Tudjman

ZAGREB, Croatia -- The final film credit rolled at Friday night's premiere of "Schindler's List," and all heads in Zagreb's packed European Theater turned toward the mezzanine, where Croatian President Franjo Tudjman sat stone-faced next to the film's Oscar-winning co-producer, Branko Lustig.Amid a round of subdued applause, Mr. Tudjman rose and embraced Mr. Lustig, a Croatian native and Auschwitz survivor. Coming from Mr. Tudjman, whose sensitivities regarding Jews in Croatia have been questioned, the gesture seemed to go beyond one of appreciation.

A DECADE ago, when Yugoslavia's parts were destroying the whole, it was hard to say who was worse, Croatia's Franjo Tudjman or Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. Both were autocrats. Both mimicked the late Marshal Tito. Both fomented ethnic passions on the narrowest definition of nationality as inherited religion. Tudjman was closer to being an honest Fascist who had once sacrificed his career for his exaggerated and hateful nationalism. Mr. Milosevic was more the practical Communist who discovered ethnic passion opportunistically, when needing a basis for personal power.

BY democratic choice, Croatia is moving into Europe's mainstream and away from its neo-fascist recent past. When Croatia does arrive in the promised land, the isolation of its bitter rival and mirror image, Serbia, will increase until Serbs make similar reforms. Franjo Tudjman led Croatia to independence in 1991, brutally cleansing it of Serbs. Behind flimsy democratic decor, he ruled as a dictator surrounded by profiteers. After President Tudjman died Dec. 10, Croatians mourned. Then they voted Jan. 3 to oust his legacy, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)

BY democratic choice, Croatia is moving into Europe's mainstream and away from its neo-fascist recent past. When Croatia does arrive in the promised land, the isolation of its bitter rival and mirror image, Serbia, will increase until Serbs make similar reforms. Franjo Tudjman led Croatia to independence in 1991, brutally cleansing it of Serbs. Behind flimsy democratic decor, he ruled as a dictator surrounded by profiteers. After President Tudjman died Dec. 10, Croatians mourned. Then they voted Jan. 3 to oust his legacy, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)

U.N. officials said that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, have agreed to attend new peace talks in Geneva Monday. President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban have not replied.A Canadian Hercules transport aircraft evacuated 14 badly wounded men, women and children from SARAJEVO after Serbs agreed to stop blocking the move.

Paris. -- The question now is not whether Bosnia will be partitioned, but how.The Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman has three possible courses of action before it. It can stop its war now, having reconquered Krajina and Bihac. Or it could stop when Eastern Slavonia is retaken, if Zagreb chooses to risk a confrontation with Serbia proper in order to have all of Slavonia, which borders Serbia proper.Mr. Tudjman could then enjoy his acclaim for having re-established Croatia within, substantially if not totally, its prewar frontiers.

WASHINGTON -- Western allies have struck a tentative deal with Croatia that would allow a sharply reduced contingent of United Nations peacekeepers to remain in the country and thereby avoid the prospect of a catastrophic withdrawal of all U.N. forces, senior administration officials yesterday.Croatian President Franjo Tudjman had threatened to demand that the 12,000 troops begin to withdraw March 31, the date the United Nations' mandate expires.U.S. and European officials had worried that a pullout would require the help of tens of thousands of NATO troops, paralyze peacekeeping in neighboring Bosnia and cause the war to spread to other former Yugoslav republics.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- The election season in Croatia has been shortened by fate and the nationalist incumbents, who stopped campaigning once to mourn the late President Franjo Tudjman and again for celebrations of Christmas and New Year's. But even the abridged stumping has convinced Croats and foreign observers that after five successive dictatorships this century, the parliamentary balloting today and a presidential vote three weeks later are the best chance for a democratic Croatia and peace in the region.

