Wam on Ark Zagreb

Diary 14 and 15 April

Dear Neeven and others,

Your messages from yesterday made more loose here in Zagreb then you probably could imagine. First of all Aida and I stayed up all night to find a way to get in contact with Beograd via all possible ways. Working through the night is however not so strange here, for me it was the second night in a row, since the night before I stay up to follow the news from Sarajevo if that bloody fool would blow up that Aluminium plant and the hydro central or not, lucky enough he cam till his senses. You probably normally notice in Zagreb, but out there it there is still a war going on. Soldiers are fighting and people are slaughtered. In Sarajevo, Mostar, etc. people cannot sleep either and when the fights get worst, the faxes are coming in. Really cries for help, desperate people looking for contact with the outside world. I hope that you understand that we cannot always just act as a normal 9 till 5 action group.

But the phone lines are gone, the last connection, via Sarajevo, is now also cut of, strange to imagine year ago you could easily travel to Beograd from here without problems and now it look like to world stops at the frontline. Anyway, back to the reaction, it made me angry, it made me crying, it made me feeling hopeless. I can say I do not give a thing about the Moslems and I do not give a thing about media wars, but it still not fits in the reality here. Just before I read your messages I was at the Moslems place here in Zagreb, so the refugees and was controlled for arms, they had a Molotov on there place just some days ago.

The first reaction is he has easy talking there in Sweden, the second is how can I explain to him what I am feeling, being no part in this question, and who don't want to judge who is right and who is wrong. My reaction was rather mild yesterday, but due to my questions, the discussions started to roll, why is the relation between the Croat and Serbian peace movement so bad. The first reaction was of course, but here in Zagreb they had also a modem standing around since nobody was there to handle it, that is probably the case in Beograd as well. In Sarajevo I found now a guy with is willing to help the International Peace Centre and SDA, by the way, I am trying to get the numbers of London and my password through to them.

The second thing is money, it is expensive to phone to London, but the local Fido networks are not reaching out to GN. I check most of the working BBS systems here in Zagreb, Sisak (war zone, nearly destroyed), Osijek and
Ljubljana if the conference there had anything in common with the news on GN, I can tell you that is not the case. Most BBS systems even in Osijek (were the bombs all like rain) the BBS looks a lot like the BBS systems at home, lots of games and even those sex gif files.

Except maybe for three conferences, which are ported among all BBS system in Adrianet, help.craotia, help.serbia and help.slovenia, some with help.bosnia. We can be glad that those materials, besides so interesting discussions do not end up on GN. Besides the media war there is an e-mail war going on on those boards, and indeed very one sided. Be glad that the initiative to post that all via Ljubljana did not work so well, when I should translate the hate on those boards and put it on GN you would cry. The reactions go from serious peace plan up to an atmosphere as if no Serb is better than a dead Serb. In addition, about everything in between, I just could not believe that there were so many shits on the boards.

Via my office in the Netherlands I have send at last a fax to Beograd, asking if I would come over and help them like I help here. The train cost and so I will organize somehow, I trust the world enough. I do not know if they have received it yet, I am still waiting for an answer.

I think also that it is of the utmost importance that contacts, possible direct should be established. The situation in Beograd is however a lot different; here in Zagreb the public is still not forgetting the attacks and the air raids. Were I try to translate the stories together with somebody we have to work hard to find out who is who, Chetniks, hos, jna, defenders, local militicia, etc. You may think that is not important, killers are killers, but it is important to know how different groups are called and how the behave or misbehave.

For most people however, Serbs are Chetniks and JNA is just a big supporter of the Chetniks. I think that we have to make a more colour picture in this stupid black and white picture. I am a pacifist, without dogmas obviously, since I can understand why people make the decision to fight and not to desert. Nevertheless, that opinion I had already before I came here. I must not blame it on the soldiers.

