Documentary : A Roller Coaster Ride to Freedom : * Despite roadblocks and guns and an upside-down world, the Slovenes go about their daily business as best they can.

Stunned by the punishing force Yugoslavia’s army has unleashed upon them, the people of Slovenia have been riding an emotional roller coaster for the past week.

They are buoyed by their relative success in the first fight to defend independence. But faced with the angry and heavily armed federal forces, many fear they will not long bask in the role of the mouse that roared.

The Slovenes cope by going about their business as best they can, sticking to the inherent industriousness that is part of their Austrian legacy and that has made their republic so prosperous.

Unsure what else they should be doing amid a world turned upside-down, the Slovenes go to school or work or shopping as if by rote, seemingly almost oblivious to the bedlam around them.

Here in this picturesque capital, with its skyline of vaulted church spires and baroque architecture, antiaircraft guns now bristle from the castle clock tower and quaint cobblestone streets are barricaded against attack. Fatigue-clad militiamen carry grenades and submachine guns.

Church bells ring to signal the approach of intimidating aircraft, as well as the usual toll every hour to tell the time.

Bells and air-raid sirens scattered Slovenes to basements and shelters Sunday, when authorities warned by radio that Yugoslav fighter jets had scrambled and appeared headed for Ljubljana.

The few pedestrians out in public after a tense night of waiting and worrying about what the federal army would do--it had threatened a major assault to subdue the rebellious republic--calmly ducked indoors until the all-clear sounded nearly two hours later.

Exploding rockets and gun battles on the city’s perimeter since late last week have understandably made Ljubljana residents skittish. Yet sometimes the crash is only thunder from what has become a routine of hot, muggy days that end in torrential rainstorms.

Virtually no one expected fighting in Slovenia, a serene and scenic republic that lays claim in its tourist and trade literature to being “the sunny side of the Alps.”

The long-feared civil war was expected to rip through neighboring Croatia, maybe spreading to ethnically mixed Bosnia-Herzegovina, probably drawing in rebellious Kosovo Albanians in time.

Slovenia, a tiny enclave of towering mountains with an amiable population of 2 million, was thought to be immune to factional violence and safe from the wrath of the Serbian-led army.

Even now, despite the confusion of roadblocks and interrupted transport, shops and restaurants are usually open. Ice cream sales are booming in the sticky heat.

There are subtler changes of routine. No longer do couples cuddle along the Ljubljanica embankment, where weeping willows dangle in the gray-green water like spindly fingers.

The statue-lined bridges and walkways of the old quarter are bustling during rush hours, yet eerily empty after dark as Slovenes abandon their ritual after-dinner strolls.

Radios blare from every doorway and open window. Nearly everyone is tuned to Slovenian broadcasts to keep abreast of each nuance in the struggle to resist a forced alliance with the southern Yugoslav republics.

Key intersections and all approaches to Ljubljana are blocked with makeshift barricades--formed by city buses, dump trucks and snowplows--to prevent any military takeover of the republic’s parliament or government center.

Fully loaded tractor-trailer rigs bearing Greek and Hungarian license plates have been abandoned by their drivers outside the roadblocks, inadvertently reinforcing the improvised defenses. But they impair city traffic in the process, afflicting Ljubljana’s inner streets with gridlock.

Police officers in flak jackets and camouflage caps adorned with the new red-white-and-blue emblem of independent Slovenia direct vehicles around the impediments, calmly advising motorists how best to reach their destinations.

There is little panic even though most of the casualties in the fight to defend Slovenia have been civilians.

There is also little regret about the Slovenian government’s declaration of sovereignty and even less hesitation about pressing on.

“We are united now because we are defending our own,” said Srecko Javric, a 34-year-old auto mechanic manning a barricade on the road to Maribor.

“Sure, we’re afraid,” added a chambermaid discussing the latest news with two colleagues on a park bench. “We don’t know what is going to happen next. We think Slovenia has right on its side and can win in the end, that we can retain our independence. We’re peaceful people, but if they attack us we must fight back.”

It has been a David-and-Goliath conflict so far, with the big Yugoslav military’s image considerably dimmed. The outmanned and outgunned irregulars of Slovenia’s ragtag forces have posted a moral victory by standing up to the federal attack and walking away with the lighter toll.

When the first convoys of federal tanks roared out of their barracks at 4 a.m. last Thursday, street sweepers were still at work clearing up the debris of an all-night party celebrating Slovenia’s declaration of independence. Glass shards from smashed champagne bottles glimmered between the cobblestones. A local rock group’s rendition of Tina Turner’s “You’re Simply the Best” was blaring across Liberation Square, where hundreds of young people bobbed with the music, waiting for the dawn of what they thought would be just another day.

Although the Thursday morning assault and the severity of the army attack took the nation by surprise, Slovenes responded with orderly precision to defend their independence as if following a long-practiced plan.

