Zamir

ZaMir Transnational Net was a BBS system launched by Anti-War Campaign in Zagreb in 1992 in order to connect citizens and peace activists across the war-torn former Yugoslavia. It was started by Eric Bachman, Wam Kat, Srdjan Dvornik and Ognjen Tus with the help of Vesna Teršelič and many others.

ZaMir means "for peace" in Serbo-Croatian, Transnational stood for "across the borders of post-Yugoslav countries," and Net was understood as "a fistful of tangled fishing line tossed out between cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the rump Yugoslavia, and a server in Germany." (Source)

The first two ZaMir centers were started in June 1992 in Zagreb (zamir-zg), the capital of Croatia, and Belgrade (zamir-bg), the capital of Serbia and the rump Yugoslavia. In early 1994, the centers in Sarajevo (zamir-sa), the besieged capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Ljubljana (zamir-lj), the peaceful capital of Slovenia, were wired. Later additions included in November 1994 Prishtina (zana-pr), the capital of Kosovo, the majority-Albanian region under Serbian control within the borders of the rump Yugoslavia; and in April 1995 the Bosnian city of Tuzla (zamir-tz). The founders of ZaMir were awed by the fact that an e-mail network has taken root in the scorched Balkan earth. "I mean, people actually have ongoing conferences across these borders!" exclaimed Bachman. In the words of Wam Kat, a Dutch activist who had been working on ZaMir-Zagreb since the beginning, "The most ridiculous, idiotic thing has happened - a country at war with no money now has the highest percentage of e-mail users in the peace movement: every post-Yugoslav group active in environment, peace, et cetera, is on ZaMir." (Source)

Staff

• ZTN sysop: Eric Bachman.
• Zagreb: Srdjan Dvornik, Belgrade: Michael Szporluk, Sarajevo: Kenan Zahirovic.
• ZTN Coordinating Center (Ljubljana): Willem Houwen, Bojana Humar, Sanja.

The system ran on the domain ztn.zer.de (ztn.apc.org from 1996) hosted by the server bionic.zer.de located in Bielefeld, Germany. It also used the link-atu.comlink.de server in Vienna.

Last ZaMirNET's governing board was composed of Vatroslav Zovko, Srđan Dvornik, Davor Gjenero, Predrag Bejaković, and Nebojša Gavrilov.

Due to the lack of funding ZaMirNET ceased its operations in 2016.

History

In 1992, ZaMir was established under the Anti-War Campaign of Croatia (ARK) as a network base for women's, peace and human rights organisations from around the country. ARK was established in 1989 as an alliance of 22 groups and organisations devoted to human rights protection and peace building in Croatia after the fall of the communist regime and during the war in the former Yugoslav countries.

Simultaneously, together with five other ZaMir networks based in other ex-Yugoslav countries, ZaMir ZG (Zagreb) was part of the ZTN (ZAMIR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK), and the world-wide APC (Association for Progressive Communication) network. ZTN was an e-mail network established for Former Yugoslavia to operate as a BBS (Bulletin Board Service). BBS was created for Internet users with lower grade technical equipment that could not provide Web access. More on ZTN at foebud.org (archived).

In 1997 ZaMir ZG became the ICP (Internet Content Provider) named ZaMirNET. The technical part of the project has been realized by the contractual partner Iskon Ltd., including expansion of the communication infrastructure and the system administration. After simultaneous testing of both ISP and BBS, BBS was completely abandoned in 1998.

ZaMirNET provided logistic support to numerous advocacy campaigns in Croatia. In 1999, ZaMirNET played an important role in providing technical support to Glas 99 - a Citizens' Coalition for Free and Fair Elections that initiated citizens' engagement in the democratic change of government and the fall of the former nationalistic regime. In 2001 ZaMirNET functioned as the logistic center for the civic initiative Moj glas za pravnu drzavu / My Voice for The Rule of Law when 15.000 people gathered together on the main square in the capital of Zagreb protesting against nationalists requesting amnesty for Croatian war criminals.