The reason that I stay of GN today was double, first I was tired and simply had to sleep. You can oversleep a day, the war will go on for a while. Secondly, I felt a little guilty about my angry reaction from last night. However, feelings are strong here. Not only from not enough sleep, also from the absolute daily reality that the war is going on. It is not right that I loose my temper. I have to stay calm, otherwise I going to make mistakes. I had also the promise to make an application for two groups to help them with fundraising at the Soros foundation and that was 2
days behind schedule. Due to my reputation of fundraiser for EYFA I have daily a stream of people coming asking me how to get money. I do not know, I cannot promise anything, I can at least help them in the hope it works. Such things keep me away from the war and let me concentrate on another point for what I came here to do, namely to start building up the contacts between groups here and the west. In the hope to raise money for the rebuilding.

The third reason was rather simple even if I wanted I could not not enough machines and the monthly ARKzin has to be produced.

After the discussion, we concluded that I would devote a big part of my time to reach out to Beograd and get them on the net. The best thing would be however if we could find a western volunteer who like to work in Beograd. Somehow, the normal work is full enough for most of the people and Email is just extra. Thanks to the messages, I am getting people start to believe that what I am secretly doing with that machine has some sense; they really start to feel that email is useful. Especially the message from Paxus that CNN had indeed confirmed the killing in Obijna, however this message made many people unhappy, we hoped that it was not true, we more or less prayed that it was not through and that somebody was playing a trick on us.

Thanks also Paxus for your messages on Vis, yes, we have a strong hope to go to Vis together this summer, everybody need a break here, except me, since I am just coming. I checked the amount of conference on peace in GN and was surprised, never stroked my mind before, nearly 200 as I recall. I would like to put a pointer in all of them, saying that they have to follow this conference as well, but that would take to much time, and on-line time is not cheap. The reason that I did that was to see if any richer peace organization is using the nets frequently, because maybe I could convince them that we have here the best change to make real use from e-mail. And maybe they were willing to put money into this peace project, enough money and material for all the different peace groups on both sides of the fighting to stay in regular, say hourly contact which each other, plus a volunteer to help them. In practice that would mean Zagreb, Beograd (Sarajevo, impossible, since it is sealed off), Osijek if somebody dare to go there, (I am willing if somebody else helps Zagreb), Ljubljana (only money, rest is organized) and maybe already to Montenegro, and Macedonia, since it seems it is just a couple of days before the fighting starts there.

It looks that the Blue Helmets will not move in before end of May, but even afterwards, phone and other connection will stay bad for a while, I do not believe that before next autumn the thing is more or less in a situation of
starting to build up the normal connections again or longer. I lost just like everybody the hope that f.e. in BiH they will end soon. I typed that spark of hope in the other day and for a moment I hoped that I was real, it where fact, but they have said it before.

You, Neeven could never work here in Zagreb, or you had to be strong, since your name is Serbian and Serbs have a rough time here in Zagreb, the most are gone, but those who stayed are having real problems. We need more or less neutral people, I can say I do not give a thing about Croatia and nobody here at would be angry. It was the first thing what I say when I came I am not planned to make any differences because of races. If Croats activist do not like Serbs activist or vice versa it is their problem, for the time being I am not going to discus that with them. I only can hope it is personal and not because they other has another race.

I have no prejudices against Serbs, as said I live there a while., ten years ago, but nevertheless I know worst big cities, it is for sure better to stay in Beograd then in a working town like Zagreb (but I still like the country side better).

Another cooperation could be the demilitarization together of Vis, there is still JNA army and Beograd AntiWar campaign can help to convince their government to go for this Peace Island and leave the place. If they leave the Island because of a peace initiative, it would for sure make the international news. Or thousand other things which could be undertaken, if there only was something like a normal connection.

It is a long one this time, and I need to sleep, please think about this plan and when anybody likes to react do it quick, the war will not go on forever we hope, but peace through the blue helmets would not the end off the tensions.

Love and peace from Zagreb

wam:-)

p.s. all this time I am thinking should I stay or should I go.....