ZAGREB INFORMATION POTLATCH September 94 #1 This is the first issue of a newsletter I plan on putting out/helping co-ordinate semi regularily with the intent of acting as sort of a catalyst and informational outlet for anarchists and anti-authoritarian activists in Ex-Yugoslavia. After repeatedly trying to get something or other together with other local anarchists , specifically people I'd met at or through ZAPO (Zagreb Anarcho Pacifist Organization) here in Zagreb nothing has come together so far. At a ZAPO meeting last night , fueled with caffeine induced optimism I put forward a number of ideas : a poster project ; a project to translate English and German language pamphlets into Croatian and create somet other literature of our own relating to the war and an anarchist stance to it; breaking open a squat. There was not much in terms of enthusiasm , but some people seemed willing to do it. A start? I also put forward the proposal to do this newsletter. Nobody thought too much of the idea. Fuck it, I'm doing it myself. Since I'm relatively new to Zagreb, and have hardly made it to other areas of Ex-Yugoslavia since I've been back at all and know relatively little about what's going elswhere, this issue will focus on Zagreb. Hopefully others will get involved in this and help give it a broader scope. If you have anything to contribute in terms of information, distribution, typing etc. definitely get in touch! I would love to see this become more of a collective project! I would like to see this become somewhat of a solid source of information that doesn't regularily get out to the anarchist (or anywhere for that matter) press and as a means for other groups / individuals to get some feel for the situation here. The mainstream press seems to concentrate on UN "peace agreements" and reruns of political chess games. Hopefully this will provide some better information on what's happening on a lower level as it develops. Admittedly this is a little weak as far as news goes , but it's a start. What you can contribute Information ! Send information on what 's happening. Both in terms of what you're doing and what's happening : flyers, demos, police violence, refugee aid, atrocities, solidarity actions , zines, benefit shows, anything! Send it all ! Help with printing! If you have access to a photocopier or cheap printing opportunity get in touch. Help with translating into Croatian , or Croatian into English Distribution. I can send originals to be reproduced/reprinted or a number of copies for cost of postage and printing. This is also available via email. Drop me a line to get on the list. If you do a BBS or anything of the sort, post it! NEWS News is desparetly needed from elsewhere, especially from Bosnia!! Please get in touch ! ATTACK ON THE FREE PRESS * FERAL TRIBUNE DECLARED PORNOGRAPHY * Apparently the HDZs cultural censors consider free expression , at least when it challenges ruling party idiots and atrocities, obscene and ultimately pornographic. Croatia's minister of culture recently declared the Feral Tribune, probably Zagreb's most out of line satirical paper a pornographic publication thus raising it's taxes to the absurd levels which the state subjects "pornography" to. Although just another potshot from a government scared shitless of any real criticism and opposition, this just about put the paper out of commission. The Feral Tribune , a self declared anarchist paper and far from porn, regularily took potshots at prominent politicians, exposing their scams and schemes , corruption, embarassing past events and generally making the HDZ's (the ruling party) attempts at strangulating the free press quite a headache. There had been a couple other attempts at doing away with the Feral Tribune, including an attempt at drafting the main editor to the front , but they kept coming back to haunt Tudjman's regime with more sarcastic jabs at his dictatorship. So in what appears as a desperate attempt at fucking with them any way they could, Vesne Girardi-Jurkic , the HDZs minister of "culture" labeled the paper as pornographic. A peculiar thing about this is that nude pictures of women, usually typical for what passes normally as pornography are common in mainstream Croatian newspapers which normally tow the party line and don't have problems dealing with the harrasment that Feral Tribune has had to put up with. Croatian media could use a strong challenge to their regularily mysoginist and often violent anti-woman movies , articles and regular soft porn features in mainstream papers . But this attack has obvious interests elsewhere, namely in preserving a system which refuses to tolerate criticism and challenge. Jurkic recently in statements to the Croatian newspaper Globus quite openly extended the threat to other members of the press , making it clear that other papers would share in this pseudo censorship if they began to regularily criticize and mock state institutions as Feral Truibune has. Although according to mainstream press sources the Feral Tribune had reportedly called it quits , a new issue is already at the Kiosks with a new higher