Serbians in L.A. Voice Support During Unrest : Activism: Yugoslavia’s civil war is causing friends and expatriates to become more involved. Groups are sending medical supplies and calling attention to the plight of those in their homeland.

Blasko Paraklis of Alhambra received a telephone call from Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, late in the evening on March 1.

It was a friend, Jovan Gardovic, with news that Gardovic’s father had been killed during a wedding, an innocent victim of the most recent ethnic fighting to hit the war-torn country.

Paraklis’ old seminary classmate, a Serbian Orthodox priest, was wounded in the attack.

“It happened right on the church property,” said Paraklis, who is secretary of the Alhambra-based Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America. “They couldn’t bury him because of the situation in the city.”

As similar stories spread throughout Southern California’s Serbian-American community, a once apolitical ethnic group is shedding its passivity.

Church leaders have staged demonstrations calling attention to the plight of Serbian minorities in the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Political groups have sprung up. Activists are writing letters and making telephone calls to their elected officials and the media to increase their profile.

Before the civil war, “we saw no need to blow our ethnic steam,” said Dragoljub Djurkovic, president of the Serbian Unity Congress, which is based in Studio City and was founded in 1990 to press for the civil rights of Serbs in Yugoslavia.

“Serbs assimilated very easily,” said Zika Djokovich, vice president of the congress. “We did not feel we needed to get organized, to lobby representatives on the subject of Serbia or Serbian people.”

But all that has changed.

Some people, such as Father Dennis Pavichevich of St. Steven Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Alhambra, say they are motivated by fear of nationalist sentiment in the secessionist republics.

Pavichevich said Croatia’s independence drive has unleashed a wave of anti-Serbian persecution reminiscent of World War II, when Croatian Ustashas backed by German Nazis massacred hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in concentration camps.

Pavichevich said anti-Serb persecution was apparent in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, when he was there in May. “Rocks were thrown through a cathedral during the divine liturgy,” he said. “I was walking down the street in my cassock with the bishop, and we were spat on. We were abused. That was my first-hand experience.”

Last fall, as fighting in Yugoslavia escalated, St. Steven--Los Angeles County’s largest center for members of the Serbian Orthodox faith--launched a fund-raising drive to help Serbs who fled the fighting in Croatia. Many are refugees in Serbia.

The church raised $80,000 to purchase medicine for those wounded or stranded in the war. The donations are being distributed by church leaders in Belgrade. Meanwhile, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in San Gabriel sent $25,000 worth of medical supplies to two Yugoslav hospitals in December.

Serbs have staged demonstrations in front of the Federal Building, the Los Angeles consulate of Germany--which supports Croatian independence--and The Times. They accuse the U.S. government and American media of being pro-Croat.

But Srecko (Felix) Duhovic, president of the San Pedro Croatian-American Club, pointed out that the United States has yet to recognize Croatia’s independence. “The whole of Europe has recognized us,” he said. “There are 50 some-odd countries that recognize us. But the Americans are dragging their feet.”

Southern California’s estimated 30,000 Serbs are scattered in pockets from San Diego to Santa Monica, with a large number in the Alhambra area. About 125,000 Croatian-Americans are in Southern California.

Duhovic also discounted fears that anti-Serb persecution is on the rise, saying such stories are “a lie perpetrated by the government over there” in Yugoslavia.

The incident in which Gardovic’s father was killed occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a majority composed of Croats and Muslims favors independence from the Serbian-controlled communist government. The attack on the Serbian wedding party came at the end of a two-day referendum on secession and triggered a wave of shooting by Serbian rebels who barricaded the city for 24 hours.

Mirko Drljaca, 40, a Serb, left Croatia with his family in September, 1991, and came to the United States on a tourist visa. Penniless, jobless and staying in cramped quarters with a cousin in Chatsworth, Drljaca said he has no intention of returning to his native country.

“Everything I had was looted or destroyed,” he said through interpreter Alexander Yahontov. “The maximum I can stay (on a tourist visa) is one year. After that, there’s a strong possibility I can ask for political asylum.”