ZAP / ARK
GAJEVA 55
10 000 ZAGREB
CROATIA
zap_zg@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3707/
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How you can help:
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for us...
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From: stefan simonovski <prodilinea@hotmail.com>
Date: 1999. travanj 24 13:32
This was a bad week for me, everything went down the hill. First, concerts
of band from Bulgaria, BFH, were postponed because the owner of place in
Skopje canceled us in last moment, he asked for really big fee, what we
could not accept, then the concert in Prilep where brigade o.d. and tank
warning net should have played was canceled because of some vain
people who
are where they should not be, and on the end I flanked the exam.
Political situation in Macedonia is getting worse. President Gligorov asked
from government coalition to proclaim a state of immediate war danger,
but
for now, nothing happened. Nor, with refugees is not any better. Air
corridor for transfer of refugees is very slow, and refugees are still
arriving. Allegedly, in Macedonia there are 130 000 of refugees,
80 000 in
families and 50 000 in camps. Camps already became good place for making
profit on black market, mostly by selling cigars and candles by 3 to 5
times
higher prices. 10 packs of Boss cigars costs 30 to 50 DEM. According
to
statements of some politicians, if EU doesn't intervene Macedonia would
suffer economical collapse. A big part of Macedonian economy depends on
Yugoslavia. Many companies already started to fire
workers or to send them to obligatory or non-paid vacations, but there
is no
word about it on national TV, of course. All of this is covered with so
stupid and infantile lies that it is awful to listen. I have been asked
is
it true that NATO planes have fall in Macedonia. For now it is sure that
a
few projectiles have fall but luckily there were no damage, a few days
age
near Tetovo a plane without pilot, with German symbols, was found. There
was
talking about alleged demolished plane near Skopje Crna Gora, which has
been
seen by some inhabitants of local villages. Ministry of internal affairs
said that it is sure that something was demolished but because of bad
weather condition and rough territory it was not possible to investigate
it. That was bullshit because on that day weather could not be any better.
One of the bigger Macedonian TV claimed according to witnesses that
Macedonian police went there but was stopped by NATO forces that have
blocked access. There was a struggle between Macedonian police and NATO
soldiers and even repetitions of arms happened after what Macedonian police
received an order to withdraw. I don't know if this is true, but it is
a
fact that people here don't like NATO. I have been speaking with one guy
who
is in the army at the moment, he says that on the border there is gun fire
every day. Today they said that three Macedonian soldiers were wounded
when
a mine was activated while they were chasing illegals. They did not say
how
the mine was activated. Border pass is widened and everything is controlled.
***************************************
from: pop
Tjah... I don't know, but I know that tonight they are doing a good job
in
sector Ladjevci-Mrsac. I don't know exactly what and where was bombed,
but
when I am thinking about that, and what can I see from my window it must
be
some old target. Anti air-force artilery is again working very strongly,
so
the sky is full of bullets. The sky was yellow and red. 6-7 detonation
were
somewhere, and some of them were very strong. Tonight I can say that was
the
long attack. Like before the airplanes of NATO have made a few "eight
circles" west from the town (I can hear them doing that) but few days ago
they didn't do anything - maybe they didn't want to do that, even the sound
of airplanes was very scarry. I spouse that they are flying lower down,
though I don 't know that for sure.
Sicko had a few free days and I called him, he went to visit his family
in
BG. He was in a few risky situations, and he told me that the most terrible
situation was on April the 8th when 20 meters from him a bomb was dropped.
He also emanation that in this time he felt like he is in some condition
like vacuum. There were also two sniper bullets which flew by his head
in
other occasions.. Terrible, terrible. I've got a lot of other details,
but I
can't tell you know. Another time. In one word - catastrophe. Also, Sicko
went to Kosovo on his birthday. So nice... Tomorrow I expect him back home,
and maybe he can write you something.
***************************************
Dear friends,
Several of you have sent me in past few weeks the express of your
appreciation and mention something about my strength. It might be that
you
overestimated me -- last night even I was not able to work at all. Firstly
we heard in Pancevo already well known but ominous roar of airplanes. And
than -- you already know. The missile with -- how many, 2000 kg of
explosive, directly into the building full of people. Center of Belgrade
center. The rest you were able to see on your TV screens. I am witness,
reliable witness, how we all, and particularly the members of the
Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia were fighting against
propaganda created from radio television Serbia. We started in 1991, at
the
time of Vukovar. We did the same during the suffering of people in Sarajevo.
