Croatia, Slovenia Win Recognition : Yugoslavia: EC nations and a dozen others diplomatically accept two breakaway republics. Serbia denounces moves. Washington doesn’t offer relations.

More than two dozen European nations finally and formally recognized Croatia and Slovenia on Wednesday, a move that prompted jubilant celebrations in the breakaway republics and effectively dissolved the 73-year-old Yugoslav federation.

The rejoicing was especially fervent here among the Croats. As bells tolled, they shot off weapons and fireworks to hail the international embrace, which they hope will end almost seven months of war that has killed thousands and seen one-third of their country conquered by rival Serbia.

But the decisions by the 12-nation European Community, Austria, Switzerland and a host of other countries--including most of Eastern Europe, the newly independent Baltic States and Ukraine and nations as far north as Iceland--to extend diplomatic ties to Slovenia and Croatia were immediately denounced by the Serbian-controlled federal government.

That raised the threat of retaliation that could shatter a 12-day-old cease-fire.

The celebrations were also marred by the absence of the United States among the countries accepting Croatia and Slovenia as fellow nations. Many here feel that their long quest for independence will not be complete until the United States, the world’s most influential democracy, recognizes Yugoslavia’s demise.

The European actions on Wednesday also left two other independence-seeking republics in a diplomatic lurch. No nation has yet accepted the declared sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina or Macedonia, leaving those multi-ethnic republics under the government of Belgrade, which is seeking to force them into a new, Serb-controlled Yugoslavia.

German envoys traveled to Ljubljana and Zagreb to be the first to formally open new embassies in the respective Slovenian and Croatian capitals.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, beaming with satisfaction, hosted a champagne gala for the new ambassador to Croatia, Klaus-Peter Klaiber.

Germany spearheaded the campaign to accept Slovenian and Croatian sovereignty, hoping to deter further Serbian aggression that aims to prevent the secessionists from exercising what they believe to be their rights to national self-determination. It was Europe’s acceptance of that principle that allowed the reunification of Germany in October, 1990, and the liberation of Eastern Europe a year earlier from the yoke of Communist rule.

Croatian television broadcast a new song in honor of Germany’s support: “Danke, Deutschland” (Thank you, Germany).

“I just don’t have words for what I feel. The world has recognized that we want to be free,” Zekjko Ljubic, 30, said tearfully after attending a special Mass of celebration at Zagreb’s Roman Catholic cathedral. Revelers brandishing Croatia’s red, white and blue flag with a checkerboard shield sang nationalist songs and exploded fireworks in central Jelacic Square at the end of what Croatian Radio said would go down in history as the day Croats fulfilled a 900-year dream of regaining independence.

Despite calls by the state-run radio for Croats to celebrate “in a cultured and dignified manner,” the capital city resounded through the night with gunfire from pistols and automatic weapons.

Serbia, the largest of the former Yugoslavia’s six republics, was ominously quiet after having threatened unspecified retaliation if European countries recognized the secessionists, delivering a death blow to the 73-year-old Balkan federation.

But the federal leadership in Belgrade immediately lashed out at the EC for what it said was a violation of the “sovereign rights of Yugoslavia.” A Belgrade Radio commentator called it “a black day” for the 24 million people of Yugoslavia.

What effect recognition would have on the war in Croatia is not immediately clear.

A cease-fire negotiated by U.N. special envoy Cyrus R. Vance has imposed relative peace since Jan. 3. But many fear the war is not over and that fighting may surge again in Croatia or spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has voiced support for U.N. intervention to stop the fighting, now that many voters in his republic have tired of the sacrifices demanded to protect Serbs living outside of Serbia.

The Serb-commanded federal army and legions of nationalist guerrillas claim to be fighting to prevent separation from the 600,000 ethnic Serbs in Croatia who, they say, would be subject to persecution if forced to live as a minority in an independent state.

EC governments pressured Croatia to guarantee minority protection in the republic constitution as a condition for diplomatic recognition. But many Serbs remain fearful because the last independent state of Croatia, the Nazi puppet regime established in 1941, executed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies before Marshal Tito’s Communist partisans subjugated the fascists four years later and restored the federal state of Yugoslavia.

Commitment to the ideal of uniting the fractious peoples of the Balkans in a single state is believed to be the grounds for American resistance to independence for individual republics.

As European acceptance of Yugoslavia’s breakup has spread to more than two dozen countries, leaders of the newly independent republics have become resentful of what they see as Washington’s stubbornness. “America is living with the illusion that the dead body of Yugoslavia can be revived again,” said Stipe Mesic, the last president of Yugoslavia, who resigned his post last month in protest of Serbian usurpation of all federal authority.

Mesic blamed international reluctance to accept the failure of the Yugoslav “experiment” for the war in his native Croatia that financial experts estimate has inflicted as much as $20 billion in damage.

The United States was instrumental in founding the Yugoslav federation in 1918, which attempted to unite more than two dozen ethnic groups that for 500 years had been divided between the great empires of Europe. Serbia, whose 9 million people mostly belong to the Orthodox religion, was ruled for centuries by Ottoman Turkey, while predominantly Roman Catholic Croatia and Slovenia were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

“Yugoslavia is now in a state of dissolution,” Johan Verbeke of the Belgian Foreign Ministry told reporters in Brussels.

Only Serbia and tiny Montenegro, whose 600,000 people are closely related to the Serbs, want to preserve any form of Yugoslavia. They have made it clear that the new state they envision would be aimed at uniting the Serbs.

Milosevic and ally Radovan Karadzic, leader of the 1.5 million Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, want to annex all Serbian-inhabited areas of other republics to the rump state of Yugoslavia. They have, therefore, fought against foreign recognition of independent republics, except for Slovenia, which has few Serbs among its 2 million population.

An EC arbitration commission that reviewed the four republics’ requests for recognition was much more enthusiastic about Slovenia’s progress in developing democracy than Croatia’s. A commission report lauded Slovenia for protecting minority rights, using force only in self-defense when attacked by the Yugoslav army and for respecting its neighbors’ borders.

Slovenia was among the first regions of Eastern Europe to undertake democratic reforms and rebel against Communist repression.

“This is a great event,” Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said of his republic’s recognition. “But I must say with all modesty that we deserved it.”

The EC denied recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia on the grounds that there remain “important matters” to be worked out before independence can be established. Bosnia has a volatile mix of Muslims, Serbs and Croats who appear poised for their own civil war.

Greece, one of the 12 EC members, is holding up recognition of Macedonia, insisting that the Yugoslav republic change its name to prevent future efforts to annex the Greek region known by the same name.

Times staff writer Joel Havemann, in Brussels, contributed to this report.