ZAP / ARK
GAJEVA 55
10 000 ZAGREB
CROATIA
zap_zg@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3707/
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from: vanja, amsterdam, slovenia
This is what happened in Amsterdam the Tenth of April 1999,
There was supposed to be a demonstration against the war and the NATO bombings on the central square of Amsterdam... A lot of so called progressive and anti military groups from Holland came there in order to march to some governmental institution(maybe Yugoslav embassy) in the town with people from Yugoslavia . But things went rather different...namely we were pretty surprised to see a lot of Serb monarchy flags all around the square with angry Serbs wearing what we ignorants would call Cetnic hats and maybe some Kosovars shouting words as : free Yugoslavia ,NATO is a kille and all these words of freedom..
I was astonished as well as my Slovenian friend who was with me, so I just asked a middle-age city-dwelling lady from somewhere in Belgrade why they came there. I wanted to know why the people who are against the NATO but not against the War are demonstrating with a bunch of naive western peace activists and the lady told me that i am practically an ignorant if labeling the Cetnic hats as pro-war nationalists. I was told to read more books. We wanted to go on the stage to declare our statement for freedom and explain that we are not satisfied with the beginning of the demo at all but we didn't have the chance because the group from Amsterdam decided to stop the demo because apparently some eager patriot had attacked a demonstrator who was telling to stop with nationalistic outburst. The next thing was a threat to my friend who tried to explain the Yugoslav people-organiser that the demo is without a clear and unique statement and war-friendly...He said he would set her on fire..... I believe that this sort of failure events are happening all over Europe...especially in the demos which are oriented against the NATO. We could expect to share common disapproval with the native nationalists but we cannot control it. We could avoid it, though. Its really sad how different worlds collide while having the same "enemies"...
I think all the people who take a gun in their hands for a nationalist pride must have a reason to do it which is not understandable for me... I was lucky not to live any more in Serbia. But people are killing women, children young people and this is a horror. There are guerillas in the world who are fighting the state powers without killing the civilians -because they are not nationalists ...and don't behave like medieval weirdoes, no matter if Serbs or UCKs...
Apart the demo, I have been thinking how people in Ex Yugoslavia and all
around the Europe consider the international finactial institutions
involvement in these Balkan holocaust. Main line international and national
media have been trying to minimise these powerful influence that (for
example) International Monetary Fund and his Sister World Bank have in the
Balkan Interests Market. We are all the time failing to address our demos
against these financial monsters who already some decades ago but especially
during the Yugo Crisis found a new weapon
market and earth resources all over Balkan and made a hypocrite deal with
our presidents to quickly reset the monetary and economic regulations in the
post socialist Yugoslavia. Someone would doubt that these facts have to do
with the Balkan War. But they are pretty essential in our never-ending
debates about the war. I never noticed a single denouncement against the IMF
or other EU Banks who dirtied their hands with their development-aid money
which never was used as a source of rebuilding the economies but always only
as repayment of the old debts....
But we are not paying the old debts, people who kill their fellow neihgbors
just think they are paying their old debts.
I hate to think that the war in Yugoslavia started 50 years ago only because Serbs were treating the Kosovars as shit. All the Yugoslav constitution was kind of racist within each republic...but I don't dare to name this War. It was something common to all bloody states. Please correct me if I am wrong. Yugoslavia was a nationalist society from always, I hate to believe that only Serbs are nationalists. I hate to believe that the Slovenians, Croats and the Bosnians and the Albanians and all the non mentioned are not.
I just say: PEOPLE, BURN THE FLAGS!!!
