Mediators Go to Belgrade in Search of Peace

International mediators on Tuesday headed to a key meeting with hard-line Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in a last-ditch push to bring peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The mediators, Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen, traveled to Belgrade, the Serbian and federal Yugoslav capital, for a meeting today with Milosevic. He is the man most blamed for fomenting the war in Bosnia, and he has considerable influence over Bosnian Serbs.

A conference grouping the three warring Bosnian factions recessed Monday as the Bosnian Serbs insisted on their own state within a state.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asked for extra time to consider the compromise package issued by Vance and Owen.

The package sets out plans for an end to hostilities, a new constitution and a map dividing Bosnia into 10 provinces.

Vance, a former U.S. secretary of state, and Owen, a Briton who represents the European Community, said the plan forms “the basis for a fair, just and lasting peace.”

Owen said Bosnia’s Muslim-led government is willing to accept the military and constitutional plans but has problems with some boundaries on the map. He said that Mate Boban, leader of Bosnian Croats, signed the whole package.

Owen said that Serbian insistence on a separate Serbian state within Bosnia with the right to conduct its own foreign policy is the biggest single problem.

Vance and Owen want to try to persuade Milosevic to pressure Karadzic to accept their compromise package.

Meanwhile in Sarajevo, 10 elderly Bosnians have reportedly died from the cold in the past three days at a nursing home that has little heating and few windows.

There is no running water or electricity in the home in the Nedzarici district of the Bosnian capital. Forty-five deaths have been reported in the home since winter began.