Military Loses Bid to Impose Martial Law in Yugoslavia : Unrest: The president has caved in to most demands, but protesters want new elections.

An army push to impose martial law in Yugoslavia failed to win the leadership’s endorsement, but the Serbian head of the federal presidency on Wednesday appeared to encourage loyal Communist generals to take matters into their own hands.

Belgrade has been paralyzed for five days by tens of thousands of anti-Communist demonstrators blocking major thoroughfares and refusing to go to work or school until the Serbian regime is ousted from power.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, a hard-line Communist, caved in to most of the protesters’ initial demands, weakening his iron grip on the mass media and removing Serbian Interior Minister Radmilo Bogdanovic, blamed by the activists for ordering the police charge against peaceful demonstrators last Saturday.

But opposition leaders raised the stakes of their political challenge, insisting that the entire Serbian government and Parliament must resign before they call off their protests. They have also asked for new elections.

The unrest has prompted the Serbian-dominated federal army to request a state of emergency throughout Yugoslavia, Croatia’s representative on the collective federal presidency disclosed.

“The situation is not such as to require any measures of this kind,” said Stipe Mesic, who took part in the emergency presidential session, where the army appealed for a declaration of martial law.

“The army’s duty is not to solve the country’s political problems,” Mesic said in an interview with an independent Belgrade radio station. “Its role is to defend the country.”

The army intends to press its campaign to restore order in Belgrade at a second emergency presidential session today, according to Mesic. He predicted that the proposal would again be voted down “because there are wise men sitting in the presidency.”

If a state of emergency is declared, the presidency would open the way for an armed crackdown throughout the federation.

The pro-independence leaders of Slovenia and Croatia, which have already begun the process of seceding from Yugoslavia, have warned for weeks that the army was plotting to topple their newly elected democratic governments to reimpose Communist rule.

Mesic did not say which presidential representatives supported a declaration of a state of emergency, but a Slovenian source familiar with the session said Serbia was joined only by its province of Vojvodina in seeking a military solution.

The eight-man federal presidency is composed of a representative from each of Yugoslavia’s six republics and two Serbian provinces.

Slovenian President Milan Kucan denounced the army’s request as an attempt to solve political problems “the old way--through the use of force.”

Borisav Jovic, the Serbian representative who heads the presidency, called the session in his capacity as nominal commander of the armed forces and with the urging of Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic.

Jovic issued a vague, troubling statement after the session, which ran until midnight Tuesday: “. . . I asked that the staff of the supreme command of the armed forces of Yugoslavia . . . review and establish what it believes should be proposed or undertaken in the present situation.”

His suggestion that the army might undertake unilateral action seemed to indicate that Serbian Communists and army generals might give up seeking to work through constitutional channels.

Jovic and Milosevic--who enjoy strong backing from the army--are closely allied and stand to lose the most if the Communists are ousted from power in Serbia. Although the army is supposed to serve all of Yugoslavia, it is predominantly commanded by Serbian generals who openly support the Communist system that has provided them with lavish pay and perquisites.

Opposition to manipulation of the press sparked the mass, anti-Communist rally last Saturday. Police pelted demonstrators with rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas, triggering the worst rioting in the capital in 45 years. A 17-year-old protester and a policeman were killed and more than 100 others were injured.

Students, artists and anti-Communist activists have occupied central Terazije Square since then to demand the release of all those arrested and the resignation of the Serbian government. The official Tanjug news agency reported Wednesday that about 250 protesters had been released from jail out of the more than 600 arrested since Saturday.

Since Serbian authorities renounced their monopoly on the media Tuesday, they have allowed some coverage of the unrest. Belgrade TV carried a live transmission Wednesday that gave many viewers in the republic of 9 million their first glimpse of the anti-Communist uprising.

Vuk Draskovic, the charismatic leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement who was jailed for three days after Saturday’s rioting, appealed to a crowd of about 25,000 to continue their protests until the entire Communist government resigns. He said 150 members of his party remain jailed and had begun a hunger strike.

The Communists--renamed the Socialist Party of Serbia--won a landslide reelection in December. But a crippling economic crisis has eroded support for the ruling party. The relaxation of media controls agreed to this week will allow the opposition to spread its message that Milosevic and his party have ruined Serbia.