ZaMirNET, with its mission to support the development of Civil Society in Croatia, provided a unique non-profit Internet Content Provider (ICP). Reports on the status of human rights, as well as reports from members and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could be found on the network, as well as various information services, job openings with NGOs, announcements about public events, and campaigns and activities initiated through various civic actions.

ZaMirNET, therefore, served as a space for the free exchange of ideas and information, and was an irreplaceable tool in generating new ideas and civic initiatives throughout the region.

Recognition

The ZaMir network was chosen for an award named sense/information (Sinnformation) by the Green parliamentary party in the German parliament (Bundestag) in 1998.

Writings, publications

• "Postkästen für den Frieden", Neue Westfälische, Bielefeld, 20 Jul 1992. (German)
• Eric Bachman, "Zana-PR in Wonderland", Koha, Prishtina, Nov 1994.
• Burkhard Luber, "Das Zamir- (serbokroatisch 'Frieden') Net", Die Schwelle, 2 Dec 1994. (German)
• Martin Virtel, "Computer für den Frieden", Die Zeit, Hamburg, 9 Dec 1994. (German)
• James Walch, "Cyber Bosnia: Computer-Mediated Communications in a War Zone", in CSCL '95: The first international conference on Computer support for collaborative learning, Oct 1995, pp 375-379.
• Masha Gessen, "Balkans On-line – in the trenches with the warriors fighting one of the nastiest information wars of the late 20th century", Wired 3.11, Nov 1995. (mirror)
• Ivo Skoric, "Zamir: Peace Network in the War Zone", in ZK Proceedings 95: Net Criticism, Amsterdam, Jan 1996.
• Eric Bachman, "Communications Aid in the post Yugoslavian countries: The origin and development of the ZAMIR transnational net (ZTN)", Jan 1996.
• Robert Horvitz (Internews Prague), Final Report: Balkan Media Network, Jan 1996.
• Ivo Skoric, Ed Agro, "Later History of ZTN", Feb 1996 & Feb 1999.
• Rick E. Bruner, "Wired Bosnia", Wired 2.01, Feb 1996.
• Eric Bachman, "Internet keeps Yugoslavs connected to global village", 11 Apr 1996. [1]
• David D'Heilly, "Wam Kat Interview", May 1996.
• Paul Stubbs, "Conflict and Co-Operation in the Virtual Community: email and the wars of the Yugoslav succession", Sociological Research On-line 3:3, 1998.
• Ed Agro, "History of Online Missing-Persons Services, 1995-1999", 1999.
• Igor Markovic, "Tactical Media as a Tool for Survival in the War Zone", Polygraph 11: "Margins of Global Culture", ed. Jason Middleton, 1999, pp 115-125. Abstract. [2]
• James Walch, "Networking in a War Zone: The Case of Former Yugoslavia", ch 3 in Walch, In the Net: An Internet Guide for Activists, London: Zed Books, 1999. [3]
• Amy Herron, Eric Bachman, "ZaMir Transnational Net: Computer-Mediated Communication and Resistance Music in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", in Culture and Technology in the New Europe: Civic Discourse in Transformation in Post-communist Nations ed. Laura Lengel, Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing, 2000. [4]
• Tom Bass, Friedrich Tietjen, "In dependence. A brief history of Belgrade's radio station B92", in Radio- Kultur und Hör-Kunst. Zwischen Avantgarde und Popularkultur 1923-2001, ed. Andreas Stuhlmann, Würzburg, 2001. [5]
• Paul Stubbs, "The ZaMir (for peace) Network: from transnational social movement to Croatian NGO", 2004.
• Sonja Ludvig, "ZaMirNET founds a network of independent media", APC, Mar 2006.
• Annika Schnoor, "ZaMir - ein Netzwerk für den Frieden", KommuniCare, FH Osnabrück, n.d. [6] (German)

See also

• ZaMir press archive, 1992-2002.

See also

• Radio Zid
• Cyberzid

Links

• Zamir resource on BalkansNet.org (archived)
• ZamirNet.hr (archived)
• ZamirZine.net (archived)
• Wikipedia