Serb Groups Unite in Effort to End Dictatorship : Yugoslavia: Crown prince, church leaders, anti-Communists join on holiday to turn nation from destructive course.

On this St. Vitus Day holiday that for centuries has been a flash point in Serbian history, the pretender to the crown, the Serbian Orthodox Church and anti-Communist parties join forces today to try to turn Serbia from its current destructive course.

Crown Prince Alexander, in exile all his life, made a triumphal return to Belgrade on Saturday, lending his regal cachet to a movement to oust strongman President Slobodan Milosevic and promising that as monarch he could be “a uniting force.”

The heir to a throne that has been vacant since 1941 and leaders of the church and political opposition have called for a massive demonstration today to end a bellicose dictatorship and set Serbia on a course for peace and democracy.

The united anti-Milosevic forces are hoping to galvanize growing disenchantment with a regime that has brought them international scorn and isolation.

But wide-ranging economic sanctions against fiercely defiant and self-sufficient Serbia have yet to discomfort the majority, causing some organizers of the push against Milosevic to worry that the country is not yet ready to challenge the nationalist zealot they brought to power in a multi-party election only 18 months ago.

There have been some signs of squirming in the previously rigid ranks of the Serbian leadership, such as a recent easing of the siege of Sarajevo. Some Serbian tanks and guns were pulled back from the city’s airport Saturday, and a slight afternoon letup in shelling raised hopes for a lasting cease-fire.

Sarajevo weighs heavily on the minds of history-conscious Serbs today. It was there on this hallowed national day 78 years ago that a young Bosnian Serb set off World War I by assassinating Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

It was also on June 28 that Serbia lost the Battle of Kosovo to Ottoman Turkey in 1389, which cost Serbs their freedom for the next 500 years.

Organizers of today’s anti-Milosevic protest are hoping to stir Serbian obsession with the past into a movement to resolve the present crisis.

Many Belgrade Serbs have begun to fear they could be the targets of Western air strikes, even though all proposals for stronger action to lift the siege of Sarajevo have focused on ways of neutralizing Serbian guns shelling that city rather than punitive strikes against the Serbian capital.

Serbian forces opposed to Bosnia’s proclaimed independence have cut off Sarajevo as part of a campaign to seize republic territory for annexation with Serbia.

At least 7,400 people have been killed in Bosnia in three months of ethnic fighting and another 35,000 are missing in that republic of 4.4 million, the Tanjug news agency reported. Many of those unaccounted for might be presumed dead.

Another 10,000 died last year in Croatia, where the Serb-led federal army conquered one-third of the secessionist republic and drove other nationalities out.

More than 2 million are homeless and adrift in southeastern Europe because of the Yugoslav crisis.

Foreign mediators and Western governments accuse Serbia of primary responsibility for the past year of violence. They see the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts as the work of Milosevic proxies. The Serbian leader’s failure to rein in the warlords led to the imposition of harsh U.N. sanctions May 30.

Gasoline is rationed in Serbia and Montenegro as a result of an oil embargo, and some imported goods have begun to disappear from shops. But the sanctions have had more psychological than physical impact, prompting some--few can even estimate how many--to question the policies of their hard-line president.

Asked how many were expected at the demonstration against Milosevic, a spokesman for the organizers known as the Democratic Movement for Serbia said, “Absolutely no one in this country knows that. All we can do is hope.”

The return of the crown prince, secured by the movement uniting religious and opposition forces, offers Serbs an opportunity to make a fresh start without major compromise of nationalist principles.

Although the would-be monarch, Alexander Karadjordjevic, has denounced the bloodshed in Bosnia, he has also criticized the U.N. sanctions as one-sided and counterproductive.

“The best immediate help Serbia’s democrats may hope for right now would be an unambiguous signal that the democratic community is at odds with Milosevic, not with the Serbian people,” Karadjordjevic argued in a recent statement on the Yugoslav crisis.

Karadjordjevic, who was born in 1945 in a London hotel room that was declared Yugoslav territory so he would be eligible to one day wear the crown, flew to Timisoara, Romania, then drove to the Serbian capital, encountering flocks of adoring monarchists along the 100-mile rural route.

Serbian police who stopped and searched the crown prince’s motorcade just before it crossed the Yugoslav border seized several automatic weapons and arrested his four bodyguards, according to Belgrade lawyer Milorad Ignjacevic, who accompanied the procession.

A spokesman for Karadjordjevic, Serge Trifkovic, has expressed concern for the crown prince’s security in Belgrade, as police and army forces are believed to be aligned with Milosevic.

Trifkovic said the crown prince would address the demonstration despite the security concerns.

“His message will be the urgent need for fundamental change in the Serbian leadership, but without bloodshed,” Trifkovic said. “He is trying to square the circle. The question is, can it be done quickly enough for the international community to avoid cataclysmic actions against Serbia, but not so quickly as to push the country into civil war.”