Bosnian Serb Lawmakers Grudgingly OK Peace Plan : Balkans: Deputies back the proposal splitting their war-torn land into 10 provinces. But ‘Greater Serbia’ goal remains.

Amid fears of military intervention and international isolation, Bosnian Serb deputies gave grudging support Wednesday to outlines of a peace plan for this war-torn republic.

Raising three fingers in the Serbian Orthodox tradition, 55 deputies voted in favor and 15 against the plan drafted in Geneva calling for division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into 10 autonomous provinces loosely drawn along ethnic lines.

But the purported leaders of Bosnian Serbs, who have conquered 70% of the republic in a 10-month-old rebellion, defiantly denied that their vote relinquished the goal of eventual creation of a “Greater Serbia.”

The stormy 12-hour session was marked by scathing criticism of the international community and mutual accusations that Serbian interests were being betrayed.

“We have to choose between war and peace. It is made under international pressure and threats of isolation, but we have to pick the lesser of two evils,” said Momcilo Krajisnik, Speaker of the self-styled Parliament.

Most deputies railed against the West, pledging never to capitulate at the expense of “holy Serbian goals.”

While a “yes” vote had been expected, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic succeeded in winning majority approval only after a four-hour, closed-door session. He had staked his career on a positive outcome and was helped by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who pressed for his Bosnian proxy’s acceptance of the Geneva plan out of fear further intransigence could bring even harsher Western sanctions on his own republic.

The United Nations imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Serbia and its tiny ally Montenegro in May in an attempt to force the two republics, which make up the rump Yugoslavia, to cease arming and supplying the Bosnian Serbs.

Serbian officials reassured deputies that they were not renouncing the Serbian Republic, their self-proclaimed state, which covers areas of Bosnia seized in the armed rebellion and “cleansed” of other ethnic groups. The crucial phase of the Geneva peace process will be negotiations over the borders of the proposed provinces, the Serbian leaders insisted.

Karadzic dismissed as “arbitrary and unfair” the maps proposed by the Geneva talks co-chairmen, Cyrus R. Vance of the United Nations and Lord Owen of the 12-nation European Community.

In another indication that the vote might make little difference in realizing peace, Karadzic told his deputies their endorsement of the Geneva plan could be withdrawn, if it meant giving up their right to self-determination.

He said the Serbs would not sign any document renouncing that right. The general peace agreement drafted by Vance and Owen clearly requires the three communities of Bosnia--Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats--to remain united in a single country under a multiethnic government based in Sarajevo.

Despite their vote, ostensibly in favor of peace, Serbian leaders held out hope of eventually linking their Bosnian provinces with Serbia and Serbian-occupied areas of Croatia.

“I think this plan will create a monster state, but over time I hope national borders can be established,” said Ljubomir Zukovic, who claims to be education and culture minister in the unrecognized state set up by Karadzic.