Croatia Agrees to Cease-Fire, Juggles Cabinet

The breakaway Croatian Parliament took what appeared to be conciliatory steps toward easing its conflict with Serbia on Saturday, agreeing in principle to a cease-fire and approving a slate of nominally more moderate government ministers.

The Parliament approved an order issued by the Yugoslav federal presidency in Belgrade to observe a cease-fire but rejected a Serbia ally whom Belgrade had appointed to head a commission to monitor the truce.

Although fighting was relatively light Saturday, there was no immediate sign, as the Parliament deliberated, that a cease-fire was imminent. Skirmishes were reportedly continuing in the Slavonia region of eastern Croatia and in the coastal region west of Knin, areas that appear to be continuing targets of rebel Serbs who oppose Croatia’s independence ambitions and who want to link Serbian-dominated areas of Croatia to Serbia.

Sources in Serbian guerrilla units have indicated in recent days that they plan to consolidate their gains in the Slavonia region in the coming days, targeting areas north and east of the town of Osijek along the Danube River.

Croatian authorities said that 158 mortar rounds hit the town of Vukovar, 21 miles east of Osijek, Friday night and early Saturday.

Incidents were also reported in the coastal region towns of Obravac and Bentkovac, where electricity was said to have been cut off.

The guerrilla leaders also said they do not plan to halt their campaign until Croatia indicates it is willing to negotiate a redrawing of the borders between Serbia and Croatia. Serbia has ambitions on a large chunk of Croatian territory, especially the so-called Krajina, a string of mostly ethnic Serbian communities scattered across Croatia’s border region with Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Croatia’s representative in the collective federal presidency voted against the presidency’s cease-fire order, complaining that it fails to name the aggressor in the conflict, “which,” he said, “is Serbia.”

But Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, reflecting some of the sense in Zagreb that the republic is against the wall militarily, said: “We do accept the cease-fire as such. But what we do not accept is one part of this decision.”

Tudjman said Croatia refused to accept the appointment of Branko Kostic, a Montenegran regarded as an ally of Serbia’s Communist government, as head of a truce monitoring body. The Serbian government was repeatedly blasted, along with the officially neutral Yugoslav federal army, in a 15-point resolution approved by the Croatian Parliament.

But in approving its third government in eight months, the Parliament appeared to be ready to take a more conciliatory approach to the crisis, with the apparent recognition that the military campaign, so far, as gone decisively against Croatian interests.

Two relative moderates, Luka Bebic and Ivan Vekic, were appointed as defense and interior minister, respectively. Bebic replaces hard-liner Sime Djodan. A former defense minister and the present head of the national guard, Martin Spegelj, was also fired by President Tudjman.

The new government includes representatives from seven parties besides Tudjman’s ruling Croatian Democratic Union, an alliance billed as a “national unity government.” It includes one ethnic Serb.

The Parliament imposed what it termed a “freeze” in relations with Serbia but stopped short of a sharper break that would include seizing Serbian assets in Croatia.

The new prime minister, Franjo Greguric, rejected a shortage of arms as the primary reason for Croatia’s dismal performance in the conflict so far. He said better organization is needed in national guard and police units, which have been forced to retreat from attacks led by Serbs as soon as the federal army units intervene, invariably against the Croatian forces.

“We find ourselves in a state of war,” Greguric told Parliament, accusing the army of supporting, “materially and morally, terrorism on Croatian soil.”

“We have to defend ourselves,” he said at a news conference later, “or we will be devoured.”

Scores of small towns and villages in the path of the fighting have been abandoned, with villagers packing their belongings into cars and tractor-towed farm wagons to seek shelter with friends and relatives in safer areas.

A Croatian national guard commander, Capt. Berislav Pavicic, was organizing such an evacuation Saturday near the front-line town of Komerevo, about 35 miles south of Zagreb.

He and his men have set up road blocks and sandbag emplacements around a grade school atop a hill in Komerevo. He said that the “Chetniks”--his word for Serb guerrillas--were less than a mile away and that there had been firing at the hamlet of Madzari, its tile rooftops visible half a mile away from the windows of the school.

“We have to take the people out now,” he said. “We are expecting an attack any time.”