In the winter 1996/1997 we used eggs "against" this building. With some
support and within some time period, the building, equipment and working
people would be "on our side". Instead of that, cold blood murder has been
committed. I wonder how the pilots, missile operators and commanders were
able to sleep after killing.
Do they have dreams? I wonder would the children of murdered women and
men
be able to take the bottle of US made coca cola in their hands. To remind
you -- even the formal declaration of war was not announce, so we don't
know
with whom and why we are in the war. War? War has something to do with
fighting, attack and defence. Even the "war offices" of USA, Great Britain
and Germany have the names regarding "defence" -- not war. Dropping missiles
from 15 000 feet is not the war. It is cold blood murder.
Furthermore, I wonder are NATO "strategists" and their media lackeys at
CNN,
Sky and other companies aware whom they murdered? NOT the creators of
"pro-Milosevic propaganda" (who also do not deserve death, but fair trials)
but apprentices, clerks, doormen... A friend of mine, good radio-amateur,
is
a doorman their. Branko is a very
fine young man, but he has to live -- and that is why he accepted miserably
paid job at RTS. He was not at duty that fatal night, but his friends were.
Instead of offering jobs (e.g. Branko's English is very good, and he is
not
so bad in electronics) the "democratic West" is offering death.
Further down you will find the statement of the President of Independent
Journalists' Association of Serbia, my good friend Milosh Vasic. He is,
among another things, war reporter. He was in Vietnam, Cambodia, he was
in
Bosnia during the war. He has vast experience in media, and speak several
languages. He might be anything else but the "pro Milosevic propagandist".
Read his opinion. No, better -- read the expresion of his pain which we
all
share:
The Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia is profoundly outraged
by
NATO bombing of Radio Television of Serbia Belgrade Center, Friday early
morning. NATO planners should and must have known that innocent civilians,
duty journalists, producers, editors and technicians were at work around
the
clock, seven days a week, in that building, like in any TV station
worldwide - and they knew! It was a premeditated criminal attack against
an
utterly civilian target and we cannot accept any excuses, even less
hypocritical and cynical apologies by NATO officials about "collateral
damage". We are deeply concerned about the lack of courage and military
honour of NATO Allies, who keep playing their Nintendo games attacking
civilian targets from 15 000 feet. It is a lamentable display of arrogance
and cowardice.
At least ten dead and a score of wounded media professionals have been
at
their everyday jobs that night; and everybody knew that. During the
bloody
wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia since 1991, 76 journalists of all
nationalities were killed in action, but they have never been targeted
as
journalists; they just happened to be in harm's way doing their job. Only
two journalists were targeted deliberately during the Kosovo conflict by
the
KLA and are still missing, believed dead. NATO bombing of Serbian Radio
Television building in Belgrade deliberately targeted journalists and media
professionals at work, fully aware of consequences. It was a deliberate
murder in cold blood. Our outrage and desperation are overwhelming.
Milos Vasic, President
Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia
Mirko S. Mandrino, peace activist
***************************************
To all the prejudiced people, to whomever it may concern
As we write this, 26 Bridges are destroyed in the bombing of Yugoslavia.
By
the time we receive your answer, the number may be bigger. The only thing
we
can do right now, and the only thing you can help us with, is to build
at
least one Bridge -- that would connect you with the most prominent
Yugoslavian writers.
Your texts and opinions we would offer to the Yugoslavian public, and
from
this end we would send you texts of the most prominent of our authors.
We
are ready to answer to your questions and provide you with the
matter-of-fact information available to us. What gives us the right to
ask
for your help in building this Bridge is the fact that from the very
beginning of the crisis in Yugoslavia we have clearly and frankly been
against the war and against violence towards civilians and civil life
values. The people who are affiliated with the publishing house "Stubovi
Kulture" (David Albahari, Vladimir Arsenijevic, Dragan Velikic, Svetlana
Velmar-Jankovic, Dusan Kovacevic, Vida Ognjenovic, Radoslav Petkovic,
Ljubomir Simovic...) have raised their voices against the destruction of
cities and Bridges; under difficult circumstances we acted as responsible
and clear-minded citizens, sympathizing with other peoples suffering just
like with our own -- Muslim, Croatian and Serbian refugees yesterday, as
well as Albanian
refugees from Kosovo and Serbian refugees from their homes today. At this
time, being ourselves exposed to war and collective retaliation destroying
everything man has built, and even more importantly the values one could
believe in, at his time when Yugoslavian citizens live in shelters and
darkened cities, when every single citizen of Yugoslavia is a potential
"collateral victim", we will not give up on our need for culture and the
best expressions of the tradition, and we will not cease being open to
basic
values, no matter where they come from. The project of the "Stubovi Kulture"
publishing house has started July 6th 1993 primarily as a literary project,
but in the six following years it grew into a project of general culture
and
historiography. Started in a time not unlike today, during the war in
ex-Yugoslavia, a huge inflation, international sanctions and the breakdown
of every code of values, the project has since become a publishing house
gathering together the leading Yugoslavian authors whose books have been
translated and published in more than 30 countries. Having in mind T. S.
