Eyewitness reports #3

FYI.
//CJR

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 14:56:17 -0500
From: marko <marko@zamir.net>
Subject: (en) Zaginflatch #21, 1st April 1999. newsletter published by
Zagreb Anarchist Movement


ZAP / ARK
GAJEVA 55
10 000 ZAGREB
CROATIA zap_zg@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3707/

How you can help:
- forward this message to people who might be interested
- we need translators. especially if you speak soutslavic language(s).
- if you can,  print this out and send to people who don't have access to
email
- if you can, help us send Zaginflatch to people who usually receive paper
version. We presently can't afford to mail them out via snail mail, and we
have an international mailing list of people who regularly received this
newsletter since it was founded. Write to us and ask if we have a contact in
your country. It'd be great if you could send this newsletter for us...

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what follows are translated extracts from emails posted to
ex-yu-a-lista@zamir.net which is a mailing list for ex-yu anarchists, and
from private emails..

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From: Artmagazin, Novi Sad   artmagazin@sezampro.yu

Your country could be next!

Lets face the facts:

* USA is a major arms producer
* US economy is very dependant on military industry
* USA doesn't want new territory. They want to sell their arms and make
extra profit on military technology, to secure it's commodity.
* USA is a master of trade
* USA is also the leader of NATO
* NATO does what USA says
* USA says: NATO members must use only NATO made weapons
* New members of NATO therefore have to buy NATO made weapons
* In order to buy NATO made goodies new members of NATO must see it in
action. Since this is very expensive stuff and potential buyers must adjust
their budgets it is necessary to persuade them that this transaction is
their priority. Besides, old customers also have to see new products
available on the market.

How to fit in all these facts in a puzzle which gives an adecvate result?
How?
Easy!

To open a new shopping center in the immediate surroundings of the potential
buyer and make him participate in the demonstration of the new product!

What sort of a shopping center are talking about? It's not a peaceful fair
under tents, with hostesses, drinks and snacks.
Nope.
It's a whole new thing. Years of experience showed us how to accomplish
maximum in sale results:

1. Find a suitable host for you marketing demonstration polygon.
2. Deal with the host by following the instructions in the handbook, open a
war field in his country, and potential market will notice it.
3. Demonstration shouldn't last for too long.
4. The role of a potential buyers in the demonstration must be only
symbolic.

Instruction how to pick a suitable demonstration polygon:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Choose a state which you've already dealt with media wise, economically,
diplomatically and politically
* The state must be small and without any political influence. It must
isolated and shown in such light through the media that it doesn't provoke
any sympathies among other nations.
* Possible unwanted effects of the presentation of new military products,
like dissatisfaction of surrounding states can be softened with putting
accent onto worries about human rights. Arguments must be persuasive,
therefore they must be carefully prepared.
* Do not back off during demonstration
* Effects of demonstration should be publicised with comments.

Very important warning:
-----------------------------
* Damages caused by the demonstration are covered by the host, i.e. owner of
the demonstration polygon.
* If the host rebels use legal resources.
* If that doesn't help - demonstrator can offer to compensate for the damage
through loans.

Conclusion:
--------------
Powers don't produce arms to defend themselves but to sell them.
For that cause they open up new war fields. Anywhere.

Your country could be next!



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from: Viktor Todorovic, olorin@eunet.yu, ICQ: 30654211

Today I went to the theater. There has been so much talking about the
theater for 1 dinar (less than 10 cents, translator) that I simply had to
go. I saw the play "Majstor" by Ron Howard on small scene of National
Theater. The hall was totally full. Offcourse, old Serbian tradition was
once more seen in action - there were people who didn't want to pay 1 dinar
for the ticket so they sneaked in... The show, although it can be critisized
for poor performance especially of younger crew members, has hit correctly
in both: right place and time. He who if familiar with Howard's work knows
that he sticks constantly to one topic only, but just like a good
photographer he always finds a new corner to look at it effectivelly.
Once again it is about WWII crimes against the Jews. The willan is played by
Ciga Jeremic (absolute genius, he didn't defend his role. Occasionally,
behind his naive, innocent, senile character you could see a cunning and
evil explosions in full strength). I won't retell you the show, I advise you
to go out and see it instead. However, I'd like to mention a couple of
impressions, in fact questions:

Where will in ten years time be the people who are today responsible for war
crimes (from air, in the field)? Some will undoubtably be in prison, but I
fear that others will receive medals, just like those who bombed Hamburg, or
Hiroshima. Still, I fear the most of those who will, thanks to inactivity,
ignorance conformism and stupidity of  "ordinary" people, manage to include
themselves in the new society, as gardeners, good and respectable people,
and somewhere under three pillows they will keep their knifes ready to be
pulled out.
I hope that we are not such ordinary people. I hope that, if we survive, we
will remember what happened to us and that we will once bring these people
to justice. And there are many of them on all sides.


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From: Artmagazin (artmagazin@sezampro.yu )

The fascination with participation

Oh, how naive we have been. The audience in a war, as well as in the
theater, always thinks the way the director has appointed. It has become
crystal clear to us at the beginning of the decade when Yugoslavia was
pulled out on the world TV stage and when the Serbs got the negative part.
Bad guys once, bad guys always. We have fallen into a cliché promoted in
movies about cowboys and Indians: the positive characters (whatever they do)
are always right, negative characters (whatever the real truth is) are
always wrong, the rescue "cavalry" has the right to treat the negative ones
as they please -
till extermination. Accompanied by music, fanfares and kisses from gorgeous
blondes. If the concept shows wrong  later (in the sense that there are some
10 million innocent people), well, what can you do, that/s life. Let/s get
on with it.

The fascination with participation (part II)
Author: Nevena Simin, journalist

Wars have been happening on the planet forever, without interruption. As far
as we know, at the moment more than 10 battlefields are open. Why is one
making wars? In harmony with it's own nature, every inhabitant of the planet
Earth will find an answer to this question in her/his heart. Since 1988. we,
inhabitants of the Earth, have the chance to follow/observe some of the wars
directly, through television.
As a  professional observer of the world, and before all as a human being
already formed by the cultural forms of the environment, I was interested to
know what children are able to say on this matter,
and what the grown-ups say. Are we identical in consuming on-screen
violence?
Where did the idea to ask children about the institutionalized violence
originally come from? Simple. I have not  succeeded to convince my child
that the third-rated Kung-Fu movies are revolting, full of violence and that
he, by watching it, becomes loud without control, aggressive, unrestrained.
Once he had decided to let me choose the movie we would be watching
together. Also conditioned by the movies that have formed my youth, I took a
cowboy movie ("Pat Garret and Billy the Kid"). Once the film has ended, my
son gives me a lecture, throwing my own words back at me: "You're not sane!
What is there good in a movie where you get killed by your best friend?"
I have told this story to the kids who co-operated on the newsletter  I was
editing at the time. We laughed down nicely, and afterwards decided to
research this jungle of pollution of a child's psyche
with movies and other , so-called art creations. Convinced that a small evil
today, can be invincibly  huge already tomorrow, and that the war sickness
on the Balkans would not have broken out, if someone had noticed the
potentially dangerous variations of aggressive behavior with the youth a few
decades ago - we have collected signatures during 1989. against the
broadcast of violence in the movies and on TV, for children under 18 years
of age. This direct action was carried out with a text for which the idea
came from teenagers and adolescents. It was the following text: DO NOT KILL,
DO NOT TEACH ME HOW TO KILL!



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from: lepa mladjenovic, autonomous women's center against sexual violence,
awcasv@eunet.yu

dear friends,

we have received many letters 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 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)