NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6544

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Subject: Zagreb Diary (part 5)
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/** gn.peacemedia: 167.0 **/
** Topic: Zagreb Diary / Part Five **
** Written 12:22 pm  Sep 14, 1992 by gn:peacemedia in cdp:gn.peacemedia **
Zagreb Diary (part 5)

by Wam Kat / Peace Media Service

========
Wam Kat is on leave from his work as coordinator of the European
Youth Forest Action in the Netherlands. In April he went to Zagreb
to work with ARK (the Anti-War Center). In the May Peace Media
Service we started publishing extracts from his dairy. ``I am
writing this,'' Wam says, ``to explain what it is to live in a
country at war, to describe what I see and hear in the pubs, on
the streets, and on television. I try to stay as neutral as I
can.'' His diary, heavily edited, continues...
========

September 6:
This morning the police organized a _razzia_ at the street market.
After the farmers leave, all kinds of people, including many
refugees, take over the stands, turning the green market into the
black market. They sell whatever they can--lighters, postcards,
anything they can make some money with. But the _razzia wasn't
against the black market, but to pick people from Bosnia-
Herzegovina who have no papers or the wrong ones.

Among the witnesses of the _razzia were visitors from a Japanese
human rights organization visiting Zagreb. They rushed in panic to
the Anti-War Center hoping we could stop it. But all we could do
was take down their story. In principle the Croatian police aren't
breaking any international laws. You can only blame the government
for violating a basic moral law, committing an act of indecency by
sending refugees back into a war zone.

This morning was marked by the news that in Indonesia leaders of
the Islamic states agreed in principle to help the Moslems in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The first rumors we heard from the Islamic
Center were that they decided in Indonesia to teach those Western
countries a lesson. If West Europe and the USA are not willing to
help, then the Islamic countries will put an army together and
come to Bosnia-Herzegovina to help their Islamic brothers.

We have a Dutch saying that soup is never eaten as hot as it was
served. Still we were alarmed by the news. Luckily later on the
real news. The decision taking in Indonesia didn't sound so
militant. But still we worry about a major escalation in the war,
the possibility of a huge clash between large armies.

Meanwhile I continue in my efforts to rent a house. Besides the
people who want to make as much money as possible and see all
westerners as by definition rich. Also you find people who want to
leave the country; six months pre-payment of rent will give them
what they need to ``buy'' their future in the West. But mainly you
find those who are simply struggling to survive and have nothing
more to offer but their house.

Everyone except the rip-off people tells you their life story:
what the war has done to them, who and what they have lost and how
black the future is looking for them. Often they are still living
in the house; renting it means they will have to find something
smaller and cheaper for themselves. It's hard deciding that the
place you have been ``fighting'' for all your life is too
expensive for you. Most have sold their television, their
refrigerator and everything else of value in the hope that the
times would improve but the situation only gets steadily worse.

The hardest stories comes from those who lost a husband or an only
son in the war. The house they had was totally dependent on him
since he brought in the money. Now they're destitute. The DM 2000
they got as compensation from the state was mainly spent on the
funeral. And they don't get a penny more from the state and that
is only paid to those who were in the official army, not one of
the militias. In Serbia the situation for widows is similar or
even worse.

Today Nina and I sorted out drawings made by the refugee children.
We got $1000 from UNHCR for our first three workcamps. In return
we were asked to have the children make pictures. Besides pictures
with numbered tents and loudspeakers, it seemed they all drew
houses.

Children's drawings seem to be more or less the same all over.
These reminded me of the drawings of my own children: friendly
houses with flowers in the garden and colorful windows. In a few
cases the houses were surrounded by tanks or airplanes, but most
of the drawings were quite peaceful. One girl from Goradze drew a
series of houseboats. They looked like normal houses, inclusive
roof, chimney and flower pots in the windows, but were floating in
the water. One striking thing was that sometimes their lines were
very hard, almost tearing the paper. If you look at the names and
places of the children you got a little quiet if have any idea
what happened in those places: Goradze, Bihac, Sarajevo, Mostar,
Visegrad, Foca, Banja Luka... You can't help but imagine what
these their young eyes may have seen and only hope that they were
out of the war zone early.

September 7:
Croatia has its new Parliament. The new members where sworn in
today.

Adam Curle, the travelling peace mediator, is back in town with
ideas about protecting UNHCR convoys with non-armed peace brigades
and for that reason he wanted to meet with people from UNHCR here
in Zagreb. He also wanted to join one of the convoys this week to
Banja Luka, but they were very clear in their answer: _no way_.
Adam will stay on in the hope of talking with UNPROFOR in the
coming days. After that he will go to Osijek to prepare the
Baranja project.

The workcamps started again yesterday which means I haven't much
time to follow the news on television so closely though I did
manage to catch one evening program which had report about an 80-
year-old partisan in Herceg-Bosna who is a volunteer in the
Herceg-Bosna army. He and about 20 young soldiers were sitting
around a campfire and he was obviously having a great time talking
about the good old days. He had an old handmade gun which probably
hasn't been fired in many years but now the old partisan's blood
is boiling again. He changed the red star on his cap into the
Croatian shield and has returned to the battlefield. Especially
for the television camera, he shot a few rounds into the forest.
Then he went back to his campfire and continued telling stories
about the last war.

