Croats Willing to Accept Truce Monitored by EC

Croatian authorities, seeing their secessionist movement heavily battered by Serbian nationalists and an overpowering federal army force, have said they are willing to accept a cease-fire in the region and are calling for European Community monitors to safeguard an end to fighting.

The shootouts and mortar exchanges that have left about 36 people dead in the last two days subsided somewhat Sunday, but there was still no indication that tension was easing or that a genuine cease-fire was about to take effect.

Croatia’s state council late Saturday expressed its support for a cease-fire but offered no concessions to Serbian nationalists who are bent on seceding from Croatia before Croatia can secede from the crumbling Yugoslav federation.

Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, along with Slovenia, on June 25, but its independence ambitions have been thwarted, so far, by a Serbian minority. The Serbs have battled Croatian nationalist forces to a standstill over a wide area. The most militant Serbian leaders now talk of linking a large swath of heretofore Croatian territory to the republic of Serbia.

Stipe Mesic, the Croatian chairman of the federal presidency, which has appealed for a cease-fire by all nationalist militia forces, appealed Sunday for European Community mediation to solve the crisis, suggesting that a European peacekeeping force could provide an option if talks break down.

An EC foreign minister’s meeting is to be held today in Brussels. There, the government of the Netherlands, which now holds the EC presidency, is expected to propose that a joint force of the Yugoslav federal army and Croatian national police units patrol together to keep the peace while talks are initiated.

But there is already a deep enmity between the federal army units and the Croatian fighters.

Given the weakening Croatian military position, some observers believe it is unlikely that the militant Serbs will agree to a cease-fire.