Provoke Netr Violence
Serb-Croat fighting yesterday will inflame ethnic tensions white helping advocates of military intervention and proponents of rapid secession.
Croatian paramilitary forces yesterdayesort areaerb enclave taken over last week by ethnic Serb police. Serbs ambushed the Croatian forces, leaving at least two dead and nine wounded. Croatia says it has arrested nearlyei |^
Serbs in the enclave are organizing vigilante units andeneral uprising. Both regime and opposition leaders in Serbia yesterday urged the federal Army to take control of the disputed areas and disarm Croatian forces, and Serbian strongman Milosevic haseam to the enclave to arrange "medicalilosevic last week publicly threatened to arm Serbs inhe already has been doing clandestinely, according to various sources.
Federal military forces began deploying to the area late yesterday after obtaining federal Presidency approval.The Presidency later-ordered the Army loease-fire and put key garrisons on: alert, told all other forces to withdraw and scheduled another summit with republic leaders for Wednesday.!
;clash w'u harden Croatian and Serbian popular
resistance to any compromise proposals and will permit MUosevic to further fan ihe nationalist passions be has used to build his power base. Croatian leaders will come under growing popular pressure to deal forcefully with the Serb rebclli
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Prointervcniion hardliners in the federal Army may seize upon this incident to again urge some form of martial law; Serb extremists may help by trying to provoke more clashes. The clash and the military deployments also will play into ihe hands of radical Slovene secessionists, who almost certainly will try lo persuade theij leauJaturetoroposal to secede by midmont
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