World Notes Yugoslavia

Despite daily charges of truce violations, the fragile cease-fire between the secessionist republic of Slovenia and the Yugoslav government held last week. Both are publicly committed to a three-month cooling-off period, yet the agreement has done little to quell tensions in independence-minded Croatia, where conflict between Croatians and Serbs threatens to erupt in warfare.

Most ethnic Serbs, who number 600,000 among Croatia's 4.6 million residents, are so integrated into the republic that they voted in favor of secession in the May 19 referendum. But a core of radicals, bent on preserving ties with Serbia, are waging a guerrilla war in Croatia's northeastern region of Slavonia and the southern pocket of Krajina, where the patchwork dispersal of both groups makes a peaceful solution difficult. The goal of the radicals is a Greater Serbia that would absorb Serbian enclaves; arrayed against them is Croatia's ambition to form a separate nation.

As firefights between Croatian security forces and Serbian paramilitary units escalate, the incidents are getting increasingly ugly. Last week a policeman was killed in a shoot-out with a Serb barricaded in a house with his wife in the city of Osijek. The Serb was also killed, and his wife lost an arm while trying to pick up a police grenade and toss it back.

The Yugoslav People's Army has mobilized a reported 200,000 reservists, most of them Serbs, and beefed up its strength at bases along Croatia's eastern border in an effort to preserve national unity. In response, the republic's nationalist leader, Franjo Tudjman, warned, "If our efforts for peace bear no fruit, the whole population will rise up."