Croatian Leader Drives for Peace : Balkans: President Tudjman traverses east-west highway that’s been closed since 1991 by war with Serbs. His goal: ‘peaceful re-integration.’

Three years after the former Yugoslav federation’s “Brotherhood and Unity” highway was closed by ethnic warfare, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman drove the east-west artery Tuesday to proclaim his commitment to a peaceful settlement with Serbian rebels who hold nearly a third of his country.

Although camouflaged U.N. peacekeeping troops and armored vehicles were more visible in the winter fog than any display of regional brotherhood, Tudjman was able to drive east along the highway through 16 miles of rebel-held territory in an armored BMW without incident.

“We shall be working to liberate every inch of Croatian soil without new casualties,” Tudjman told municipal officials in the government-controlled town of Slavonski Brod, about 150 miles east of Zagreb.

“This trip of mine today was intended to show we are in favor of peaceful re-integration,” he said.

Portions of the four-lane highway, which runs from Zagreb to Belgrade, were reopened last Wednesday for the first time since the Serb-Croat war of 1991, under an internationally brokered agreement that aims to bring the Croatian Serb-held territory under government control.

Political observers took Tudjman’s drive along the highway--which he made with Defense Minister Gojko Susak--to mean that the government intends to prolong the 2-year-old mandate of the U.N. Protection Force in Croatia.

In recent weeks, Tudjman has been threatening to expel the U.N. force and resume the war with Croatian Serbs--a move that U.S. and international officials warn would draw Serb-led Yugoslavia and Bosnian Serb rebels into the Croatian conflict.

The Croatian Parliament, dominated by Tudjman’s nationalistic Croatian Democratic Union, is to take up the U.N. issue Jan. 10.

Croatians have grown increasingly angry and frustrated with the U.N. force, called UNPROFOR, which they thought would have recouped Serb-held territory by now and returned Croatian refugees expelled from the areas.

The prevalent Croatian belief that the U.N. troops side with the Serbs is evident at the force’s headquarters in Zagreb, which is smeared with such graffiti as “Go Home” and “UNPROFOR, Quit Sowing Hatred.” Outside the sandbag-reinforced compound, Croatian refugees from Serb-held territories have stacked bricks bearing names of the dead and displaced and turned the wall into a makeshift altar with candles and flowers.

A Croatian engineer-turned-taxi-driver described the peacekeepers as “a bunch of people who failed to amount to anything in their own countries.”

The Balkan conflict began in 1991 after Croatia and Slovenia broke away from the Yugoslav federation. A war was fought between Croatians and Croatian Serbs, the latter supported by the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade.

About 10,000 people died in the war before former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance brokered a peace deal in January, 1992, that left Croatian Serbs in control of about a third of the country and eventually brought in about 15,000 peacekeepers to patrol the four areas that Serbs call the Republic of Krajina.

Two of the Croatian Serb-controlled sectors cut across the highway of “Brotherhood and Unity”--a political slogan that the former Yugoslav government used to fight nationalistic sentiments.

The reopening of the highway coincides with a cease-fire in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina between the Muslim-led government and Bosnian Serbs. The fighting there started a couple of months after the Vance plan went into effect in Croatia.

The highway was opened under an Economic and Confidence-Building Agreement signed Dec. 2 by the government in Zagreb and the Croatian Serbs at their headquarters in Knin.

In practical terms, reopening the road through Croatian Serb-held territory shortens the trip for drivers by reducing the five-hour journey around the sector to a half-hour drive through it. For most people, however, the highway still is not a Zagreb-to-Belgrade link, because Croatia and the rump Yugoslavia do not have diplomatic relations.

But the opening is an important symbol for Croatia. Serbs had been delaying implementation of the agreement, and in his “state of the nation” address last week, Tudjman threatened to cancel the U.N. mandate if the accord was not carried out.

On the road Tuesday, Tudjman asserted that railroad service through Serb-held territories also will be resumed as agreed. “The next step,” he said, “is the return of refugees to their homes.”

Croatian Serbs have exhibited no intention of giving up the territory they hold or of recognizing Croatian government rule. They have portrayed the reopening of the highway as an act of goodwill on their part and as a concrete step toward independence, because the agreement effectively recognizes them as a political force capable of negotiating with Zagreb.

But their cooperation may have been intended primarily to steer Tudjman away from a military option.

Bosnian Serbs have a military mutual assistance agreement with Croatian Serbs, but Tudjman insists that Yugoslavia would not intervene in Croatia if the government went back to war with the Serbian rebels--which may mean he thinks the government could win a military conflict.