We had some bad news today: the head of the University won't allow
us space at the School for Social Work even after receiving
letters from many officials. We still hope that will change his
mind in the coming days; otherwise preparing new workcamps will be
much more complicated. The other big problem is that we still
don't have secure funding for the workcamps and therefore can't
can't organize as many as we should. We have plenty of volunteers
eager to come, but not enough to the basic costs involved. This
worries me a lot.

This evening I cooked dinner for the 20 volunteer from abroad.
They're staying for the moment in a sport hall. Cooking for 20
people if you only have one small burner is hard, even if you're
used to cooking for 500 at a time. But it worked. They liked the
food and making it gave me a relaxed afternoon.

One of the volunteer from the Netherlands is 68. We were afraid
conditions here would be too hard for her, but we needn't have
worried. She came in with her backpack, carrying two heavy plastic
bags filled with toys for refugee children. She has been delegated
by her town as their official representative. The town wants to
adopt a project somewhere in the country. Tomorrow we'll put her
in contact with camps in the Zagreb area that are in urgent need
of help.

By the end of the week the fifth transport of food and clothes in
three weeks time will come; we expect at least ten tons in this
shipment. This has been organized by grassroots groups in other
parts of Europe. It's a great feeling every time when we phone the
refugee office to report another transport is coming and to ask
where it should be delivered. It's great to see how much ordinary
people in small groups can do.

September 8:
You can plan what you want but every time something goes wrong.
Now we have some volunteers who can't pay their workcamp fee since
they were robbed in Italy on the way here. If you have to work
which such a close budget as we do, in which the loss of DM 100
means you have one less playroom, this was devastating news. It
means less play, art and craft material for the camp. Tomorrow the
group goes to Savudrija.

Adam Curle had his meeting with the coordinators of UNHCR. They
told him that they don't want military protection for humanitarian
convoys. In fact there aren't many problems in getting supplies
where they are needed. Rather than sending more tanks, bullets and
weapons, they want world leaders to invest their money and energy
in finding solutions to the enormous problems and to send more
medicines, food and other basic supplies. You hear the same from
any field worker involved with care or relief.

Adam agrees with me that peace marches from Belgrade to Sarajevo,
and placing mediators between the front lines, wouldn't help much.
These are nice ideas but for another war. It's a bit like the
peace camp in Serbia last month. The local peace group seemed
unhappy with what happened. Afterward they said please not to send
any more uninformed people. It's better that they stay at home and
do actions there. People who want to be involved in the mediation
process should take time and be aware what to say and ask and what
to keep inside. One slip of the tongue can do a great deal of
harm. This has nothing to do with being honest or not, but with
being aware of the explosive tensions in the air. What for the one
person seems unimportant can be a volatile issue for someone else.

Buying vegetables at the market I was more or less surrounded by
people who have nothing left to loose. According to Janis Joplin's
song, that's total freedom. But if you see them, they're in a kind
of prison. Every moment is filled with the question: how can I get
enough money together before the end of the day to keep my family
alive? You see people who have five lighters to sell or three
plants or a handful of herbs or an old clock or a bit of jewelry
from their grandmother.

This evening I went out with some Spanish war resisters. The group
sends about four volunteers to each workcamp. Now they want to
help set up a draft resisters center in Croatia and make contacts
abroad for deserters from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Countries like the
Netherlands are willing to recognize such war refusers as
refugees. Probably there are other countries taking the same view.
They also want to collect money from peace groups around the world
to pay for a lawyer in Zagreb. This idea of theirs is good news.

Earlier toady I heard that a friend of mine has lost both his
legs. He didn't want to fight so the HV ordered him to clear mine
fields. He's being sent to a hospital in Zagreb so I will soon be
able to see him.

September 9:
Early this morning two young French UNPROFOR soldiers were killed
in Sarajevo. Their convoy, on its way from Belgrade to Sarajevo,
drove straight into a fight between the Bosnian defense force and
Serbian irregulars.

Late last night I had a long talk with one of the Danish
volunteers. He couldn't understand how people here, many of them
his own age, could be doing such terrible things to each other. I
told him that it isn't good to blame it on the individual. You
have to understand the psychology of war. War don't start with
such appalling actions. It begins like a small woodfire. It can
start with a cigarette but then gradually gets bigger and bigger,
worse and worse. It's only when ``woodfire'' is big enough to be
international news that you get mass killing, random bombardment
and actions that seem to outsiders unbelievable.

Then he asked me if I could understand that he wanted to go to
Bosnia-Herzegovina and see the war with his own eyes. He asked if
I thought this was strange. I said that this is also part of the
war psychology. War attracts people. Nearly everyday people pass
by who want to go there. But you have to absolutely clear about
what you want to do there and why you want to go there. Otherwise
you'll just find yourself standing in the way of others. I said
that the help he could give in the refugee camps was as important
as anything I could think of.

