SPLIT IN JUGO-SLAVIA

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 260, 3 August 1928, Page 11

SPLIT IN JUGO-SLAVIA

SUBJECT RACES DEMAND INDEPENDENCE REFUSE TO BE GOVERNED FROM BELGRADE DANGER OF CIVIL WAR United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. (Rec. August 2, 8.15 p.m.) Belgrade, August 2. While Parliament is sitting here under the new Premier, M. Koroshetz, a rival Parliament, composed of ninety Croat and other deputies, met at Zagreb, and virtually declared war against Belgrade. They adopted a resolution that its measures in future ■will not be observed outside Serbia proper.

RIVAL PARLIAMENTS MEET EXCITED CROWDS IN ZAGREB (United Service.) (Rec. August 2, 10.5 p.m.) London, August 2. The subject races of Jugo-Slavia, in the centre of Europe's political powder magazine, are demanding independence and a rival Parliament has been established. Tlie Jugo-Slav national Parliament, or the blood-stained Skuptschina, representing a medley race of Croats, Slovenes and Serbs from Croatia Slavonia, Albania, Austria, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Southern Hungary, in addition to Montenegro and Serbia, met at Belgrade for the first time since two Croatian deputies were shot dead and others wounded on July 20. Croats refused to attend and Held their own Parliament, or Sabor, in Zagreb, their old capital, while the Serb agrarians were also absent, in sympathy with the Croats. Thus’ tlie Opposition benches were empty. While excited crowds paraded Zagreb’s beflagged streets, calling for autonomy and waving banners bearing the words: “Zagreb's Crotian-Serbs cannot be governed from Belgrade,” their representatives in the Sabor carried a demand for complete separation of Croatia from Jugo-Slavia. They resolved to pay no nn . taxes and called on other provinces to join in the struggle against Serb supremacy. Furthermore, they declared the kingdoms of Croatia and Montenegro, in merging themselves with the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, did not

reckon to lose their national individuality, but that Serbia had tin-sv. the e institution in order to establish ' a hegemony over the rest. The half-empty Skuptschina, sitting in an atmosphere of deep depression, received file Zagreb manifesto with indignation. AU the Serbs bitterly resented the manifesto’s reference to Montenegro and the Croats’ call to other provinces.

Means Revolution in South Slavia.

The “Daily Mail’s” Vienna correspondent says the Sabor, presided over by M. I’rebichevitch, decided to seek an alteration of tlie South Slavian regime by every legal means, declaring: “The crimes of July 20, which were an organised attempt to destroy the Opposition, make our attendance at the Skuptschina impossible, therefore we recommend the non-payment of taxes, and that the Government of Croatia from Belgrade is no longer recognised.”

This, in the opinion of some correspondents, means a revolution in South Slavia. It is understood to be evident that the Jugo-Slavian Prime Minister, Father Korosec, a Slovene cleric, who was formerly 'an autonomist and opposed to a united South Slavia, cannot permanently control the nonCatholic members of the Cabinet. Eighty-three Peasant Democrat deputies, three Slovenes and two Montenegrins attended a Zagreb gathering under a red, white, and blue Croatian flag. It is understood their manifesto has the approval of M. Raditch, who is expected to preside -over the Sabor as soon as he is well enough. A Zagreb official bulletin states that tlie peasants’ coalition and the Belgrade Government are anxious to avoid civil war, and have ordered the military leaders to show the greatest forbearance.