Rebel States Threaten to Break Up Yugoslavia

This country moved closer to breaking up Friday after the rebel republics of Croatia and Slovenia said they would defy the federal Communist leaders in a bid for independence.

A crisis that President Borisav Jovic says could end in civil war deepened when the two non-Communist republics dismissed a warning by the collective state presidency that it would take urgent steps to hold the country together.

“We reject the unconstitutional and contradictory statement which denies the constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty of the republics of Slovenia and Croatia,” Croatian and Slovene leaders said in a joint statement late Thursday.

Croatia and Slovenia, wealthy and relatively westernized regions in northern Yugoslavia, voted out the Communists in the first free elections in Yugoslavia since World War II.

Their victorious right-of-center parties want independence from the federal authorities in Belgrade and threaten to secede from Yugoslavia if their demands are not met.

Their joint declaration of defiance, issued after talks near the Slovene-Croatian border, raised tension and widened the split between the non-Communist north and Communist-ruled south.

Western diplomats said the confrontation could spell the end of Yugoslavia.

“This could end up in complete strife. It could split Yugoslavia down the middle,” one diplomat said.

Slovenia and Croatia say Serbia, the biggest republic, wants control over the rest of the country. They say Jovic, a Serb who became president Tuesday by annual rotation, wants to block democratic reforms in their republics.

Tensions have risen sharply since he accused Slovenia and Croatia in an inaugural speech Tuesday of aggravating Yugoslavia’s economic and political crisis.

Jovic said Yugoslavia could collapse into civil war, and the collective presidency, which has powers to use the army, said it would take urgent steps to prevent the country’s falling apart.