In fact, while the people reveled in their newfound freedom, Slovenian reservists were put on alert. And when columns of federal armored vehicles headed out to take control of all border facilities, including Ljubljana’s Brnik Airport, Slovenian authorities mobilized quickly to erect defenses.

Transport drivers turned reserve soldiers created a thick security cordon, placing full tanker trucks on the outside of their barricades to discourage the federal tanks from crashing through.

At the airport, Slovenian territorial defense forces had parked old planes and farm equipment on the runway to prevent the federal army from flying in military reinforcements.

The trucks positioned to block tanks from the army garrisons were crunched like empty cans and swept off the roads by the thundering armor. But the use of brute force was costly. Twisted green metal torn loose from the tanks lay strewn beside the vehicles they had smashed. Mechanical breakdowns halted at least half a dozen tanks, prompting their confused drivers to surrender to the Slovenian defenders.

The capture of terrified recruits from the federal fighting force was shown on Slovenian television, which has proved an efficient source of information.

Meanwhile, foreign journalists have descended on Ljubljana by the hundreds after spending hours searching for ways around the maze of roadblocks barring entrance to the country.

Aside from a few nervous moments when an aerial pounding seemed imminent, Western reporters have been surprised by the order and precision with which Slovenian officials have dealt with the crisis.

A press center in the basement of Ljubljana’s Cankarjev Dom convention center also serves as an air-raid shelter and nerve center.

Important declarations, such as the federal army threat to attack Sunday, are swiftly translated into English, German and French and arrayed in neat piles on an information table. The president, prime minister and other key figures hold daily news conferences with simultaneous translations. Telex and telephone lines have proven remarkably adequate despite overwhelming demand by the media.

A branch office of the Information Secretariat has been opened in the center to spare reporters the risk and bother of walking the few blocks through barricaded streets to the ministry. Government spokesmen are usually around to be buttonholed, and the office is glad to page journalists from the bar or working room if their editors call them.

The efficient information network is no accident, as Slovenian leaders want to win the propaganda war and lure Western public opinion to their side. So far, they have been successful, partly because, by contrast, the federal and Serbian capital of Belgrade is an information black hole.

Still, the easy access is a mixed blessing.

Unlike wars where the media is carefully supervised, Slovenes are eager to show the world what they have suffered. That eagerness has sometimes drawn journalists into the eye of the storm.

Two Austrian photographers were killed Friday when a stray rocket blasted their Land Rover as they tried to follow an armored column near the Ljubljana airport.

Walking about the darkened capital after nightfall is also a nerve-racking affair, as the Slovenian defenders have had little training with their new weaponry, and threats of attack have made the young irregulars jumpy. Journalists returning from the press center are sometimes challenged by reservists who train their gun barrels toward any sound of movement before ordering those approaching to halt--in Slovenian.

Driving outside the capital is also dicey, as one is never assured of getting back in, past the barricades. To reach the scenes of conflict is often impossible or takes a full day of trying different back-road approaches in hopes of getting close enough for a look.

Journalists who arrived in Slovenia early, before the federal assault began Thursday, were able to rent cars for the daily sorties to the moving front. Those who came later had less luck as the central car-rental services have run out of vehicles. The airport rental outlets, such as the one from which a Los Angeles Times correspondent checked out a Citroen, have been bombed out of commission, leaving their customers perplexed as to what to do with their cars once they depart.

For those who want out of the chaos, escape has also proved dangerous.

Truck drivers and fleeing tourists who had lined up at the Sentilj border crossing into Austria last Friday were strafed by the Yugoslav air force. Smoking vehicles and charred corpses were left in the planes’ wake.

Foreign governments, including the United States and Britain, have urged travelers to stay out of Yugoslavia and advised any of their nationals caught in sealed-off Slovenia to stay in their hotels to avoid injury.

At Ljubljana’s Holiday Inn, where much of the foreign media is quartered, the staff posted notices in the elevators guiding guests to the basement garage in the event of further air attacks.

There is little comfort in the embattled city where Soviet-built MIG jets scream overhead, dropping bombs to clear roadblocks and drawing antiaircraft fire from the Slovenian defenders.

An army helicopter shot down over a residential neighborhood just south of Ljubljana’s center tore into a three-story apartment building, shattering the roof and ripping off balconies.

Still, food and hospitality seem to be holding up well. Telephone receptionists call around to various rooms when a journalist being sought for a long-distance call doesn’t answer--presuming, usually correctly, that colleagues have gathered together for a late-night happy hour.

Officials assured reporters that vast supplies of food and electricity have been stockpiled against the eventuality--previously considered slim--of a full-blown siege.

Said one American as he polished off dinner with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream: “We’ll know the Slovenes are winning as long as the grilled calamari hold out.”