Yugoslavia’s Alliance Torn Further Apart as 2 Republics’ Militias Go on Full Alert : Independence: Attack by federal army is feared as midnight deadline approaches. Federation isn’t expected to last until the end of the year.

In the final throes of a failing marriage that many feel was doomed from the start, Yugoslavia’s mismatched republics are haggling over debts and property in a process as replete with pain and melodrama as the messiest divorce.

It has been a stormy 72 years since fractious Balkan nations were bound into the federation of southern Slavs--Yugoslavia--and it is the rare soul who expects the unhappy alliance of six republics to hold up until the end of this year.

Fears of an impending breakup were dramatically heightened Sunday when the independence-seeking republics of Slovenia and Croatia put their militias on full alert against a possible attack by the Communist-dominated federal army.

The collective federal presidency in Belgrade has ordered all “illegal paramilitary groups” to disarm by midnight today, but the rebellious northern republics have vowed to defend themselves against any aggression.

It was the latest escalation of tensions in an increasingly shrill battle between north and south, between budding democrats and renamed communists, between secessionists and supporters of a union under Serbian control.

Wayward Slovenia wants its freedom from the economic and political disasters that plague the south. But its strides toward independent nationhood worry neighboring Croatia, which has also thrown out communism, and driven Serbia to acts of desperation that would befit a jilted and angry spouse.

Under pressure to make good on election promises, the Serbian government has squandered much of the federation’s nest egg to raise pensions and wages for Serbs.

Secret Serbian instructions ordering $1.4-billion worth of dinars stirred new cries of outrage in Slovenia and Croatia, the two most advanced states in the federation. The money expansion has fueled secessionist sentiments and torn apart what remained of a federal system, as the northern republics are now withholding taxes from a central government they accuse of capitulating to the dominant Serbs.

“People here have lost all confidence in the federal institutions, so we must create new security at the republic level,” said Lojze Peterle, Slovenia’s prime minister.

He praised Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic for his valiant last try at holding the federation together, but said Slovenia sees no chance of ever restoring trust in a relationship that is holding it back.

Slovenes and Croats accuse Serbia of repressing ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo, and of clinging to the bankrupt concepts of collective ownership that have impoverished Eastern Europe.

By printing new money, the Slovenes say, Serbia has mortgaged Yugoslavia’s future and crushed any chance of negotiating a new confederation under which the republics could cooperate in trade and defense.

Slovenes last month gave Peterle’s administration and the Slovenian Assembly a mandate for radical action when 88% voted for a referendum calling for secession within six months.

What has whetted the appetite of Slovenes for statehood is the unarrested decline of the federal economy and recent elections in Serbia and Montenegro in which voters validated the Communist doctrines condemned by the north.

All six Yugoslav republics held free elections in 1990, making obsolete the federal constitution written for a nation under authoritarian rule.

A new federal blueprint was to have followed the last elections in December. But the choice of the Communist status quo in Serbia and Montenegro has made a mockery of federal authority over republics now divided on every front.

Slovenia and Croatia are mostly Roman Catholic, while the Orthodox religion is predominant in the south. The Serbian alphabet is Cyrillic, but Slovenes and Croats write in Latin letters. Cultural differences are marked by republic borders; the region for centuries was divided between the two great European empires--Austria-Hungary, which encompassed Slovenia and Croatia, and Ottoman Turkey, which ruled much of the rest.

Added to these irreconcilable differences now are new conflicts between the four republics that chose democratic leaders last year and the two that retained hard-line Socialists.

With no hope of drafting a common constitution, the northern republics have embarked on a frustrated effort to negotiate an end acceptable to the other republics, as well as to the Western countries preferring a continued united Yugoslavia.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrej Rupel says his republic must be sensitive to the international complexities that have made Washington and Western Europe wary of another small state elbowing its way into the continent’s community of nations.

“January, 1991, is not very favorable for impressing the international community with Slovenia’s problems,” said Rupel, referring to the Persian Gulf War and unrest in the Soviet Union. “Maybe February or March or April will be better, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Before it breaks off to form its own country, Slovenia wants to know that its sovereignty will be acknowledged in the West.

Official U.S. policy supports preservation of the Yugoslav federation that President Woodrow Wilson was instrumental in bringing about after World War I.

But a White House aide said recently that the American government has tried to convey to Serbia that it must accommodate legitimate demands for broader democracy or risk U.S. support for secession of the reform-oriented republics.

“The attitude you take toward Yugoslavia has all sorts of implications for what you do with problems in the Soviet Union,” said the U.S. official.

While Slovenia’s secession drive is similar to Lithuania’s effort to break away from the Soviet federation, Slovenes argue that their situation has little in common with the Baltic republics that were seized by force and colonized by Russians.

Slovenia’s relatively stable economy and longstanding ties with the West give leaders confidence to go it alone. Slightly smaller than Belgium, the republic has per capita income far outstripping European Community members Greece and Portugal, as well as all of its neighbors in the East. One third of Yugoslav exports come from Slovenia, which contributes more than 20% of the federal budget although it has only 8% of Yugoslavia’s 24 million people.

Slovenia’s problems, as far as its leaders are concerned, have to do with the burden of supporting its poorer partners.

While Markovic managed a successful start on economic recovery in 1990, ethnic and political conflicts torpedoed the reforms toward the end of the year.

Bickering over who should control the purse strings has prompted all six republics to withhold most federal support, threatening the solvency of the central government and the powerful army under the command of Serbian Communists.

Those uncertainties have fueled fears of a military crackdown on the rebel republics, especially after Slovenia and Croatia ignored Belgrade orders to disarm their local militias.

According to Yugoslav media reports, the two republics recently purchased automatic assault rifles for use in defending their territory in the event of an armed intervention.

Slovenian authorities say they are confident they can escape without bloodshed, as the republic is more than 90% Slovenian and its small ethnic minorities have raised few objections to plans for breaking free.

However, Serbia has vowed to fight any secession attempt by Croatia unless borders are redrawn to unite all Serbs and to divide rich coastal territories more evenly.