Macedonians vote for independence

MACEDONIANS VOTE FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM YUGOSLAVIA

By JOHN TAGLIABUE,

Published: September 10, 1991

NOVSKA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 9— Yugoslavia's disintegration appeared to have been pushed a step forward today. The results of a referendum in the southern republic of Macedonia on Sunday showed that an overwhelming majority had voted to follow the secessionist republics of Croatia and Slovenia in seeking independence.

Preliminary results made public today indicated that roughly three-fourths of those who voted want Macedonia to become a sovereign state. About 75 percent of the 1.3 million eligible to vote did so; Macedonia's Albanian minority boycotted the balloting.

Macedonian leaders have said they prefer to retain some connection with Yugoslavia, but will go ahead with secession, as have Slovenia and Croatia, if the Yugoslav Government is not replaced by a looser federation. Leaders Express Reluctance

They have said that they are reluctant to cut off Macedonia, the poorest of the six Yugoslav republics, from the rest of the country because they fear that neighboring Greece and Bulgaria, both of which have sizable minorities of ethnic Macedonians, have designs on their territory.

The former Communist Government of Bulgaria was reluctant to recognize even the Macedonian republic within Yugoslavia, but today the Bulgarians announced that they were prepared to recognize an independent Macedonia.

Macedonians speak a south Slavic language and share the Eastern Orthodox faith of the Serbians. 'Immense Pressure' Reported

Elsewhere in Yugoslavia, leaders of the Croatian government were coming under increasing pressure today to announce a general mobilization against heavy attacks by Serbian rebels. Serbs backed by units of the Yugoslav national army have opened two new fronts in the fighting since the latest Yugoslav cease-fire was signed a week ago.

Croatia's Deputy Prime Minister, Zdravko Tomac, said in a news conference this morning that the government was facing "immense pressure from the Croatian population even for a general mobilization because of what is going on in Croatia."

He referred to reports of continued fighting along the highway linking Zagreb and Belgrade and around the city of Kostajnica, on Croatia's southern border with the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But Mr. Tomac said Croatian officials also faced heavy international pressure for restraint, adding, "The government is actually balancing between these two pressures."

Croatian leaders have warned that they will in effect declare war on Yugoslavia if the national army's units in the republic are not returned to their barracks and if the Serbian rebels who have brought large areas of Croatia under their control since the republic declared independence on June 25 are not brought to heel.

The Deputy Interior Minister, Milan Brezak, said the fighting around Okucani and in Kostajnica, where Croatian militia bands face army-backed Serbian insurgents, is part of a campaign to dismember Croatia. "It is clear that Serbia is trying to cut Croatia into several vertical strips in order to force it into partition," he said. Offensive Stepped Up

While the guns have fallen silent along the Danube River in eastern Croatia -- only scattered skirmishing was reported there today -- Serbian guerrillas have begun funneling men and materiel into southern Croatia north of the Bosnian city of Bosanska Gradiska and have stepped up their offensive south of Zagreb, around Kostajnica.

The moves have come despite Saturday's start of a Yugoslav peace conference brokered by the European Community. Today, European observers assumed positions in Osijek, the besieged capital of eastern Croatia, which has suffered heavy shelling.

European Community envoys are seeking to enforce compliance with a now-nominal cease-fire. But here in Novska, minutes after one envoy, Henri Wijnaendts, signed another local cease-fire this morning with army commanders and Croatian officers, hundreds of armed Croatian militiamen took up positions along the main street. Their job was evidentally to protect Novska, a farming town, which on Sunday night came under mortar fire for the first time from Serbian guerrillas in hill towns to the north.

At Pakrac, a Croatian town in those hills, Croatian militiamen today fought off Serbian insurgents who bombarded buildings, including the hospital, with mortar shells. Highway Is Threatened

With the hills ringing Pakrac already in Serbian hands, Croatian commanders fear the rebels will push farther north in an effort to cut the last remaining east-west highway across Croatia, running just below the Hungarian border. Already, Croatian militiamen aided by local farmers have begun erecting roadblocks of trucks and tractors to halt a Serbian thrust northward.

The Zagreb radio, monitored in Kostajnica, reported that Serbian insurgents had pushed across the Una River into the Croatian part of the town. The Belgrade radio, which favors the Serbs, reported that the capture of the heavily Serbian city was imminent.

The increased fighting in the south threatens to draw Bosnia and Herzegovina into the conflict. Officials of the predominantly Muslim republic have begun supplying Croatian commanders with information on Serbian movements, the Croatians say.

On Sunday, angry Muslim residents of a Bosnian village, Bosanska Krupa, seized Milan Martic, an official at the rebel stronghold of Knin, a Serbian city in southern Croatia that has declared itself autonomous. The Bosnian police rescued Mr. Martic from the mob, and Bosnia must now decide whether to anger its citizens by releasing him or bow to insistence by the Croatian authorities that he be handed over to them.

Chart: "Macedonia At a Glance" People: 1.9 million, roughly 9 percent of Yugoslavia's population. Mainly Slavic; language akin to Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian. Capital: Skopje. Economy: Macedonia is the poorest and most backward area of Yugoslavia. Main industries are iron and steel, mining, agriculture, tobacco. History: Alexander the Great briefly made Macedon a world power whose empire stretched from Egypt to India in the fourth century B.C. After rule by Rome and Byzantium and devastation by Huns and Visigoths, it was resettled by Slavs and controlled first by Bulgaria, then Serbia, then Turkey. After the Balkan War of 1912-13, it was divided among Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. The Serbian-ruled area became part of Yugoslavia after World War I. (Sources: Statesman's Yearbook, Europa Yearbook, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World.) (pg. A10) Map of Yugoslavia showing location of Macedonia. (pg. A10)A version of this article appeared in print on September 10, 1991, on page A1 of the New York edition.