Despite Sarajevo Jeers, U.N. Chief Urges Talks : Bosnia: On a swift visit, Boutros-Ghali insists that only more negotiations can end the Serbian aggression.

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali faced jeering crowds, impatient officials and irate local journalists on a swift tour of besieged Sarajevo on Thursday. But he refused to budge from his view that only more talk--not outside force--will bring Serbian aggression to an end.

It was a day when the professorial U.N. leader, dressed in a flak jacket and blue helmet, tried to beat back the waves of emotion in the bloodied Bosnian capital with cold logic.

But he did not seem to succeed.

In fact, some of his remarks--he lectured a news conference, for example, that some areas in the world, like Somalia, have suffered more than Sarajevo--only infuriated his listeners.

Boutros-Ghali seemed unruffled by the experience. He reminded journalists who accompanied him on the day’s trip that he had endured years of excoriation in the Arab world after he negotiated a peace treaty for his native Egypt with Israel in the 1970s. And he insisted throughout the day that he believed a new round of negotiations beginning in Geneva on Saturday might finally lead to peace in Bosnia.

From the start, it was clear this would not be a triumphal tour for Boutros-Ghali.

With a heavy dose of irony, Bosnian Vice President Ejud Ganic, sitting in a grand ceremonial room of the government building, told the secretary general: “So far, the visits of foreign dignitaries produce hope, but somehow after they leave, things become worse. We hope that after your visit, things will get better.”

U.N. aides, not used to seeing their boss conducting his business in public, tried to usher journalists out of the room. But the Bosnian officials, who want their plight described to the world, insisted that the journalists stay. Since they were the hosts, the Bosnians prevailed.

As sporadic shelling could be heard in the distance, Ganic told Boutros-Ghali: “The biggest complaint we have is that the measures you have taken have not been very effective. Almost everything in our city has been destroyed. Almost 1 1/2 million people have left our country.”

The secretary general, as he would do throughout the day, repeated his message: “We have to negotiate, and we have to talk. We will solve your problem.”

Ganic then proposed that he and Boutros-Ghali walk around Sarajevo for a short while. He did not deny the danger but told the secretary general, “Now we are all more philosophical about life and death.”

Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, the commander of the more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the former Yugoslav republic, tried to stop Boutros-Ghali, but he quickly agreed to take a walk.

But when Ganic and Boutros-Ghali stepped out of the government building, they found a strident, whistling crowd of perhaps 200 Bosnians across the road. They shook their fists at him and shouted oaths at him.

Several carried signs in English. One, addressed to Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon of France, the commander of the U.N. troops in Sarajevo itself, proclaimed: “My generation is dying of starvation and sickness. Please help them.” A second, cynical placard cried out, “Helpers, go home.” Another sign said simply and bitterly, “May God protect you the way you protected us.”

The United Nations has evoked a good deal of bitterness in Sarajevo because of the ground rules set down for its peacekeepers by the Security Council. Townspeople want the peacekeepers to repel Serbian attacks, but the peacekeepers have orders only to maintain the airport and ensure the deliveries of supplies to other towns. They do not fire unless fired upon, or if something like a roadblock restrains them in some way.

The menacing crowd made talk of a walk foolish. Vice President Ganic took Boutros-Ghali around, instead, in a car--followed by a train of armored cars carrying the secretary general’s aides and accompanying journalists. Crowds lined the streets to hoot, whistle and gesture at the passing military caravan.

The swift tour showed Boutros-Ghali a city where almost every building bears some destruction--from shell-pocked walls to loosened facade sculptures to wholesale burned-out stories to wantonly ripped off roofs.

In a visit to a hospital, the secretary general found that all the patients, many of them wounded Bosnian soldiers, had been moved to the innards of the building, away from the shattering windows at night.

As the secretary general tried to explain in a news conference, he and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, who accompanied him to Sarajevo, believe that the impending conference in Geneva offers the best chance yet for a peaceful settlement.

Political and military leaders from the Bosnian government, the Bosnian Serbs, the Bosnian Croats, the Croatian government and the Yugoslav or Serbian government have agreed to attend. Vance and Lord Owen, the former British foreign secretary, who are co-chairmen, have reportedly prepared a map dividing Bosnia into nine different regions; according to U.N. sources, the factions have indicated a willingness to regard these regions as a basis for negotiation.

But the questions, from both Serbian journalists and foreign journalists who have spent a good deal of time in the besieged city, did not dwell on negotiations at all. It was clear from the tenor of the questions that the reporters believed the time for a negotiated settlement had long since passed.

The first Bosnian questioner began with a long accusatory preamble. “You, too, are guilty of every wounded man,” she said. “You, too, are guilty of every raped woman. Do you feel guilty? How much more has to be done before anything can be done about it?”

While saying that “I completely share your feelings” about the horrors of Sarajevo, Boutros-Ghali said: “Let us give time to find a peaceful solution before thinking of something else. I’m telling you that peace enforcement may be worse for everyone than what you have now.”

Trying to convince them that the world is full of similar problems that demanded peaceful negotiated solutions, Boutros-Ghali said, “I can tell you 10 places that are worse than you.” Pressed on this, he said, “There are other countries where the total dead is greater than here. But I’m not trying to diminish the horrors here.” When questioned again, he listed Somalia as an example of what he had in mind.

In reply to a procession of accusatory questions, Boutros-Ghali said: “Certainly, I’m not satisfied (with the situation in Sarajevo). But we have to maintain the dialogue. If we stopped the dialogue, the situation would be worse than it is now.”

He said he is willing to accept all the hostility against him on this issue. Should negotiations succeed eventually, he said, “then this would be a small price to pay.”

When asked during the day why he had decided to fly into Sarajevo, Boutros-Ghali, who was completing his first year as secretary general, repeated that he had decided to spend New Year’s Eve with his soldiers there. He spent much of the time on his short visit calling on various battalions of U.N. peacekeepers in Sarajevo.

At the headquarters of the Egyptian battalion, an officer stood up to welcome him as an international leader and a great Egyptian. “We welcome you among your sons and the people who love you,” the officer said.