From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de (Wam Kat)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 15:29:00 MET
Organization: ComLink-Network Germany - For Peace Zagreb
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X-Gateway: US SHLINK [shgate V1.91]


Zagreb Diary
29-08-1992

Dobar Dan,

The morning started with some early phonecalls from my home 
town, from people who found a huge article in the provincial 
newspaper about my work here and who wanted to know how and 
if they could help. I totally forgot about that article and 
was probably as surprised as the ones who called with the 
article. It is nice that they write about our work, but I 
dislike that personal part. The situation is much more than a 
Sittard idiot working in Zagreb. But I am at least happy that 
papers are spending now more time on this problems here and 
are willing to give more background information instead of 
this stupid war stories and half based political information. 

Another Dutch journalist, who I have seen mostly drunken, 
wrote a very tension building article about how fascistic 
Croatia is becoming. He only talked with the HOS soldiers and 
some very aggressive homosexuals and it is comparable with a 
story on Beograd if you only talk with Sesselj. All the news 
which is coming out of these countries is so filtered with 
the interest of the writers.

After that I had my first long interview with a Croatian 
newspaper, "Slobodan Dalmatia", it was a nice lady who was 
very interested in the reactions I gave on the military 
intervention. I know that my vision is not popular and that a 
lot of people will think that I am a fool, but it will be 
nice to have that opinion printed in some "official" Croatian  
newspaper to invoke some discussion. On Monday, by the way, 
HTV (Croatian Television) will visit our office, so the press 
silence will be broken. All of this are a result of the 
workcamps, who made clear to some people that behind that 
unknown door at Tkalciceva some thing was happening.

After that a Dutch film team, who has been filming in Gasinci 
the last weeks came back and needed some time to talk. They 
really couldn't believe that a situation like that was 
existing in an European country. They also witnessed a razzia 
of Croatia Military police, during which some man were found 
in the camp, who were put on transport back to BiH. Of course 
they weren't allowed to film during that razzia. The were 
really happy when they heard that the Dutch governmental 
delegation had been in Croatia and probably had adopted 
Gasinci. We are not sure about this fact, but everything I 
heard so far about the camp which was adopted was similar 
with the situation in Gasinci. The Dutch promised to build 
houses before the winter and take over the responsibility for 
food and medical care and especially the last part was really 
horrible in Gasinci.

The camera team told that always cleaned up the things they 
wanted to film, one day the medical boot was full of dirt and 
the next day when they came back it was nice and clean. It is 
a bit like the toilet story in that camp, according to the 
UNHCR standards there are enough toilets, but half of them 
are always closed, since there is not enough money to clean 

them every day.

The Dutch filmcrew just left and some Croatian volunteer from 
the Pula camp came in with a big smile on her face, the first 
time that I saw her really happy. She had managed to get some 
relatives from people in the Pula camp out of BiH. Since she 
is a displaced person herself it was strange that Croatian 
government accepted her letter of guarantee, but who cares, 
the people are out and together again.

When I played with her son, which is the same age as my 
oldest one, I feel a little bit sorry for my kids. But it was 
great to give her son the play maus which my son has send 
with the people of SCI to be giving to some refugee kid of 
his ages. I had a real warm feeling when they unloaded their 
truck and I found that maus, I know how he likes it. 

Just after her kid finished a thank you drawing, which we 
send with the fax to Sittard, Mariana Grandits, Green 
parliamentarian from Austria came into the office. She will 
travel with some representatives from the German Greens 
through Croatia and hopefully Herceg-Bosna the coming week 
and come to see if we had made all the appointments she ask 
for. Since she is from the Croatian minority in Austria, she 
don't need anybody from the Center to translate for her (she 
speaks Croatian all her live, even when it is different from 
the new Croatian language, which is now spoken in this 
country).

Her main concern was a piece of the plans from the Croatian 
government she received from Germany. Since none of this 
plans are yet openly published in Croatia, we all were very 
surprised to read about the new ideas the Tudjman government 
has about the role of the family, women, church  and 
minorities. If this ideas really became laws Croatia will go 
back in history. But since it is not absolute clear if this 
are just undiscussed intentions of some people within the 
government or official secret governmental paper, we need to 
find out more about it, before we publish it.

Furtheron we talk about the idea which the Greens came up 
with during the END (Europe Nuclear Disarmament) conference 
in Brussels the other month to establish a kind of permanent 
peace forum for former Yugoslavia, in which beside peace 
movement, other people from the different social movements 
and opposition parties will have a place. The aim of this 
forum is to develop ideas for the future of former 
Yugoslavia, Especially in Zagreb and Ljubljana the peace 
groups are a little skeptical about this idea, another 
talking body which makes resolutions. Mariana, convinced 
Zoran and me however that it will be rather practical.

As all Saturdays it was again a lot of weddings, people 
driving like idiots through the streets, waving the Croatians 
flag and claxoning all the time. In strange that even in this 
hard economical situation people seems to think it is still 
worth while to spend a few thousand Dmarks to have big 
parties. On Saturdays the restaurants are always full of 
partying groups, when they really get drunken you will hear 

the for me now familiar songs from the Utashe, often mixed 
with songs from the communists period and even old partisan 
songs. 

With Love from ZA-mir-GREB,

Wam:-)



  

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