[spectre] Fwd: cultural center mama in zagreb / emergency situation

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Betreff: 	Re: <nettime> emergency situation about our cultural center 
mama in zagreb
Datum: 	Sat, 4 Nov 2017 17:27:15 +0100
Von: 	Tomislav Medak <to-me at mi2.hr>
Kopie (CC): 	nettime-l at mx.kein.org

<snip>

Now in our fourth day of being cut off from the power grid and told that 
we better get out peacefully in a matter of twelve hours or face serious 
shit, thanks to our neighbor we have a modest access to electricity, 
heating and internet. That means that we're able to hold the space, 
though not do any public programming. However, we can't afford to lose 
possession of the space. It's only the city of Zagreb that can formally 
evict us. But this guy who claims that he has our space under lease 
being a guy with a shady history, there are risks involved. So, we're at 
the moment not looking for public support, but are trying to negotiate a 
de-escalation among various parties involved. We're also keeping 24/7 
shifts. The convivial spirit of occupation has been a defining moment of 
these last couple of days.

We're also pursuing a couple of avenues of action that might lead to a 
positive interim solution before the space is returned to the Serbian 
minority organisations, but we haven't gotten very far with that. Should 
a major turn of events make international support meaningful, we'll let 
you know. In the meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has written back and 
offered their support.

Tom



On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Marcell Mars aka Nenad Romic 
<ki.ber at kom.uni.st <mailto:ki.ber at kom.uni.st>> wrote:


     dear colleagues,

     some of you might heard from me or tomi about a decade long struggle
     with our cultural centre in zagreb. it is hard to make it short but
     the story involves promises from the state (and city of zagreb) to
     give back real estate to serbian minority (taken back in the days
     after world war 2 by the communists).

     the decision by new croatian goverment at the beginning of ninties to
     give back the real estate to its original owners was primarily based
     on anti-communism and the huge desire to reward catholic church for
     its support for the new croatian independence. as you could imagine
     the real estate which was supposed to be given to serbians was the
     last one on the list (with a tendency to wipe it out completely). the
     promises were usually given under the flag "that's what europe wants
     from us".

     a serbian minority organization being promised to get it back soon
     (that's back in 1999) gave it to us to form a new cultural center
     mama. we had a contract with them for years. and we are still in a
     partnership with them about the whole damn thing...

     early on, after we renovated and few days before official opening, a
     guy known to be a part of mafia circles in croatia, at the time
     involved with gambling and casinos (and through that into real
     estate), came to us and said that was his property and we better go
     out. that's how we realized it is not owned by the ones we signed the
     contract with (making our contract much much weaker than we thought),
     but they truly believed it would happen soon because of the promises
     by the croatian state, that the space is not owned by that guy
     (whatever he claims) but his claims are not fully without any ground.
     also that the space would through years to come switch the legal
     status from the city to the state back and forth because of the given
     promises which no one wants to fulfill.

     occasionally,  for years that mafia guy would threaten us asking us to
     get the fuck out of the space. during the same time we started to pay
     the bills for electricity and water for which the main switches are in
     his part of the building. we became the part of negotiations in
     between that guy who claims more than just our 200 square meters and
     serbian minority waiting to get back substantial amounts of now super
     expensive real estate in the center of zagreb.

     the whole story involves our public struggle  against the corrupted
     major (still in power after 18 years) who, needless to say, is a best
     buddy with our mafia guy. and that struggle in some weird way
     protected us because the story in media would likely unfold against
     the corruption and real estate mafia in the city and into our favor.
     but i'll skip this part of already too long email.

     just today the situation escalated by that guy switching us of the
     grid (electricity + water) and we have to organize quickly to
     physically protect the space because our only rights come from running
     a cultural center for almost 20 years there. i bought a ticket and
     flying to zagreb early morning tomorrow.  i hope you understand the
     emergency of situation and also hope you understand in which way our
     cultural center is our life project. you know tomi and myself but
     there are many more and all of us will be there.

     i'll let you know how the situation progress and i hope you will
     understand my absence from dcrl this week. hopefully next week i am
     back... there is some possibility i will have to stay for the next
     week too.. i don't know.. i'll let you know as i get to know more...

     best
     marcell



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