June 1, 1996

Only hours before his death in a plane crash on a storm-swept Croatian mountaintop last month, Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown called a former business partner and said he had overruled staff members who were worried that it was dangerous to fly into Croatia because of treacherous weather, the former business partner said today. Nolanda B. Hill, the former business partner and a close friend of Mr. Brown, said he had decided to take the risk and fly to Dubrovnik, Croatia, because of the importance of the trip, which was intended to encourage American investment in the war-shattered nations of the Balkans.

Confirmed as the winner in Israel's leadership race by the narrowest of margins, Benjamin Netanyahu turned today to the task of reassuring anxious Arab neighbors and sifting candidates for a new Cabinet. After counting absentee ballots through much of the day, the Israeli Election Commission finally declared Mr. Netanyahu the winner over Prime Minister Shimon Peres by 29,457 votes, 1,501,023 to 1,471,566.

In what the United Nations is calling the worst "ethnic cleansing" since the Balkan war ended, a wave of violence by Serbs has forced at least 100 Muslims to flee a town in northern Bosnia over the last few days. The attacks have exposed the inability of international troops to protect Muslim residents and a basic weakness of the peace plan.

Emotional Appeal by Yeltsin

In a policy that international officials here say is tantamount to ethnic cleansing and violates the Dayton peace agreement, the Muslim-led Bosnian Government has expropriated tens of thousands of homes of city residents who fled during four years of war and is turning them over to Muslim refugees. Most of those who fled and are losing their homes are ethnic Serbs or Croats, though some are Muslims. But the overwhelming effect of the policy is to prevent Serbian or Croatian residents from coming back, helping to keep what is now a largely Muslim city from returning to the melting pot it once was.