Eliott's maxim saying that one cannot inherit a tradition, but must create
it instead, by his own hard work, the project of "Stubovi Kulture", with
its
publishing policy, stands for an enterprise of carefully planned "creating
of the tradition". With the sentence "Reading is a private affair" on its
flag, the whole project is based on the returning to the tradition of
private property and civil values. This approach includes a group of the
finest of the Yugoslav authors and the most prominent ones from the whole
world. The Serbian authors of "Stubovi Kulture" are practically the only
Serbian writers whose books are continually being translated in Europe
and
Northern America, and through the last decade their books have been present
in Sarajevo, Zagreb, Split, Ljubljana and Dubrovnik. Thus building a
cultural Bridge, in the past six years "Stubovi Kulture" has published
the
books of Konrád Gyorgy, Esterházy Péter, Bohumil Hrabal,
Patrick Modiano,
Paulos Matesis, Katarina Frosenson, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling,
Lewis Caroll, L. M. Montgomery, Arthur C. Clarke, Anthony Burgess,
Miguel
de Unamuno, Robert Menasse, Giovanni Papini, Georges Perec, Bruce Chatwin...
The politics will surely find answers and excuses for the murdering of
civilians, demolition of Bridges, the bombings of the refugee caravans,
destruction of the petro-chemical industry, provoking an ecological
catastrophe that may threaten the whole of the Eastern and Central Europe,
and for the interrupting of the Danube river traffic...
Those of us who are not politicians, who found no excuse for a similar
government policy in our own country, are now not seeking political answers,
but your word as a citizen about everything that is happening here. The
principal victims of war in Yugoslavia are the civilians and their
belongings. The bombs are murdering children, demolishing cities, destroying
Bridges, railroads and roads, private property, objects of economy, and
burying the future of many generations to come. Hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of people who have demonstrated against the regime, asking for
democracy, two years ago in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Nis, Valjevo,
Kraljevo and other major cities in Serbia, all together 64 of them, for
all
their efforts today are victims of collective retaliation. Mr. Srdan
Mikovic, Lord-mayor of the city of Pancevo, today the most endangered city
in Serbia, situated in the nearest proximity of Belgrade, where a huge
petro-chemical complex has been destroyed and a dark cloud hovering over
it
for days now, has recently shown to a Washington Post reporter a collection
of national flags of USA, England and France that he now keeps packed up
in
his closet. Those flags were carried as symbols of democracy through the
streets of Pancevo two years ago, in the demonstrations that preceded to
his
being elected Lord-mayor, as an opposition representative. Pancevo is today
being punished in the most brutal way for that resistance and victory over
the regime, and people are fleeing from it in masses. Those who are
cynically wondering if the bombing will last for as many days as we spent
on
the streets, demanding the return to the basic democratic principles and
to
the civil and legal society -- perhaps have the point. In retaliating all
of
us, NATO uses weapons prohibited by international conventions, attacks
objects that should be protected by international treaties, and the news
that even depleted Uranium ammunition has been used have not been confirmed,
but they have neither been refuted. By bombing Yugoslavia the western
military alliance creates an anti- western general mood in the Yugoslavian
public and demolishes the basis that the West European countries were built
upon. Those of us who are exposed to the consequences of this inhuman war,
the war whose key-weapon are the civilians, believe that this might be
the
last moment when we can still speak of such topics as the collective
retaliation, collateral victims, ecological catastrophe, refugees, civilian
life in shelters and darkened cities, traumas caused by bombings,
destruction of Bridges, ethics of modern wars, media giving up their own
freedom of expression, interruption of the Danube river
traffic, the use of literature and culture in a time of war, civilians
as a
weapon of the modern wars...
If you should find some other topics, we would be very grateful, because
that will mean that we can still talk even in a time when we cannot sail
the
rivers, and the Bridges on them have been destroyed. We hope that you will
help us in building at least this of all the Bridges. There are already
plenty of those who are demolishing them.
