Yugoslav Truce Survives Amid Combat Reports

The Yugoslav cease-fire lasted into its third tenuous day Tuesday. Although there were scattered reports of shooting, and a significant bombardment of one Croatian city, the political will to keep the truce officially in place seemed firm.

Vinkovci, a Croatian city near the Serbian border and the scene of intense fighting last weekend, was bombed by successive waves of federal warplanes. According to defense officials in the city, three persons were killed in the repeated air raids.

Air raids were also reported in Vukovar, and the Tanjug news agency in the Serbian and federal capital, Belgrade, said fighting had continued there Tuesday after Croatian forces attacked a besieged army barracks.

In the midst of the skirmishes, officials on both the Croatian and Serbian sides continued to talk as though the cease-fire could lead to serious negotiations.

Mario Nobilo, an adviser to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, reflected the Zagreb government’s fresh confidence to fight back after its forces took control of about 100 tanks and other weapons from federal military arsenals over the weekend.

“We have shifted from the status of a victim to the status of a country willing to fight back,” Nobilo said. “We have a feeling that from this moment on, negotiations will be taken more seriously.”

On the Serbian side, Borisav Jovic, Serbia’s representative on the eight-member federal presidency, predicted that the Yugoslav army would soon withdraw to areas of Croatia that the Serbian population “recognizes as its own.”

There has long been speculation by diplomats and others that Serbian guerrillas, who have been backed in a fight to claim parts of Croatian territory for their own republic, would eventually pull back and consolidate their territorial gains in negotiations with the Croats.

But Nobilo said Tuesday that there would be no territorial concessions to the Serbs, suggesting that any concession of Croatian lands to the Serb fighters would be politically impossible for the Tudjman government, which has been under public pressure for what some have felt has been a weak response to the Serbian claims.

There are also deepening concerns over rising tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Croatian Radio reported heavy firing between the towns of Stolac and Caplina and said that hundreds of residents had fled the area.

Bosnia-Herzegovina has been disturbed by movements of Yugoslav army reservists, and the republic’s leaders have complained to federal defense officials.