U.N. Announces a New Cease-Fire in Yugoslavia

Warring leaders of Serbia and Croatia signed a new cease-fire agreement Saturday--the 14th since civil war erupted in Yugoslavia but the first brokered through the United Nations.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, a special envoy for U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar in the Yugoslav crisis, announced that the cease-fire will take effect today.

“I emphasized that this must be a genuine cease-fire, not just another meaningless declaration which is then ignored,” Vance said.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and federal Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic signed the agreement, which diplomats said could be a last chance for international mediation in the conflict.

Lord Carrington, the European Community envoy who brokered the first 13 cease-fires, also attended the meeting at the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva.

The two presidents and Kadijevic agreed that the cease-fire will apply to both the regular army and all irregular forces. In addition, Croatia will lift all blockades of federal army bases and the blockaded personnel and equipment will leave immediately, Vance said.

The parties also agreed that a U.N. peacekeeping force would be essential to settling the war, Vance said, but there was still no agreement on how and where the force should be deployed.

Croatia has lost a third of its territory as a result of gains by Serbian guerrillas and the federal army, and some of it is being resettled by Serbs.

The Serbs want the U.N. force posted along the front deep inside Croatia, but the Croats insist that it be on the republic’s official borders.

Meanwhile, fighting continued around Osijek in eastern Croatia, where the Serbian-led army began an offensive after capturing Vukovar, 20 miles away, early last week.

Zagreb Radio said Osijek residents were hiding in shelters for a fifth successive day of army rocket and artillery bombardments. Nearby villages were also attacked.

Osijek is nearly encircled by army troops. It is a Croatian cultural and educational center, and its loss would be a crippling blow since it is perhaps second in importance to Zagreb, the capital.

Hungarian state radio said 2,328 refugees crossed the nearby border into Hungary on Saturday.

Several people were killed when federal warplanes bombed the town of Slano north of the Adriatic port of Dubrovnik. There was also fighting near Zagreb and in central Croatia, the radio said.

In Zagreb’s main square, about 100 people demanded the release of the leader of the extreme nationalist Party of Rights. The party has harshly criticized Tudjman, charging that he has lost too much Croatian territory by being too willing to compromise.

The government detained party leader Dobroslav Paraga and an aide on Friday on suspicion of plotting an armed rebellion.

Because of the warfare, hundreds of art treasures will be transferred this week from museums in Dubrovnik and other Croatian towns and taken to the safety of Italy, ANSA news agency reported Saturday.

The medieval port of Dubrovnik, which is on the World Heritage List of UNESCO, suffered serious damage when it was bombarded for weeks by federal troops.