Muslims Hostile to Partition Plan : Bosnia: Share of territory is sticking point for government and Serbs in proposal to divide state into ethnic republics. Key votes by three sides expected today.

An ethnic partition plan billed as a final attempt to negotiate peace in Bosnia met a hostile reception Friday from the republic’s Muslim-led Parliament, raising the specter of a grueling new round of talks and a possible escalation in the brutal civil war.

The Parliament, meeting in Sarajevo to consider the plan, was openly critical of it and appeared likely to propose amendments aimed at boosting the Muslims’ share of territory in the breakup of the nation into a federation of three ethnic republics. The federation proposal was drafted by Muslim, Serbian and Croatian leaders at peace negotiations in Geneva.

Complaining that the plan rewards “force and genocide,” Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said it was unacceptable. But he added that it could be used as a basis for further negotiations leading to the division of the country among Bosnia-Herzegovina’s warring ethnic factions.

“It is our duty in these days to save what can be saved of Bosnia. This may give us the opportunity to save all of Bosnia in the future,” said Izetbegovic, who reluctantly stopped insisting in Geneva that Bosnia remain a multiethnic entity. “We have to divide. We have to do it either at the negotiating table or on the battlefield. I think it is better to do it at the negotiating table.”

Serbian leaders convening at a mountain ski resort above Sarajevo were also sharply critical of the plan, which would roll back more than a fourth of their military gains in Bosnia. The plan would award the Serbs about 52% of Bosnia’s territory, compared to the 70% they hold now. Muslims, who insist they are entitled to at least 40% of the land, are instead allocated 30% and Croats are to receive 18%.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who only halfheartedly supported the failed Vance-Owen peace plan before his self-styled parliament resoundingly rejected it earlier this year, threw his support behind the present pact as a way to end the war while guaranteeing Serbs their primary goal of a state within Bosnia adjacent to neighboring Serbia.

The president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman have also backed the latest peace plan.

Both the Muslim and Serbian parliaments adjourned after several hours of debate late Friday, postponing final action on the plan until today, when Bosnian Croats, who have their own reservations about the proposal, are also scheduled to act.

And in a grim echo of the political dissent in Sarajevo, a U.N. relief convoy entered a third day trapped in the city of Mostar, blocked by Muslim aid recipients who fear Croats will resume shelling of the 55,000 Muslims on the city’s east side once the convoy leaves.

The Muslims said they would not allow the convoy to depart until they were guaranteed international military protection. Mostar is not among the six Muslim safe areas designated for protection by the United Nations.

With a deadline of Monday for responding to the Geneva plan, the Muslim-led government’s talk of amendments, after Serbian and Croatian leaders have made it clear they are not prepared to cede any further territory, raised questions about whether a new round of talks could be successfully undertaken.

International mediators Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg are scheduled to hear the parties’ responses to the peace plan in Geneva on Monday. They are billing the meeting as a “final” session, and analysts privately expressed doubt that talks could be successfully renewed if the Bosnian government did not at least give Izetbegovic clear authority to negotiate a quick and final resolution.

“It’s going to be very hard to reopen these negotiations. There are no guarantees it will work the way the Bosnians want it to work,” said an analyst close to the talks. He asserted that the Bosnian government is likely to enter any new negotiations in an even weaker position than it had in the last round.

“I don’t think the international community’s ready to wash its hands, but there’s a limit to how far they’re willing to go,” he added.

Izetbegovic backed away from earlier demands for outright rejection of the plan.

“I think we should be able to agree on the following: that the Geneva talks should be continued and that the documents put forward at Geneva cannot be accepted but could be a good foundation to continue the negotiations,” the president told a gathering of delegates from Bosnia’s Parliament and public leaders.

Such talk is seen in many quarters as a “maybe” that, in the present negotiating climate, means no.

“The worst outcome is the Bosnians come back and say, ‘We’ve said no, but we’re willing to talk,’ and the Serbs say, ‘OK, but there’s a few things we need to bring up in that case,’ and those ‘buts’ basically have them at loggerheads again and we don’t go anywhere,” said an analyst close to the conference. “So the conference breaks up and we have another two months of war.”

The Bosnian government’s primary objection to the plan is its awarding of territory to Serbs who won it through aggression and “ethnic cleansing.” The proposed new map not only gives Muslims a smaller proportion of land than their proportion of the population but also leaves them without access to the sea, except through an internationally guaranteed road from inland territories.

“The only thing that is inevitable here is an escalation of war,” said Muslim political analyst Faris Nanic. “This round of Geneva negotiations is nothing but another introduction to the final destruction of Bosnian sovereignty.