YUGOSLAVIA Dangerous Muddle

Virtually rudderless after months of ethnic violence and political strife, Yugoslavia was left without a helmsman last week. Croatia's Stipe Mesic, 57, was to assume the rotating leadership of the country's collective federal presidency, made up of representatives from each of the six republics and two provinces. But the routine vote turned into a crisis when Communist-ruled Serbia and three of its allies refused to approve Mesic, fearful that he might promote the country's disintegration. Said Borisav Jovic, the Serbian representative who led the presidency for the past year: "No country can vote for a man as President who aims to...