Yugoslavia: Prospects for Stability

Yugoslavia has been wracked by the worst violence since World War II-bloody clashes, bombings and the storming of a military facility by a mob. Western reports have stressed the inevitability of escalating ethnic violence that has already left more than two dozen people dead. Some argue that Yugoslavia's continued existence is impossible. At this writing, the outlook is indeed uncertain-but there is reason for a less pessimistic conclusion.

In early May, faced with potential civil war in the republic of Croatia, Yugoslavia's eight-member federal collective presidency and the leaders of its six republics pulled the fragile federation from the brink. This attempt at crisis management was yet another indication of the Yugoslav leaders' commitment to a negotiated settlement of the country's dilemma. To be sure, there have been sporadic episodes of paralysis at the top, as in the constitutional crisis provoked by Serbia's veto of the normally automatic rotation of the federal president.

On the crucial issue of the future form and course of this troubled country of 24 million, however, there is still a sense among the country's leaders that only through an intensified process of bilateral and multilateral negotiations can the various nationalities find a lasting solution to the deep-seated frictions resulting from the collapse of Tito's "self-management" system.

Appeals to ethnic-nationalist sentiment, to the interest of the nation, have been used as a powerful political instrument by leaders in all of Yugoslavia's republics. But the way in which the interests of the various "nations" have been defined has shifted. Confrontational declarations on the absolute right of republics to secede have given way to a more sophisticated recognition that ethnic unrest and unilateral faits accomplis serve only to exacerbate existing political and economic crises.