Word: croatian
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...rubble-strewn streets of Vukovar. Through 12 weeks of fighting, 58,000 townspeople had fled. The 12,000 who remained behind cowered in the town's cellars and sewers, rolling cigarettes from tea leaves and burning strips of doused cloth for light. "This is hell," Vesna Vukovic, a Croatian television reporter, pleaded over the airwaves. "We just cannot stand it anymore...
Only perhaps. After almost five months of hostilities, 12 failed truces and a death tally of more than 7,000, the Croatian and Serbian militias signaled last week that even they may finally have had enough. In the most promising bid yet for a true cessation of hostilities, both sides agreed to the proposed dispatch of United Nations peacekeeping forces. Croatia, which has lost control of almost a third of its territory, for the first time invited U.N. troops to be stationed in areas populated by Serbs. In exchange, the Yugoslav federal army, which has acted in tandem with Serbian...
...supplying all those Croatian soldiers with U.S. Army gear? Washington is barred by a U.N. resolution from supporting either side, but news footage clearly shows the Croatians wearing nearly complete American battle dress. Fatigues are available in U.S. Army surplus stores, priced at $66 for a field jacket, $7 for a helmet. In August, U.S. Customs investigators arrested members of a secret Croatian-support group as they tried illegally to buy Stinger and Redeye antiaircraft missiles, night-vision goggles and other American combat goods. Seeking assault rifles, members of the group simply walked into Doug's Sport and Gun Shop...
...fragile truce -- the sixth in just three months -- held only nine days. Last week the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army, charging that Croatia had violated the cease-fire, launched a new offensive aimed at crushing resistance in the rebel republic. The main targets of the onslaught were the key Croatian towns of Vukovar, Vinkovci and Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia's best-known tourist attraction on the Adriatic coast. As warships blockaded the port city, air- force jets bombed and strafed it, while artillery pounded the area, leaving Dubrovnik without electricity and water...
...week's end the leaders of Serbia and Croatia agreed on the outlines of yet another truce. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and federal Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic agreed to call off the offensive, while Croatian President Franjo Tudjman pledged to lift blockades around federal army bases. Both sides also pledged to discuss new political arrangements for the protection of minorities. But the news produced no immediate break in the fighting, raising fears that the atavistic struggle might be beyond diplomatic solution...