Please send your contributions to: bridge@stubovi.co.yu
STUBOVI KULTURE Publishing house ID Card
Foundation date: July 6 1993
Number of books published: 268
Number of books translated into foreign languages: 47
Number of prizes won: 46
Number of editions: 18
Number of employees: 31
Number of writers represented: 67
Company President: Mr. Predrag Markovic
Address: 15, Gradistanska st. 11000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia
"Stubovi kulture" publishes fiction, historiography, essays, literary theory
and film essays. "Stubovi kulture" is a privately-owned company working
without any kind of donations. Most of the leading Serbian authors are
today
affiliated with "Stubovi kulture". Most of the Serbian authors currently
being translated worldwide are the ones affiliated with "Stubovi kulture".
***************************************
MEDIA WAR
23.04.1999. Radio Television of Serbia Central Building in the middle of
the
Belgrade downtown was bombed tonight. According to first reports, many
people are wounded and some are dead. The "media war" term has finally
been
properly defined. There is real war going on against the media. The level
of
brutality of this attack shocked
everyone. It was well known that people (journalists and technical staff)
were always present inside the offices and
studios due to 24hrs a day broadcasting.
The western media as well as NATO military campaign against media in Serbia
has been going on for days. TV transmitters were being hit and some stations
were unable to go on air. Serbia is fading slowly into informative darkness.
Every night fresh news, containing reports of another transmitter destroyed
and another channel shut, are
arriving. As the NATO HQ speaks, these actions are performed in order to
diminish the coverage of RTS broadcast area, because RTS is claimed to
be
"Too narrow and is not reporting in right way."
Destroyed transmitters, however, are not RTS owned but are the property
of
state. They have been used for many links from public to goverment. Many
private and non goverment media have been taken off air. By ranking the
action against media dictatorship very high on its priority chart, NATO
brutally slammed its own principles. It simply made one point of view
dissapear. By crushing the transmitters and links, many goals of human
rights cause were also crushed, yet they were mentioned very often during
press briefs.
It doesn't matter if NATO agreed with RTS policy or not, it couldn't allow
itself destroying of RTS network and stopping the broadcast. This act is
an
act of barbaric violence because one side in conflict is denied the chance
to speak for itself.
There is perodical broadcasting of NATO channel going on through many
channels in Serbia. It has been noted that most of the transmitters that
could obstruct the NATO broadcast were targeted. It is reported that NATO
program for the time being could be seen on 21st UHF channel troughout
the
northern Serbia and Belgrade area while ocassionaly radio broadcasts were
captured on 92.5, 102.2, 106.4 FM and 1003 AM. Radio and TV stations that
used these frequences were housed in Business Centre USCE, destroyed on
April 22nd.
Human victims and scary shots from tonight's missile atack on Serbian
Radio-Television headquarters are opening the new dimension in media
relations. Targeting of TV center is an act never seen in world before.
Does
this mean that Serbs are free to destroy CNN or BBC centers? What would
world media say? Or the foreign journalists
reporting from Yugoslavia should consider the same destiny as their Serbian
colleagues from Belgrade downtown? After all, this is WAR?!
There is only one news channel left in Belgrade covering the war - TV Studio
B. It is located at the top of the Belgrade Tower, highest building in
Belgrade. The building is always full of people. Will they follow in the
fate of RTS? The only remaining voice of the other side in this war -
Yugoslavia, is coming over Internet. Is the world`s only toll-free media
going to be censored by cutting Yugoslav links from the rest of the world?
Are the people from all the world going to loose the opportunity to see
both
sides of the story and to compare? The question is, are we, as Internet
media, the targets?
Welcome to media darkness, world.
I*Net a.d. Beograd
http://www.inet.co.yu/rat/rts/index.html
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The infamous X's - a short note by editor
For some time now, we're the witnesses of appearances of these misterious
XXXXX's in emails going out of Yugoslavia. We're still not sure which
keywords activate the mechanism for this censorship and where's it located,
but it's so evident that it has to annoy. This is a strong message sent
out - we're watching you. Beware. It's needless to say that this is a clear
strategy of creating a war psychosis which will block all opposition.
So far, of all internet providers and servers in Yugoslavia, EUnet has
turned out to be the most problematic one. Regarding the quantity of X's,
and also that it blocks some of it's mail trafic, for example towards
freelist server egroups.com.
***************************************
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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