Yesterday I have news from Oggy, an assistant camp director in
Savudrija, that he wants to open a home for orphans in Bosnia-
Herzegovina or Croatia. I told him what my father and his friends
did in the Netherlands after the Second World War. Just one day
before the Nazis surrendered, they more or less occupied a Nazi
military camp and gathered all the orphans they could find. They
had Dutch children from Jewish parents, children of collaborators,
children of resistance members, and all sorts of other children
who had lost their parents and relatives in the war. The children
more or less ran the camp and amazingly there were few fights
between the kids despite their different backgrounds. In no time
the children realized that they had to life and work together to
survive.

When the camp in Savudrija closes, Oggy wants to put his energy
into realizing something similar. It will be a kind of
reconciliation work.

Some people in the Anti-War Campaign are more or less angry with
our new foundation, _Suncokret_ (Sunflowers). [The aim of the
Sunflower Center is to set up and coordinate grassroots relief aid
and to organize volunteer workcamps in the refugee camps and
centers in Croatia.] It seems to them we will be cooperating with
a government that is basically fascistic. I'm surprised with this
attitude because I am just cooperating with anybody who shows any
interest in bringing relief to those who are suffering. Maybe it
is a fascistic government, maybe not, but even if it is that's not
a reason not to cooperate with them if you can help people who are
victims of the war. Under these conditions, we are forced to work
with many people and organizations with which we might otherwise
never cooperate.

September 10:
I have the feeling that there are more beggars on the streets.
Besides the gypsies there are more and more invalids trying to get
some money.

When I arrived on the peace center today there were four Danish
UNPROFOR soldiers sitting there in full uniform. Lotte, a
volunteer from Denmark, had found them on the streets where she
found them drinking orange juice. Here at the center they were
getting a lesson in peacekeeping from Zoran. It was a funny sight,
these young soldiers sitting as if they were back in the
classroom. Will do anything with the what Zoran tells them?

I found Bickey busy with an enormous pile of applications from
volunteers who want to help in the refugee work. She has a gift
for meeting strange people. She told me about a Irishman she met
who is fighting in Croatian army. A few weeks ago she bumped into
one of the private bodyguards of Tudjman who told her about all
the luxuries at Tudjman's ``palace'' on Nazorova. It sounded like
Tito's villa. It seems the poorer the country, the more leaders
want to be surrounded by luxury.

I got the announcement that the first three months of my diary
(edited by Jim Forest of Peace Media Service and translated by
Heidi and Georg Schimpf into German) is going to be published soon
by Dialog International (postbox 260124, 4000 Dusseldorf). I am a
little proud.

September 11:
It is five years today since I my oldest son was born. In the
Netherlands it's normal for children to be born at home, but here
in Croatia it's almost always in the hospital. Next to Zagreb's
main hospital there is a pub called ``The Stork'' where you see
expectant fathers nervously drinking brandy and smoking one
cigarette after another. These days The Stork is quite crowded as
lots of babies are being born. On the streets you see many
pregnant women, sometimes with a man but mainly alone. And you see
many women pushing prams.

I ask myself what the future holds for these those children? At
least in one way these newborn children are better off than those
born just a few years ago. These babies are unaware of the war,
unaware of the problems their parents are facing. On the other
hand it's clear that babies too are unconsciously influenced by
their surroundings. Let's hope when they are old enough to be
consciously aware, the war will be over.

In any case new life means new dreams, new hope for the future.
For many people new life is a fresh reason to survive.

I have an idea going through my head. Though most refugee centers
in Croatia have telephones and even fax machines, just making
contact with our volunteers in some of the camps is often hard.
The camp offices are normally to be out-of-bounds for volunteers
and refugees. Often it's not possible to use the official phones
in the centers.

One solution would be to have some vans specially set up with a
mobile telephone, computer-plus-modem, and fax. Such vans could be
driven among the refugee camps and help in contacting refugees in
camps in other areas and other countries. I am sure that
telecommunication companies in the receiving countries would be
willing to help. Peace groups in western Europe that have a
computers, fax and modem could also be part of this. The main
thing would be to help people presently separated from each other
get back in touch. It would also be possible to establish links
between children. For example, refugee and non-refugee children
could exchange pictures with each other.

For properly-equipped vans to reach each camp in Croatia
Yugoslavia once every four days would require seven units. Similar
nets could be build up elsewhere in former Yugoslavia. I'm sure we
can find enough volunteers from Croatia and abroad with the
technical know-how willing to drive those units.

Anyone involved in refugee work knows how important communication
is. News from your friends and relatives is the best thing that
can happen to you. These days there are a lot of communication
possibilities. We must put these tools to work in this situation.
You see how the modern communication tools and networking have
worked so far. This diary is just one small example of that.
Within a few months we've built up an electronic network of groups
and volunteers all around the world.

What is needed are people who can help make this happen.


============================================
Peace Media Service
Kanisstraat 5
NL-1811 GJ Alkmaar
Holland

tel [phone]; fax 15.41.80** End of text from cdp:gn.peacemedia **