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The most extreme and violent dissidents have set up headquarters in Sweden. Croatian terrorists assassinated the Yugoslav ambassador in Stockholm last year, claimed responsibility for blowing up a Belgrade-bound airliner and a train headed for Zagreb in January, and planted a bomb at the Yugoslav tourist office in the Swedish capital in March. Swedish tourists have begun to shun Yugoslavia, particularly after one group promised to plant more bombs on planes flying to Belgrade this summer.
Croats have also turned Sweden into an arena of terror for fellow Yugoslavs. They have taken to Mafia-like extortion, demanding payoffs of $400 or more from their countrymen, many of whom have become Swedish citizens. One young Yugoslav actor who recently played the lead in a Swedish television drama about Croatian terror, suddenly found that he was playing the role in real life; he was threatened with death, evidently for exposing the dark side of Yugoslav emigre politics, and was placed under police guard.
Most of the dissident groups have been thoroughly infiltrated by UBDA, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav secret police, who could well be interested in keeping Croatian terror alive abroad as a means of disgracing Croatian nationalists at home. The Soviet KGB has also placed its agents among the Croatian terrorists. The Russians' long-range goal may be to turn Croatian nationalism to their own account, in hopes of bringing Yugoslavia back under Moscow's control after Tito passes from the scene. But for the short run, the Soviets could well have a different aim in mind: to prevent the Croats from striking too many sparks in the Balkan powder keg, thus endangering progress toward detente in Europe.
* Yugoslavia's population of 20.5 million is a combustible mixture of 8.6 million Serbs, 4.7 million Croats, 1.8 million Slovenes, 1.1 million Macedonians and 560,000 Montenegrins, plus some 3,000,000 Albanians, Hungarians, Turks and people of other ethnic groups.