Slovenia

Magic made AIDS respectable. That's useful. A lot more Americans are about to have it than do now, and a policy of ostracism will soon be a lot harder to maintain than it is now.Serbia is about to conquer Croatia, and no one knows whether Slovenia or Albania is next.

Belgrade. -- The daily war reports from Yugoslavia wrap one stark reality in a mist of battles and cease-fires, accusations, deaths and injuries. After more than four months of mad gunplay, one thing that can be said with certainty is that the country known for the past 73 years as Yugoslavia is no more.Its disintegration seems to challenge the notion of a new world order supposedly born in the wake of communism's collapse.What remains in Yugoslavia's place is yet to be determined. "We continue to deal with the country called Yugoslavia largely as a matter of inertia, convenience and pragmatism," said one senior Western envoy.

The collective European effort to clamp a peaceful framework on the Yugoslav dilemma has conspicuously failed, so far, to solve the crisis. It is a success in preventing unilateral interventions at cross purposes that would make matters worse.Yugoslavia's trauma is Europe's anguish. Europeans dread Yugoslavia's inability to wall in its internal problems. So a bewildering array of European agencies is being put to the test, some in roles for which they were not designed, others in matters of import for which they have never been trusted.

Sacramento, Calif. - In the midst of the present turmoil in Yugoslavia, one thing is clear: Croatia and Slovenia will be free, independent and democratic nations with or without the blessings of the so-called world powers.No action or inaction on the part of any government is going to reverse the will of the majority of Croatians expressed by every generation since 1918.For centuries, the Croatians and Slovenians fought for autonomy within the Hapsburg Empire. By the early 20th Century, they had succeeded to a great extent and had no desire to be absorbed into another multi-national state.

The events of the last few years -- and especially of the past weeks -- suggest we have been sharing some misconceptions about Yugoslavia.First, because a space on maps of the Balkans is called "Yugoslavia," we think of it as a country. In practice, Yugoslavia is more a process -- one marked at different times and under different conditions by violence and tensions, but also by cooperation and cohesion among the various nationalities in the area.And while it is popular now to refer to "age-old antagonisms" among the national groups, the patterns those groups settled in suggests that this isn't the full story.

BELGRADE -- Yugoslavia's quarreling political leaders could agree on little last week except to effectively accept the independence of Slovenia, thus recognizing an important piece in the country's disintegration.Now attention shifts to Croatia and the potential it poses for a wider civil war.Croatia, which along with Slovenia declared independence June 25, appeared to have suffered a serious setback. Croatia's representative on the eight-man collective presidency, Stipe Mesic, had cast the only vote against the army withdrawal from Slovenia --the move that seemed to guarantee Slovenia's independence.

TODAY'S Slovenia could be tomorrow's Slovakia, or Transylvania, not to mention the Baltic states and the other separatists who are breaking up the U.S.S.R. from within. What is the answer? Do we continue as before, by waving a wallet of money before them and advocating wisdom?In Yugoslavia's case, Europe seems to have missed the boat. But the question is a far wider one. There is a need for open-mindedness about risks posed by the pan-European situation, something that was lacking before the Yugoslav situation exploded.

Paris. -- Something important is in confused creation, begun with Iraq, continuing in Yugoslavia. The leading democratic nations have taken it upon themselves to intervene not only against threats to international peace and order, but in cases of humanitarian concern within the frontiers of sovereign states.The European Community is intervening in Yugoslavia, concerning a matter for which it has no direct or legal responsibility.The struggle among Slovenes, Croatians and Serbs takes place within a sovereign state that is not even a member of the EC. Nonetheless the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Portugal, acting for the EC, summoned Yugoslavia's and Slovenia's leaders to the Italian island of Brioni and succeeded in obtaining from them a provisional agreement to halt the fighting of the past few days and to resume negotiations on the declared secession of Slovenia and Croatia.

I WAIT and I worry. I devour every news story about the conflict. Yugoslavs are killing Yugoslavs. It is one of my worst nightmares. I am a Serbian-American with family still back in the old country, and I am very proud of my culture's glorious heritage.But I am profoundly saddened by the events in Slovenia and Croatia and the part the Serbian government has played in tearing at the seams of the country while claiming to keep it together. The fact that the leaders are communists is only incidental.

Slovenia and Yugoslavia agree on a cooling-off period which does not, unfortunately, cover Croatia.Don't look now but the state of Connecticut just slid into Long Island Sound.Never mind the standings. The Orioles found one, maybe two, left-handed home run hitters for the short right field and prevailing winds of Camden Yards. That's what this season is for.A Stich in time saves nein.