cover price to absorb the tax blow and on the back cover , a graphic spoof on National Geographic ... National Pornographic. After all , one has to live up to one's tax bracket somehow. SERBIAN STRIKES * It's nice to hear about some other striikes besides air strikes in the former Yugoslavia. On the 28th of July , the Guardian newspaper carried an article saying that a general strike had been called in Serbia for the following week (ie. the 2nd to 6th of August) . Apparently "Union leaders said they were being pressed by a disaffected rank and file." At the same time, farmers in Vojvodina were blocking roads with their tractors in protest at low grain prices offered by the government. We haven't been able to find out if the strikes actually took place , but it seems unlikely that journalists would exaggerate the level of class struggle in a country as vilified as Serbia - discontent would imply that maybe there were some "good Serbs" who didn't deserve to be bombed! We would appreciate any information our readers can provide. - from CONTRA FLOW AID AND SOLIDARITY FROM ABROAD INTERNATIONAL WORKERS AID , an anarchist trade union is organizing relief convoys to Tuzla , a city directly in the middle of the conflict. IWA groups from across Europe have raised enough money and material aid to buy a slew of trucks and fill several warehouses with food and aid . From what I can gather about what's going on , there have been 5 convoys to Tuzla so far. Direct work with people in Tuzla includes: "* concrete aid for the non-nationalist paper "Vrelo" (9000 DM and 3 tons of paper) * material and photos for a campaign book about IWA and Tuzla * concrete aid for radio Tuzla (9000 DM) * talked with political parties and Serbian and Croatian communities * started a concrete project with Tuzla University and a tour (5 Tuzla students and one docent) * concrete aid for the national theater in Tuzla *concrete aid for Radio Chameleon * together with students, organized a video about Tuzla with professionals from TV Tuzla, this video is now to be edited in the Netherlands * concrete aid for the Portrait Gallery (project by Aldegonde, 15,000DM. but here the Belgian campaign has yet to decide how much of this money is for the Gallery and how much is for the IWA bread campaign). * a lot off solidarity messages and concrete aid for Tuzla's Women's Association (still in Split: shoes and clothes for children, starting funds for a campaign in mammography - apparatus - none in whole Bosnia at the moment) * visit to different schools and teachers trade union * a tour with a Tuzla traditional music group in summer in Gent (Belgium) * talks with civic forum in Tuzla who are trying to get a newspaper and TV-broadcast off the ground * contact with a political youth organization (BOS) and with more cultural and free time youth organizations." - from IWA's Split report #11 The project needs money to survive. "The convoy office needs 6000DM until the next convoy starts. There are debts for about 3000DM . People here are lending personal money ... For instance: this fax we could only send out because Hendrik loaned us money !!! So without this money , forget about the convoys, forget about everything ..." (1DM is worth about 65 cents) They also are looking for drivers for the trucks. There is a policy of 3 drivers per two trucks and 5 drivers for three. The convoys go directly through war zones, and deal with obstacles like partially destroyed and bad roads , crossing bodies of water without bridges and security checks. There is also danger of highway bandits and ambushes. So the policy is more of a security measure from the way I understand it. The international convoy needs at least one more person for their international office, preferably with a drivers license. "Mick ( the much abused ,but deeply loved convoy leader): "Cough up you fuckers!." Contact IWA directly concerning what you have to offer or what is needed in detail! International Workers Aid - Logistics , Phone and Fax +385 58 (0) 615 889 * Put Mlinice BB, 58300 Makarska * Mail : IWA c/o HACO -DIOKOM , Put Brodarice 6 , 58000 , Split Croatia All information here was either directly quoted or paraphrased from IWA's Split report or from IWA representatives Alessandra and Marco from Italy who met with ZAPO in Zagreb this June. Neither East Nor West NYC- 339 Lafayette St. , New York, NY 10012- focusing among other things on building links between east and west. They've done a lot of help for the Zitzer Spiritual Republic in Vojvodina (NENW-NYC is their US embassy) and raised some cash for ZAPO recently. Their column On Gogol Boulevard appears in Anarchy magazine and oasionally elsewhere. A NENW network is being formed slowly. NENW-NYC and the syndies at Worker's Solidarity Alliance have put out "a call to reclaim Mayday - Protest the IMF and World Bank on MAY FIRST 1995" ... "The IMF and World Bank are this year arrogantly celebrating their fiftieth birthday. We want to ruin the party."