Same Old Story

• Share

WHAT REMAINS OF YUGOSLAVIA PRETENDS TO BE A country, but even its own army doesn't seem to know where its borders are. Last Monday Serbia and Montenegro, the only two of the six republics not to declare independence, announced the establishment of a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The constitution of the remapped Yugoslavia recognizes, at least for now, that its territory ends at the shared border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Diplomats optimistically interpreted that fact as a renunciation of Belgrade's prior claims that Serbs in any of the republics had a right to belong to an expanded Serbian state.

But try telling Belgrade that its own constitution proves that the Serb-led Yugoslav army is now an occupying force on the foreign soil of Bosnia. One week into a new cease-fire, fighting continued unabated in at least five towns, as well as the capital city of Sarajevo. In a letter to Bosnian officials, army chief of staff General Blagoje Adzic refused to remove his troops, which number as many as 100,000. (See related story on page 48.)