Crackdown Ordered in Wake of Slaying

The Yugoslav government announced a major crackdown on the country’s main opposition groups, accusing them of masterminding the slaying of a top official in President Slobodan Milosevic’s ruling Socialist Party. A day after Bosko Perosevic, 43, was shot and killed while visiting a trade fair, the government claimed that the anti-government student organization Otpor and the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement party were behind the attack, and it said they would be punished. Both groups have denied the allegations. Perosevic was one of Milosevic’s most senior and influential supporters and a top official in the north of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic. An opposition leader said, however, that Perosevic was a moderate in Milosevic’s party and might have angered hard-liners because he was open to cooperating with political rivals.