Bosnian Serb Leader Calls Peace Plan ‘Dead’ : Balkans: Referendum ends with proposal headed for rejection. General warns West against air strikes.

As a Bosnian Serb referendum on a U.N.-backed peace plan headed toward overwhelming rejection, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Sunday pronounced the plan to be “dead.”

The two-day referendum seemed certain to deliver another “no” vote to a proposed Western peace plan that would divide Bosnia into 10 ethnic provinces. The plan, drafted by U.N. mediator Cyrus R. Vance and the European Community’s Lord Owen, had already been rejected three times by the rebel Serbs’ self-styled parliament.

Official results on the voting are expected Wednesday.

In a defiant mood, the Bosnian Serb army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, warned the West not to intervene with air strikes to try to force the plan on the Serbs.

“If they bomb me, I’ll bomb London,” Mladic said. “There are Serbs in London; there are Serbs in Washington.”

He said that any Western troops that intervened on the ground would “leave their bones” in Bosnia.

Karadzic told a news conference in Pale, the seat of his self-styled Bosnian Serb republic, that the only way to end the 13-month-old Bosnian war would be through creation of three separate states. Each would be ruled by one of the former Yugoslav republic’s three warring factions--Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slavs, the Washington Post reported.

Meanwhile, outgunned Muslim forces fought off Serbian and Croatian attacks at opposite ends of Bosnia. The powerful Serbs and Croats--who between them control most of Bosnia--appeared poised to squeeze the weak Muslim-led government forces and carve up most of the nation.

Mladic and his Bosnian Croat counterpart, Gen. Milivoje Petkovic, signed a truce Sunday as Croats stepped up attacks on Muslim forces in southwestern Bosnia. But the accord, scheduled to take effect Tuesday, is similar to others that have quickly collapsed.

Kemal Muftic, an aide to Bosnia’s Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, said of the Muslim forces: “We don’t have a chance. They have decided to go to the end. They feel how weak we are.”

Muftic spoke in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, which is still under daily siege from Serbian artillery and mortar emplacements in the hills around the battered city.

In Washington, White House officials said they hope the Serbs’ rejection of the peace plan will help persuade Britain, France and other European countries to support President Clinton’s call for lifting the arms embargo on the former Yugoslav republics.

“This should suggest that the prospects (for the Vance-Owen plan) aren’t very promising,” a senior official said. “It’s a conclusion that we’ve been coming to for the last couple of weeks.”

The Clinton Administration publicly dismissed the referendum as illegitimate and irrelevant even before it was held.

“The results aren’t very significant, except that they are an additional indication of how intransigent the Serbs are,” the official said.

Last week, Britain and France rejected Clinton’s call to lift the arms embargo, saying they wanted to wait to see whether Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s announced blockade of supplies to the Bosnian Serbs would have any effect on the war.

“They hold out more promise for Milosevic’s efforts than we do,” the official said. “At some point, they are going to come to grips with the fact that that is not the case.”

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev said the Vance-Owen plan should be implemented regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

“We can put out the fire . . . step by step,” Kozyrev said after talks with Owen and fellow mediator Thorvald Stoltenberg, who is Vance’s successor.

In Zvornik, where Muslims once constituted 65% of the population but now number just a handful, Serbs seemed resigned to further bloodshed once the plan is rejected.

Milo Katic, a soldier, said Serbs have already braced for U.S. air strikes.

“We are ready and prepared,” Katic said as he sipped brandy in the Albatross Cafe. “Women stockpiled food, while men stockpiled ammunition.”

His bravado brought shouts of approval among fellow fighters leaning on a wooden bar covered with their submachine guns and rifles.

In northeastern Bosnia, rebel Serbs, ignoring a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, attacked sparse government forces for the fourth consecutive day around Brcko.

Backed by howitzer and heavy machine-gun fire, the Serbs tried to broaden a corridor linking their territories in eastern and western Bosnia, said Cmdr. Barry Frewer, the U.N. peacekeepers’ spokesman in Sarajevo.

Frewer said Serbs reinforced their positions Sunday. The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, citing Bosnian Serb military sources, said Muslim-led forces have launched an offensive, inflicting heavy Serbian casualties.