- for a copy of the proposal write NENW-NYC or NENW-Pnin c/o ARK-ZAPO. KOCHISE / TOXIC GRAFITY ( damn can't find their address) are selling pins and postcards donated to them by people from Crass to benefit ZAPO. Aside from being unusually friendly people, they put out INTERVENTION which is a four page thingy about ZAPO and their own organization (I think) in french. USEFUL ADDRESSES WAR RESISTORS LEAGUE (WRL 339 Lafayette St., NY NY 10012 usa) CENTER FOR ANTI-WAR ACTIVITIES ( Ul hasana Kikica br 8, 71000 Sarajevo) CENTER FOR ANTI-WAR ACTION ( Karljia Petra 46, 11000 Beograd, Serbia ; tex/fax 011-38-11-635-813) FORUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS OF MACEDONIA (c/o Meto Jovanovski, St. P. Zografski 51, 91000 Skopije) ILL IN THE HEAD(c/o Berislav Sabolic , Mozdenec 1, 42220 Novi Marof tel: 042/611-912 (over the weekend) or 041/438-927 (during the week , ask for Berislav) punk music and zine distro / tape label carrying bands and zines from across Ex-Yugo and elsewhere in the world. CONTRA FLOW (c/o 56a Infoshop, 56 Crampton St., London SE17 UK) - nerws - A part of the European Counter Network. COUNTER INFORMATION ( Pigeonhole CI, c/o 11 Forth St., Edinburgh EH1, Scotland) - news ARM THE SPIRIT (PO Box 6326 Stn A, Toronto, ONT M5W 1PZ , Canada) - armed resistance news PUBLICATIONS This is hella incomplete, so there's no claim to covering all of what's out there. I'm just listing what I've collected in the last couple months. Like I mentioned earlier, send things in so this is more complete!! An e next to the zine name means it's in English language , otherwise it's all in Croatian. ARKZIN (ARK, Tkalciceva 38, 41000 Zagreb , Croatia) Probably where it's at as far as a more together consistent effort at providing a strong, informative alternative in news and writing. This comes out weekly (biweekly) and is available at most news stands around Zagreb. The only really accessible specifically anti war paper in Croatia I know of. They have an English language summary of their first issue. FECAL FORCESe (c/o Boris Milakovic, Kapavac 30, 55300 Pozega , Croatia) Issue 2 has a number of band interviews (Anarcrust and Flagrants D'eli among others) , and some articles including one on ZAPO, the anti racist Mayday skins, killing capitalism, Pula and anarchy. A comp tape called "War is the Reality we Live In" is available from the same address for $7 in Europe. KRUH I RUAEE (Women's Infoteka , Berislaviceva 14, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia tel:+385 41/276 188, fax:+385 41/422 926) a thick , impressive feminist magazine published by the women's Infoshop here in Zagreb. Articles include From Respect To Rape, FeMail, Feminism and Democracy, Women's Politics as State Politics, Women's Peace Workshop Rijeka and more. Also have an English summary available. MAKE A CHANGE ( Sinipia Druzeta, Jakova Volcica 6 , 51400 Pazin, Croatia tel: 0531/ 22 167) contains reviews , ads and interviews with Schleim Keim, Abzae Normalan , Agothocles, Polska Malca , Nula , Concrete Sox etc. Sheets with the text in English are available. DIALOGUE e ( Dialogue , Groen van Prinstererstraat 90, 1051 EP Amsterdam tel: +31-20-681 48 85 , fax: +31-20-684 76 35 , email: mizamir@antenna.nl) half in english , half in Croatian , this well produces magazine contains articles on Amsterdam's children refugee theatre, dimensions of fear, Displaced Childhood, About Creativity and Destructivity, Kid's Made Conscious ...WARHEAD #11(Goran Ivanovic, S. Radica 32, 55300 Pozega , Croatia tel:385 (0) 55/79-619), also from Pozega :Nula, Antitude, Autonomex, ZAPO, Anti War Action, Austrian punk contacts etc. GLANS PENISSIS (Vedran Meniga , Vladimira Ruzdjaka 8, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia) has stuff on Abaez Normalan, Antitude, squatting, Apatridi, Enklava, veganism, ZAPO, W.O.R.M., anarchism ... the issue I have is a split issue with a lyric / info booklet that came with the band Nula's tape. COMUNITAS (ARK-ZAPO, Tkalciceva 38, 41000 Zagreb , Croatia tel: 385 41/422-495 fax: 385 41 / 335-230) is ZAPO's publication. The latest issue is olver a year old and work on a new one doesn't look like it's going anywhere at the moment. This issue has info on ZAPO's activities, anarchism in Peru, the group P{angea, an interview with Howard Clark of War Resistors International, cop violence, legalization of light drugs, Eat shit zine, anarcho syndicalism and a couple reviews. SHAVED WOMEN (Andrea Tomassevic, Nova Skojevska 65, 11090 N. Beograd, "SR Jugoslavia") Peace punk zine focusing on Crass , Chumbawamba and the sort. ZIPS AND CHAINS e (Dario Adamic, C.P. 15319, 00142 Roma Laurentino, Italy) isn't really from here exactly but the editor is Croatian and there's a pretty good piece here on zines in Yugoslavia that I found interesting. Also MDC, DOA, Bad religion, the Instigators, punk photographers and reviews. PAPERMOUTH e ( Tomz Trplan, Juzna 6, 69000 Murska Sobota , Slovenija) is an interesting, good looking zine with articles on pacifism, fruitarianism, dissing spiritual know it alls. Pretty personal in parts and sort of treading on different ground than normal. ZAGINFLATCH / Dave Onion c/o ARK-ZAPO , Tkalciceva 38, 41000 Zagreb , Croatia ...... email: 72500.2176@compuserve.com