Clinton Urges U.N. to Halt Serb Moves on Muslims : Balkans: He meets with secretary general to press for better enforcement of the protected areas in Bosnia. European allies not likely to go along.

President Clinton urged U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Sunday to step up protection of the exclusion zones in Bosnia that the United Nations has sought to shield with NATO warplanes from Bosnian Serb attack.

Clinton, in one of a series of meetings before his address this morning to the U.N. General Assembly, made “a very strong statement” to Boutros-Ghali about the need to halt increasing encroachment, a senior Administration official said. “We want the exclusion zones enforced properly.”

The zones were set up around Gorazde and Sarajevo to protect large Bosnian Muslim populations from advancing Serbian troops. But they have come under intermittent shelling from Serb positions, as well as sniper fire.

Recently, Serb forces have cut off gas, electricity and water coming into Sarajevo, and are disrupting the flow of supplies.

The meeting with Boutros-Ghali came as Clinton wrapped up a four-day fund-raising tour through Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City and New York. The President shifted to diplomacy Sunday afternoon, meeting separately with Boutros-Ghali and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.

Clinton’s U.N. appeal is likely to put him at odds with French and British allies, who have been far less eager to use allied warplanes to protect the Bosnian exclusion zones. That reluctance is due in large part to the presence of French and British peacekeeping troops, who might be casualties if the Serbs return fire.

Officials also hinted that the U.S. and Bosnian officials might be rethinking proposals to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian government if the Bosnian Serbs do not agree to a plan for partition of Bosnia by an Oct. 15 deadline.

But officials said that in the Sunday afternoon meeting with Izetbegovic, the two men discussed the problems that could arise from an abrupt lifting of the embargo. The Bosnians worry that such quick action could trigger Serb assaults on more weakly protected Bosnian communities on the east side of the country.

Clinton also discussed a Bosnian proposal to set up a five-kilometer “demilitarized zone” around Sarajevo. Such a zone could allow a reopening of roads, and, by barring even small arms, could ease Sarajevo’s threat of sniper fire.

Earlier Sunday, Clinton warned from a Harlem pulpit that his party’s adversaries are poised to confuse the Democratic faithful into voting against their interests.

Speaking at Bethel A.M.E. Church, Clinton said the opposition’s efforts to deny his achievements mean that “the people may actually go out and vote for the very things they are against because they don’t know what’s happened in the last 20 months” of his term.

In his appearance at the African American church, Clinton offered the most complete version yet of his election-year speech, which he hopes will persuade voters not to chip away Democratic membership in Congress. He said he was being blamed for problems that took decades to accumulate.

“We have an election in which there are 30 years of social problems, 20 years of economic problems and 12 years of politicians bad-mouthing the government,” Clinton said. In an aside that seemed aimed at Republicans and the news media, he said voters “cannot know” of his accomplishments because there’s no way for them to get the information.

Sounding somewhat plaintive, he added: “I have been President for 20 months, not 30 years, not 20 years, not 10 years.”

The service brought out some of New York’s most prominent Democrats, including Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Clinton said in his sermon that Cuomo, who faces an uphill fight for his fourth gubernatorial term, is “the heart you must not lose.” And Cuomo returned the compliment, calling the President “a great leader who is bringing us toward very great good, and who has realized some of it already. . . .”

Clinton spoke warmly of the U.S. occupation of Haiti, not mentioning a firefight Saturday evening that left 10 Haitians dead and the city of Cap Haitien with no apparent local police authorities. Clinton said he believes “more and more Americans are seeing what we are doing there is good.”

He also took part in a fund-raising reception and luncheon for Democratic congressional candidates that raised $350,000 from 5,000 donors.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, said on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley” that his own polling indicated that GOP candidates also have reason to avoid stressing party identification in their races.

Luntz said his polling suggests that “there’s an awful lot of disappointment, that both political parties have got few strengths and an awful lot of weaknesses.”