Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 22, 1993 TAG: 9311220024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The plan, which France and Germany will present to European Community foreign ministers today in Luxembourg, further isolates the Sarajevo government while forcing the Serbs to make painful compromises.
For those reasons, its success is doubtful.
While most recent fighting in Bosnia has been between Croats and Muslims, it was a Serb-Muslim standoff over small chunks of land in eastern Bosnia, about 3 percent of Bosnia, that doomed the previous peace plan two months ago.
It gave the Muslims 31 percent, twice what they now control. Serbs, who hold about 70 percent, would have gotten 51 percent and Croats 18 percent.
The new plan calls for Bosnian Serbs to relinquish an additional 3 percent to 4 percent more of the territory they hold in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions against Serb-led Yugoslavia.
The 12 European Community nations also will consider boosting humanitarian aid for Bosnia, four days after the warring sides guaranteed safe passage for United Nations relief convoys.
The United States is not enthusiastic about the peace plan, but has not been a major player on the Bosnian scene lately.
The approach is popular with Russia, a U.N. Security Council member; Greece, which soon takes up the rotating EC chair; and poor countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia that have suffered from lost trade.
France and Britain say sanctions could be suspended when the Serbs start complying. This would give Serbs an incentive to end the conflict, they say.
But plans that make sense for the outside world founder in Bosnia.
Sarajevo government officials say the plan unfairly puts the onus on them.
France and Germany "are trying to present us as the side which is for war," said Bosnian government spokesman Kemal Muftic. "They will accuse us in the end of not wanting to stop the war because of some 3 percent of the territory."
by CNB