Yugoslav Army Promises Order and Secure Borders

Sucked into a power vacuum created by collapse of the federal presidency, the army vowed Saturday to restore order and appeared to warn neighboring states against laying claim to Yugoslav territory as the federation unravels.

Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic issued a vaguely worded statement, saying the top military brass had met in an emergency session to review “the defense and security aspects of the situation in the country and foreign reaction to it.”

The defense chiefs determined a course of action, according to the statement distributed by the Tanjug news agency, but no details of the directives were disclosed.

The statement followed an ominous report from neighboring Bulgaria contending that Yugoslavia “has no future” and that its Macedonian population is actually part of the Bulgarian nation.

Italian politicians have also suggested recently that a stretch of the Istrian peninsula deeded to Yugoslavia after World War II should revert to Italy if Yugoslavia ceases to exist as a united federation.

While the army has appeared reluctant to take power in the leaderless country edging toward civil war, a perceived foreign threat could be seen as grounds for a military takeover.

The military statement also ordered enforcement of a May 9 directive of the now-defunct federal presidency, calling on the army to disarm Serbian militants and Croatian reservists in ethnic hot spots of Croatia.

Both sides have refused to turn over their weapons to defuse the tense standoff that has already killed at least 19 in Croatia this month, and forcible intervention by the army would probably set off renewed violence in the troubled region.

The threat of army intervention also came on the eve of a controversial referendum in Croatia to gauge public support for secession. Residents of Serbian-dominated regions of Croatia have threatened to disrupt the balloting today, raising fears of renewed violence in areas where Serbs and Croats are armed and ready to do battle. In the absence of a head of state or commander of the armed forces, the army leadership could feel pressured to step in to quell major unrest.

Yugoslavia has been without a president since Wednesday, when Serbia blocked the inauguration of Croatia’s Stipe Mesic to head the Belgrade-based collective presidency that rotates each year among the federation’s six republics and two autonomous provinces.

Serbian Communists have paralyzed the presidency, ostensibly to spare it from being chaired by a Croat whose republic is determined to either redesign the Yugoslav federation or leave it.

By preventing Mesic from assuming the presidency, as prescribed by the Yugoslav constitution, Serbia has relegated the rival republic to an inferior status within the federation and left the army in the hands of the Serbian Communists of its high command.

Federal troops deployed to keep the peace in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina have taken up such positions that those republics now fear the army has been marking off the western boundary of an expanded Serbian state.

Croatian authorities have called attention to what they see as a prelude to Serbian territorial seizures but say they will avoid precipitous action.

“We are trying not to be led by emotions and excitement over the humiliating events in Belgrade,” said Darko Bekic, a senior adviser to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman. “We have decided to talk things over and act soberly and not hit back in a passionate reaction that would only hurt our own interests.”

The republic’s leadership in Zagreb will await the results of today’s referendum, then call an extraordinary session of the Croatian Parliament to decide how to proceed on the question of secession, Bekic said.

The referendum asks Croatia’s 5 million residents whether they want to stay aligned in a centrally ruled federation or to form an independent state that would negotiate a new relationship with other Yugoslav republics. The vote is expected to bring a broad endorsement of secession.

In a similar referendum held in Serbian regions of Croatia last week, ethnic Serbs voted overwhelmingly to join Serbia. Zagreb dismissed the balloting as illegal but made no move to stop it.

Serbia has steadfastly opposed Croatian independence moves, asserting that secession would endanger the republic’s 600,000-strong Serbian minority.

Serbia’s hard-line Communist president, Slobodan Milosevic, has made a national cause of his call for all Serbs to live in one state. Other republics consider the appeal a prelude to seizing territory, because 2 million Serbs live outside Serbia’s boundaries.

Many domestic and international border issues are likely to be rekindled if Yugoslavia breaks up into its ethnic pieces, as many now fear.

Slovenia called Saturday for international mediation to help fend off potential border wars.

But the appeal by Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel was immediately rebuffed, with the Pentagonale alliance of southeastern Europe replying that it will not get involved.

“It is for the peoples of Yugoslavia themselves to decide the country’s future,” said Italian Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis, speaking for the five-nation conference uniting Italy, Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Foreign offers of mediation from Austria and the European Free Trade Assn. have been rejected by the Yugoslav federal government of Prime Minister Ante Markovic, which has sought to play a key role in resolving the federation’s multiple crises.

Markovic enjoys the support of Western governments that continue to insist on Yugoslav unity. But he has little backing among the nationalist republic leaderships that have slashed funding for his government and called for a parliamentary vote of no-confidence against him Thursday.

Croatian officials say that Markovic has been trying to work with the army to resolve Yugoslavia’s leadership crisis.

“Markovic is trying to find a compromise, establish himself as a mediator, create conditions where the two sides can meet and negotiate,” said Zvonko Lerotic, a political adviser to Tudjman. But he predicted that the army-government alliance will fall apart.

Bekic said he fears that Western countries are encouraging some form of military intervention, with Markovic as interim ruler, gambling that “a political-military solution would be better than no solution at all.”