Re: Syndicate: [RRE] news from Belgrad

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

>i have no more words, i am desperate

dear gordana & others,

it feels so stupidly little what i am doing, sitting hear and doing e-mail,
but i guess that it serves its purpose. i liked mike stubbs' mail just now
and wish that we were able to somehow translate the deep european
friendships that we have amongst each other into something that can
actually have a wider impact. but i guess that playing the other channels -
radio, netcasting, campaigning the press and others - as many people are
doing now, is one way of doing this.

by the way, inke and i decided *not* to go to apply for a visa today -
after the breaking off of diplomatic relations and given the war situation,
it seemed too cynical to go there and pretend that we just want to travel
as though nothing had happened.

i still hope that, through some wonder, we will be able to meet in a
peaceful belgrade next month, but this seems less likely than ever today.
talking to some other prospective travellers we said that, should the trip
to yugoslavia be impossible, we should try and meet maybe in budapest
during the planned days, 21-25 april, because this might be the closest
safe place that is easy to reach for a lot of people. this meeting we could
also use to try and give a public sign of the bonds of friendship that
cross the real and virtual frontlines in europe. several people in budapest
have already offered general support. - we should discuss this further in
the coming days.

i am taken aback by my own ignorance and the fact that we had hardly
anticipated a situation like this in previous weeks, and that we have
little in terms of back-up channels to fall back on. i sincerely hope that
ivan zassoursky's bleak scenario will not be proven right by the future,
but we should move fast and use the room for manoeuvre that we still have
at this moment - what happens when opennet and EUnet.yu go down?

being a conscientious objector myself, and terrified by brute force, i feel
that a very urgent task is to press all governments to accept refugees and
asylumn seekers, not only but especially deserters who are putting their
livelihood at risk by not following mobilisation calls to the yugoslav army
at this moment and in the future. i'd be happy to coordinate the drafting
of a letter like this - if anybody wants to help me with this, or knows of
similar initiatives, please, get in touch.

they are showing us air reconnaissance video footage on BBC World now. more
sunny weather on the balkans predicted for tomorrow. get in the mood ...

-a