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MUSLIMS ACCEPT BOSNIAN PEACE PLAN BUT SERBS DELAY VOTE

Though they consider it a cynical acceptance of “ethnic cleansing,” Bosnia’s Muslims reluctantly approved the world’s latest peace plan Monday as the Serbs deferred a decision until Tuesday’s deadline.

While the Serbs debated for 10 hours amid heated rhetoric envisioning all-out war, the Muslim-led Bosnian parliament in Sarajevo voted 143-17 to accept the plan that grants the allied Muslim-Croat federation some 20 percent of Bosnian territory now under Serb control.

Yet the Muslims argued that their enemies wouldn’t be giving up enough because they would retain some “ethnically cleansed” areas, where Serb troops drove out Muslims and Croats.

Still, Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic urged his parliament to approve the peace plan, saying it was the best option his outgunned forces have left. Many Muslims and Croats now realize they can’t beat the military might of the Serbs.

Bosnian Premier Haris Silajdzic said the plan would ensure the survival of Bosnia-Herzegovina and prevent the establishment of a “greater Serbia.”

The Serbs now hold 70 percent of Bosnia, and many Bosnian Serb deputies in their 83-member body said they couldn’t stomach the idea of giving it up.

“We will not give them one square centimeter,” said delegate Srdja Srdjic. The delegates were set to meet again early Tuesday in Pale.

Throughout Monday, the Bosnian Serbs’ makeshift parliament hall echoed with defiance, as delegates vowed to vote “no” in the name of their people.

“We know how our people breathe. We only respect and convey the will of the people, and their will is to remain at their centuries-old hearths,” Deputy Milan Ninkovic said.

The debate began after their leader told them what to expect if they did vote no.

“We’d have to declare an emergency state of war, create a war economy, organize war production, mobilize the whole population. We have to be ready to repel all attacks,” Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said.

“We have to defeat our enemy on his territory in the shortest possible time, we have to expect air attacks, to shoot down every plane we can and take prisoner every pilot. We have to use all weapons at our disposal.”

His dramatic speech was met with long applause by delegates who said they were ready to do just that.

The world powers that proposed the plan have threatened to lift an arms embargo against Muslim-led forces if the Serbs vote “no” and to tighten sanctions that already are strangling the Serb economy.

The Serbs have had superior arms since the start of the 2 1/2-year-old war. If the embargo is lifted, UN troops may withdraw from Bosnia, and NATO is considering ways to protect the Muslim “safe areas” with air power.

Put forth by the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and Germany, the plan would leave the Serbs with 49 percent of Bosnia, and Sarajevo would become a UN-controlled city.

Serb Deputy Ninkovic and his colleague, Miodrag Joldic, are delegates from the Doboj region, which the Serbs would lose under the plan.

Joldic contended that traditional Serb land would be lost, and in his area “we estimate 190,000 people would have to leave their homes and venture into the unknown.”

“They’re all ready to die,” said Ninkovic, “because there’s no greater tragedy than a man who has to leave his hearth . . . The world thinks that they’re conquerors simply because they want to remain on their own soil. Nobody can be an aggressor on his own land.”

Several delegates condemned the pressure that the world-and even Serbia proper-is putting on them.

The main republic of what is left of Yugoslavia, Serbia is suffering from the sanctions imposed because of the war. The international community has said it would lift the sanctions if the Bosnian Serbs OK the plan.

Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia, reportedly pressed Karadzic and other Bosnian-Serb leaders to approve the plan right up until Monday’s meeting.

Delegate Ljubo Bosiljcic of Sarajevo said he and his colleagues wouldn’t budge despite respect for Milosevic.

“We could perhaps cede some territory, but international factors can’t tell us what to do,” Bosiljcic said.