Threat to Arrest Croatian Stirs Tensions : Yugoslavia: A warrant is issued after a videotape purporting to show the official plotting killings is released. The move creates fears of military action.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman accused the Yugoslav leadership in Belgrade on Tuesday of goading his republic into an armed revolt by threatening to arrest the defense minister on trumped-up charges.

Tudjman lashed out at Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic for allegedly caving in to fellow Serbs in the federal army, which has unabashedly sought to preserve Communist control of the central government, despite the rise of democracy in other republics.

Slovenia, the most affluent of Yugoslavia’s six republics, also reacted with outrage to Jovic’s threat to arrest Croatian Defense Minister Martin Spegelj, noting that the order was given in the name of Yugoslavia although only Serbia had been consulted.

Federal authorities issued an arrest warrant for Spegelj a week ago after the army released a covertly filmed videotape purporting to show him planning the assassination of federal officers, most of whom are ethnic Serbs.

Spegelj, under heavily armed guard at a safehouse in Zagreb, said in an interview with a Yugoslav journalist that he would resign if that would defuse the razor-sharp tensions between Serbs and Croats.

But Spegelj said that his retreat “would be wrongly interpreted as Croatia’s capitulation and an admission of guilt.”

Escalating hostility between Serbia and Croatia reached a peak last week, after Belgrade ordered the disarming of illegal militia units, suggesting that the territorial defense forces of Croatia and Slovenia are planning an armed uprising against the federal government.

Croatian and federal authorities reached a compromise and agreed to call off their military alerts.

But Belgrade’s order for the arrest of Spegelj rekindled tensions, and Jovic over the weekend said that the federal army would stop at nothing to detain the Croatian minister.

Serbian media have whipped up the issue of the videotape, accusing Spegelj of plotting genocide against the Serbs.

Tudjman contends that the insurrection charges were fabricated to justify a military takeover of Croatia, which along with Slovenia has abandoned communism in favor of capitalism and democracy. Serbia, on the other hand, endorsed its hard-line Communist leadership in December elections.

In his letter to Jovic, which was released by the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, Tudjman warned that any attempt by the army to take Spegelj by force would likely trigger ethnic violence.

Tudjman accused Jovic, a hard-line Serbian Communist, of misusing his post as chairman of the eight-man Yugoslav presidency by opposing those republics trying to form Western-style democracies.

Jovic’s warning late Friday that Spegelj would be arrested despite Croatian resistance prompted new fears of military intervention.

Tudjman lambasted Jovic for threatening Croatia without soliciting the views of other members of the collective presidency, the decisions of which are routinely based on a consensus.

The Slovenian representative on the presidential council, Janez Drnovsek, said that Jovic had overstepped his authority.