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COMMUNICATION
TO THE PUBLIC OF ALL NATO MEMBER COUNTRIES
This night, the 9th of April, the ZASTAVA factory plants in Kragujevac were bombed. The live shield is broken through.This bombardment has inflicted sever damage to factory equipment and almost completely destroyed the energy supply complex that served not only to the ZASTAVA needs, but also for the heating of the entire city of Kragujevac: its residential houses, schools, faculties, hospitals... Yet, horror-stricken we were at the civilian victims: tens of men inside a live shield that was safeguarding the factory plants. Among the victims there were not only the ZASTAVA workers, but also members of their families and other citizens of the city of Kragujevac. What none from among us either could, or was willing to assume as possible did happen: Kragujevac has re-experienced its WW II tragedy, its citizens have again become the target of a barbarian assault. In the name of what aims did war planes take off from the once our friendly countries which used to send us the ideas of humanness, freedom, maybe the greatest treasure that we have in the modern civilisation? What has happened to all those ideas and have they been just an illusion that had dispersed at the first sound of raised arms? We, the small people, that has looked with admiration at all the great things coming from you, could nor, or did not want to accept that this was so. Haven't we, still, been mistaken? Has any one from among you give a thought to our future and the future of our children that has become entirely uncertain due to this insane act, and precisely this future we have been defending at the price of our own lives. Already exhausted by sanctions that have reduced our average monthly salary from DEM 870 to DEM 5-60, knowing that a destruction of the factory would bring into the question the very existence of ourselves and our families, we have made a desperate move: with our bodies we have made a live shield that has been guarding our factory nigh-and-day. We have been resolute, since the very onset of the attack on our country, and persisted in the realisation of that decision every day, not to leave our plants after the expire of the working hours, not even when the alarms would sound air strikes, thus staying round the clock by our workplaces. By night our family members and citizens of Kragujevac were visiting us, giving us support and making us these moments of painful suspense easier. In order to prevent a horrendous catastrophe that may arise due to an insane act of attack on our factory, through the media, we have addressed local and world public, giving the precise co-ordinates of the factory, and pointing at the potential losses, spiritual and material, that may be inflicted by its destruction. In our addressees we appealed to the public of NATO member countries, to the conscience of the common men in those countries. Besides by local, our appeal was published and broadcast by numerous foreign media: TV networks and news houses. We, the ZASTAVA workers and citizens of Kragujevac, are afraid of the future standing in front of us. Now we wonder whether we have any future at all. Our children are hungry, and their eyes filled with horror. We have no more answers to their questions.
Kragujevac, 9thpril 1999
EMPLOYEES AND MANAGEMENT OF "ZASTAVA" AND CTIZENS OF KRAGUJEVAC
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from: lepa, belgrade
dear friends,
we have received many messages of support, calls from our friends from
Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, thank you.
The situation: Many women are affraid more or less. last night some of us
have worked in the Womens Center untill 9pm, and after that the town was
calm and empty, and some citizens were around entrance of houses and some in
the cellers. The parts of the town near the military bases felt hard
detonations and saw the fire. Those in the center of town did not. The
telephone lines have become difficult.
The worry of pacifists is the situation on Kosovo. First, most artillery the serbian army has concentrated in the region of Kosovo. Last night i finally caught the telephone lines with Pristina and talked to my friend, and she said that the biggest worry is the vengeance of serbian army against albanian population. The CNN and BBC TV stations are obviously very pro-violence oriented and they have inflicted much fear into people in Kosovo, on top of the facts that are fearfull in themselves. The serbian officials have cut electriciy in Pristina last night, and tuned in this morning. The cutting of electricity was clearly the act of producing more fear on the one already there. So you can imagine the mood in Pristina. This morning there is no bread and milk in most of the shops in Belgrade and Pristina, and it is a beautifull sunny day.
The fact that enrages is that serbian regime has totally and apsolutelly
taken the control of all the media. Which means that only few words come in,
and that language of hatred, production of 'enemies' and vengeance politics
is increasing every minute. Four TV stations fused in one and two others in
the other one. The people who do not have satellite TV get few news per
hour, about shelters and enemies, and nothing else. This is as well
frightening.
Many women did not sleep last night, and sirenas that announce missiles are
on and off every couple of hours. So some of us are constatly on the phone
with those who feel bad.
Once again feminists and pacifists from Belgrade are again this time sending sisterly tender words for our friends and Albanian women and their families in Kosovo.
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Dear friends,
Info about Zaginflatch is available on request.
Basically, with this newsletter we want to inform the international community (this is you) on how antiauthoritarians in Yugoslavia and ex-Yugoslavia feel in these moments. Also, as people who have experienced air raids and general alerts, we want to support our friends in Yugoslavia who are experiencing this today. We don't want to prejudice any political solutions to Kosovo and other ex-yu problems, we just want to help our friends, and support them in this way. All opinions published in Zaginflatch will be just personal ones. There is no joint platform. Zaginflatch will bring you hardly any news in the way mainstream media does it. For this kind of info we suggest you try cnn, bbc or some other services. They are available to you anyway.. This is meant to come from inside... Also, if you're into alternative news sources, we suggest you try at www.b92.net ... Zagreb Anarchist Movement (ZAP)
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