Zagreb

ZAGREB -- Today's visit of Pope John Paul II to Croatia has sent a deeply divisive message throughout the former Yugoslavia. It was something he had tried to avoid with his original plan to visit all three warring parties: the Croatian Roman Catholics, the Bosnian Muslims and the Serbian Orthodox.But the Serbian Orthodox Church rebuffed him. His security could not be guaranteed in Sarajevo. So he has ended up doing exactly what he did not intend: visiting just Croatia and raking up the kind of memories that have led to the present civil war.More than half a million Roman Catholic faithful from Croatia and abroad have bought tickets for his planned Mass in a Zagreb racetrack.

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.

ZAGREB, Croatia -- Croatian army troops gunned down at least 70 Serbian civilians and burned every building in 11 villages in an organized and brutal application of "scorched earth" tactics, the United Nations charged yesterday.In a separate report alleging human rights abuses by Croats, a U.N. refugee official said nationalist gunmen rounded up 530 Muslims from the divided city of Mostar and expelled them across a dangerous no-man's land riddled with mines and corpses.The latest documented atrocities testified to the anarchy spreading across the Balkans as well as to the U.N. mission's inability to protect civilians from such barbarity.

A world-famous organist will play two concerts in Baltimore this weekend -- but massacres rather than music drew her to America from war-torn Yugoslavia.Although she had stayed close to home and family this year, Ljerka Ocic-Turkulin said she came to the United States to try to win support for Croatia's struggle against Serbia for independence.Now, the 31-year-old classical organist hopes she'll be able to get home next week to her husband and 6-year-old daughter, her parents and other family in Zagreb, her family's home for 600 years.

After a day of air raid sirens that warned of bombing attacks on the Croatian capital, Zagreb, Zlatko Barovic feared that the bombardment had begun as he was stuck in morning rush hour traffic Monday on a one-lane bridge, preparing to leave the country."

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia -- Federal army tanks battered Croatia's easternmost garrisons with shellfire, and warplanes struck its Adriatic coastline yesterday as the army launched the civil war's broadest and harshest assault against the secessionist republic.Croatian officials appealed to Yugoslav military leaders in Belgrade twice for a truce in a conflict that is threatening to escalate beyond control, but there was no public response, suggesting that the federal authorities are bent on expanding territorial control in a weakened Croatia.

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia -- This city, capital of the secessionist Croatian republic, was under fierce attack by the Yugoslav army and air force yesterday, hours after federal military leaders signed another cease-fire brokered by the European Community.Yugoslav air force planes could be heard streaking through the darkness, strafing the blacked-out city below, and the ground shook with the explosions of artillery shells fired into the city center from Yugoslav army bases on the outskirts.Helicopters, presumably carrying federal troops, were seen flying over the city in what appeared to be a drive to knock out the local television transmitter.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslav President Stipe Mesic said yesterday the army was out of control and the country had only one more chance to end the "dirty war" in Croatia.As the latest cease-fire broke down in a matter of hours, Croatia was gearing up for all-out war with Serbia.It has mobilized its population. Croatia's defense minister has told the public to prepare for what was likely to be a very long "defensive" war. Yesterday morning, Croatian television newscasts were broadcasting over a massive sign reading "War for Freedom."