A DECADE ago, when Yugoslavia's parts were destroying the whole, it was hard to say who was worse, Croatia's Franjo Tudjman or Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. Both were autocrats. Both mimicked the late Marshal Tito. Both fomented ethnic passions on the narrowest definition of nationality as inherited religion. Tudjman was closer to being an honest Fascist who had once sacrificed his career for his exaggerated and hateful nationalism. Mr. Milosevic was more the practical Communist who discovered ethnic passion opportunistically, when needing a basis for personal power.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- Church bells across Croatia chimed at sundown yesterday to mark the European Community's recognition of its independence.After dark, revelers danced in the streets and fired automatic weaponsinto the air. Croatian flags decked the streets of Zagreb.But Croatia's problems are hardly over. The new country faces crippling economic problems, serious internal political opposition and an unfinished war with Serbia.Above all, recognition is seen as further insurance for Croatia that it can now call on other countries for help if war with the rest of Yugoslavia continues.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- The election season in Croatia has been shortened by fate and the nationalist incumbents, who stopped campaigning once to mourn the late President Franjo Tudjman and again for celebrations of Christmas and New Year's. But even the abridged stumping has convinced Croats and foreign observers that after five successive dictatorships this century, the parliamentary balloting today and a presidential vote three weeks later are the best chance for a democratic Croatia and peace in the region.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- He wears grand imperial uniforms that signify nothing but vanity. Prime ministers who displease him are fired. So are opponents who win elections.His friends get fat deals from the government, while enemies get their phones tapped. Journalists who insult him are charged as criminals. When he needs an ego boost, there's always state television, faithfully comparing him to Winston Churchill.So goes the world according to Franjo Tudjman, the president of Croatia. One might shrug him off as yet another eccentricity of Balkan politics were he not filling two important roles: major U.S. friend in the region, and pedestal for peace in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Paris. -- The question now is not whether Bosnia will be partitioned, but how.The Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman has three possible courses of action before it. It can stop its war now, having reconquered Krajina and Bihac. Or it could stop when Eastern Slavonia is retaken, if Zagreb chooses to risk a confrontation with Serbia proper in order to have all of Slavonia, which borders Serbia proper.Mr. Tudjman could then enjoy his acclaim for having re-established Croatia within, substantially if not totally, its prewar frontiers.

WASHINGTON -- Western allies have struck a tentative deal with Croatia that would allow a sharply reduced contingent of United Nations peacekeepers to remain in the country and thereby avoid the prospect of a catastrophic withdrawal of all U.N. forces, senior administration officials yesterday.Croatian President Franjo Tudjman had threatened to demand that the 12,000 troops begin to withdraw March 31, the date the United Nations' mandate expires.U.S. and European officials had worried that a pullout would require the help of tens of thousands of NATO troops, paralyze peacekeeping in neighboring Bosnia and cause the war to spread to other former Yugoslav republics.

PAKRAC, Croatia -- After four years of savage war in the former Yugoslavia, the specter of a Balkan explosion again haunts the ruins of towns such as this one.Here, among churches and homes destroyed by shelling, the fault lines of past and present conflicts run together like cracks in a mended glass, and the most fragile seam of all is a year-old cease-fire boundary next to Pakrac's village green.With its checkpoints and barbed wire, the line divides Serbs and Croats, former neighbors now in an uneasy peace that has held despite the ethnic war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 20 miles to the south.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- The final film credit rolled at Friday night's premiere of "Schindler's List," and all heads in Zagreb's packed European Theater turned toward the mezzanine, where Croatian President Franjo Tudjman sat stone-faced next to the film's Oscar-winning co-producer, Branko Lustig.Amid a round of subdued applause, Mr. Tudjman rose and embraced Mr. Lustig, a Croatian native and Auschwitz survivor. Coming from Mr. Tudjman, whose sensitivities regarding Jews in Croatia have been questioned, the gesture seemed to go beyond one of appreciation.

U.N. officials said that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, have agreed to attend new peace talks in Geneva Monday. President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban have not replied.A Canadian Hercules transport aircraft evacuated 14 badly wounded men, women and children from SARAJEVO after Serbs agreed to stop blocking the move.