Muslims Balk at Peace Talk With Serbs : Bosnia: Government is angered by Western indifference as eastern enclave of Gorazde is pounded by enemy artillery.

Angered by Western indifference to the biggest Serb rebel offensive in months, the Muslim-led government refused Thursday to discuss a proposed U.N. cease-fire with its enemies while they continued attacking the threatened eastern enclave of Gorazde.

But the Bosnian government did announce a 24-hour unilateral cease-fire as a “goodwill gesture,” according to local media. U.N. sources cautioned that a lasting truce would only come out of negotiations between the two sides’ military leaders.

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Michael Rose of Britain, the U.N. commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina, shuttled between government army headquarters here and a Serb rebel base just outside Sarajevo to press his plan for bringing a halt to the fighting.

But as Rose encountered resistance on both sides to the latest attempt to restore peace through diplomacy, Serb gunmen encircling Gorazde fired heavy artillery shells into the town center, and Bosnian Serb war lord Radovan Karadzic warned that he might order an all-out offensive against the enclave.

“If the Muslims do not immediately stop their offensive along all confrontation lines, we will order an all-out counteroffensive and then let the Security Council help them,” Karadzic was quoted by state-run Belgrade radio as saying.

Karadzic has insisted in his talks with U.N. officials that his forces’ attack on Gorazde has been in response to an assault by government troops inside the enclave who are surrounded and outgunned.

U.N. sources say Karadzic’s claim of a Muslim offensive out of Gorazde is patently untrue, although some government maneuvers have been reported elsewhere in Bosnia.

Aid workers for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Gorazde reported regular shelling, said Kris Janowski, the agency’s Sarajevo spokesman.

Almost 400 people have been killed or wounded in the offensive against Gorazde, the U.N. refugee agency reported.

In his talks with Rose, Bosnian army commander Gen. Rasim Delic insisted that Serb forces withdraw from the territory recently seized around Gorazde before he would agree to meet with the Serbs to discuss a general cease-fire.

But the Bosnian Serb commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, refused to consider such a concession, according to U.N. sources.

“I am disappointed that the war will go on as long as we continue to debate on this level,” Rose told reporters.

The government had been hoping that Rose would insist on going to Gorazde, expecting that a first-hand view of the beleaguered conditions in the refugee-packed city of 65,000 would prod the United Nations to protect the town that was proclaimed a U.N.-protected “safe haven” nearly a year ago.

French Gen. Philippe Morillon, one of Rose’s predecessors as Bosnian U.N. commander, last year marshaled a fierce defense of another eastern enclave, Srebrenica, when it was on the verge of being overrun by the Serbs. Rose was turned back by Serb gunmen when he tried to visit Gorazde on Wednesday. He said he would make another attempt Saturday, but has since suggested that the cease-fire talks should take priority.

The 10-day-old Serb assault on Gorazde, at a time when foreign mediators were claiming significant progress toward peace, reflects uncertainty among Serb rebel commanders about their precarious position in negotiations, now that Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats have reconciled.

U.S. officials brokered the March 1 truce and pushed the two communities to create a new Bosnian federation that has been promised at least 51% of this former Yugoslav republic’s territory. But the Croats and Muslims now hold less than 30%, making the federation’s success contingent on the Serbs’ withdrawal from much of the land they have conquered.

Serbs so far have shown no interest in joining the peace talks mediated by U.S. and Russian officials, fearing that they would be pressured into ceding territory.

Instead, they have stepped up a terror campaign against the few remaining Croats and Muslims in northwestern Bosnia and launched the offensive that has moved the rebels deep into the Gorazde enclave.

Rose has sought to play down the severity of the Serb attack on Gorazde, saying it appeared to be a strategic move to strengthen the rebels’ position in future peace talks.

After blocking Rose from going to Gorazde, Serb leaders asked him to call a meeting between the two sides’ military commanders to consider a Bosnia-wide truce.

Government officials here contend that the Serbs’ appeal for new talks is simply a delaying tactic to allow them to press their assault on Gorazde without U.N. interference--a claim given some credibility by the failure of Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander, to show up for the airport meeting that Karadzic insisted Rose arrange.

Rose sought to put the best face on his failure to bring either side to discuss a cease-fire. His staff issued a statement saying Rose had presented both sides with a draft cease-fire plan and was giving them a “brief period for reflection.”

But the statement made clear that both government and Serb military commanders still refuse to meet face-to-face, casting doubt on the prospects for an imminent breakthrough.