Carter Says Serbs Approve Bosnia Cease-Fire

Former President Jimmy Carter emerged from daylong talks with Bosnian Serb leaders Monday night saying he had secured a proposal to end the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina for at least four months.

Carter, meeting in the Bosnian Serb headquarters of Pale in the mountains southeast of here, said the Bosnian Serbs had also agreed to further talks to bring a complete end to the 32-month civil war.

“There will be a cease-fire immediately and a negotiation offer to determine a cessation of hostilities,” a weary Carter announced after nearly nine hours of talks. “This would mean a very carefully prepared plan for the withdrawal of confronting troops . . . and the replacement of United Nations Protection Forces between the military forces to prevent hostilities.”

Bosnian Serb officials, however, said the cease-fire would begin as a part of wider negotiations to end the war, an open-ended condition that left it unclear when in fact such a proposal would take effect.

“We are ready to give back territory,” Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said on Cable News Network, the same venue he chose last week to disclose that he had invited Carter to Bosnia. “We are ready to compromise, but we have to get something for that. I hope that we make peace very soon.”

Carter returned to Sarajevo on Monday night to deliver the Bosnian Serb proposals to the Muslim-led Bosnian government, saying he would act as an intermediary between the two sides to determine if they could reach agreement on a cease-fire.

The former President had not been scheduled to meet with Bosnian government officials until today, but widespread confusion about the Bosnian Serb proposal prompted a late-night “damage control” meeting between Carter and Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic, a source close to the negotiations said.

“It is pretty sticky,” the source said. “The Bosnian Serbs are saying things that are not true. This is serious.”

The cease-fire proposal received icy reviews from Sarajevo to Washington, primarily because of reports from Pale that Carter had agreed to reopen negotiations on the so-called Contact Group peace plan. The reports raised fears that the former President’s mission would unravel international support for the hard-fought plan.

The five-nation Contact Group, which includes the United States, and the Muslim-led Bosnian government have insisted that the Bosnian Serbs accept the Contact Group plan before any further talks begin. Bosnian government officials, who met with Carter before his trip to Pale, had warned that the Bosnian Serbs would use his visit to legitimize their self-styled breakaway state and undermine months of diplomacy that went into the Contact Group plan.

The plan, which has been approved by all sides except the Bosnian Serbs, would divide the country roughly in half between the Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-Croat federation but would not create an independent Bosnian Serb state.

Before traveling to Pale, Carter had said he was committed to the Contact Group plan and indicated he hoped to persuade the Bosnian Serbs to accept it. But on Monday, the plan was described by Carter as the basis for negotiations on a peace agreement, a signal to some that the plan itself was back on the bargaining table or that Carter had failed to grasp the significance of such nuances.

“The Bosnian Serbs . . . have agreed that while this cessation of hostilities is in effect, we shall negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement with the proposal of the Contact Group as a basis for the negotiation of all points,” Carter said.

Bosnian Serbs in Pale said that Carter had indeed signed off on a reworking of the Contact Group plan, bringing up for discussion such disputed issues as the territorial division of Bosnia and the legal status of Bosnian Serb territory.

Karadzic said in the CNN interview that Carter was the second prominent American to break ranks on the issue of the Contact Group plan, saying that Charles Thomas, the U.S. representative in the Contact Group, had also indicated a willingness to reconsider the plan.

“Mr. Thomas said that interpretations of the Contact Group had so far been inappropriate,” Karadzic said. “Now we take it as appropriate that everything can be discussed and mediated. That is something that is quite different.”

A source close to the talks said Monday that Carter was “more than appalled” by the Bosnian Serb public explanation of the meeting and said Carter had not discussed reopening the Contact Group plan with Karadzic.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, said that Thomas also had not offered such a reassessment of the plan.

“I have never heard him say anything even close to that,” the official said.

The confusion as to the fruits borne by Carter’s brief peace mission point to the difficulties that have plagued the many peace efforts before this one and the general assessment here that Carter has taken on a task well beyond his capabilities.

“I respect his political experience, but he doesn’t know anything about Bosnia,” said Izet Cengic, a 42-year-old agricultural engineer shopping Monday in Sarajevo’s marketplace. “Carter was wrong to come. He is now just one of hundreds of failed peacekeepers.”