on the 
private name to: Ulla Treadmark Jensen (this is the person which should be 
on the checks in order to cash them), Keizer Karel V straat 23, 6147 HD 
Sittard, Netherlands. In both cases the money will be send to us in the form of 
materials which we can work with in the refugee centres and camps.