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Independent Opposition Parties Formed in Yugoslavia

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From Associated Press

Two independent opposition parties Tuesday announced their formation in Serbia, defying hard-line Communist policies in the largest Yugoslav republic.

Also Tuesday, the national Communist Party called for reconciliation between Serbia and the reformist Slovenian republic. The party’s ruling Politburo also said the situation in the country is “characterized by strained ethnic relations and tendencies toward the country’s disintegration.”

Thirteen prominent Belgrade intellectuals announced that they are forming the Democratic Party, while a group within the official Serbian Socialist Youth Organization is establishing the Movement for Democratic Renewal.

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Serbia’s Communist authorities, headed by President Slobodan Milosevic, have in the past vehemently opposed introduction of Western-style political pluralism in the southern republic.

Several independent political and human rights groups have been banned in Serbia, and some of the activists are being prosecuted for taking part in the groups’ work.

Snezana Aleksic, an ideologist for Serbia’s Communists, said Monday that the formation of independent political parties will lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In contrast, the authorities in the northern republics of Slovenia and Croatia have lent their support to the establishment of opposition parties that are to take part in the first-ever multi-party elections early next year.

Croatia’s Communist leadership, at its congress in Zagreb, for the first time openly urged the establishment of a parliamentary democracy in Yugoslavia.

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