Costly Offensive Fails to End Serb Siege of Sarajevo

Sarajevo’s Muslim-led defenders waged a desperate and costly offensive Tuesday to break the five-month Serb siege of the city, where dwindling supplies of clean water raised fears of epidemics.

The attacks--launched on the eve of a new round of peace talks--failed to punch through Bosnian Serb lines and left many casualties. A U.N. official estimated one Bosnian fighter was lost for each six feet of ground gained.

In Serbia, backers of federal Prime Minister Milan Panic and of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic squared off against each other, each side demanding that the other’s leader resign. Some Serbs fear that differences between the two men, which intensified after Panic committed the Serbs to surrendering Bosnian territory at a London peace conference last week, could push Serbia itself into civil war.

A new round of talks sponsored by the United Nations and the European Community is scheduled to begin in Geneva on Thursday.

Marrack Goulding, head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, is due in Sarajevo on Thursday to begin trying to place artillery around Sarajevo under U.N. supervision, as agreed to at the London talks, officials said.

But Goulding’s impending arrival did little to silence guns in Sarajevo.

Bosnian health officials reported 20 people killed and 218 wounded across the republic in a 24-hour period ending early Tuesday, including 13 dead and 119 wounded in the war-ravaged capital.

The figures usually pertain only to civilians. Battlefield casualties appeared to be heavier, although no figures were provided.

Health Ministry officials also warned that Sarajevo had only three days’ supply of chlorine left to purify its water.

Most of the city has been without running water for weeks because of damage to electric lines carrying power to the pumps. Health officials fear that impure water could lead to epidemics of gastric illness.

In the hills around Sarajevo, Bosnian radio said government forces were advancing according to plan. But when asked about his forces’ progress, Zaim Hakovic, a Bosnian commander, responded curtly, “So-so.”

Military observers said government forces were suffering heavy losses--”about one man for every two meters of earth they take,” according to one U.N. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, Serbia’s largest opposition party called for mass protests against an effort by Milosevic’s backers in Parliament to oust Panic.

Milosevic’s Socialist Party--formerly the Communists--and the nationalist Serbian Radical Party said Monday they would force a no-confidence vote against Panic, a Serbia-born U.S. citizen. They accused him of “betraying Serbia’s interests” at the London peace conference.

The Serbian Renewal Movement, the main opposition party, called the no-confidence vote, set for Friday, “a desperate attempt by warlords to rid themselves of a man of peace.”

Milosevic supporters say Panic undermined Serbian interests by meeting privately in London with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and by proposing to recognize the boundaries of former Yugoslav republics as international frontiers.