Bosnian Leader Decries Mediators’ Map Giving Land to Serb ‘Ethnic Cleansers’ : Balkans: But Izetbegovic says he balked at cease-fire only because disarmament provisions were too vague.

ZAGREB, Croatia — The president of Bosnia-Herzegovina vowed Sunday that he would never agree to a division of his country that awards “the biggest slaughterhouses of ethnic cleansing” to the Serbian gunmen who carried out the deadly campaign for an “ethnically pure” state.

But President Alija Izetbegovic said his refusal to sign a separate cease-fire agreement for Bosnia has to do only with reservations about whether U.N. forces could effectively collect the heavy weapons besieging his republic and ensure they are kept out of the reach of the militant Serbs.

Izetbegovic, en route to his embattled capital of Sarajevo, met with reporters here to explain why he had refused to endorse the two documents drawn up by Western mediators who are trying to impose peace by carving Bosnia into 10 autonomous provinces.

Both Izetbegovic and the Bosnian Serb chieftain, Radovan Karadzic, objected to the plan as presented by Cyrus R. Vance of the United Nations and Lord Owen of the European Community, prompting the mediators to declare their 5-month-old peace talks in Geneva hopelessly deadlocked.

Vance and Owen planned to lobby the U.N. Security Council today to impose their three-stage peace settlement by threatening the resistant factions with unspecified sanctions. They encouraged leaders of Bosnia’s warring parties to go to New York to present their own views.

While in this Croatian capital, Izetbegovic met with the commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslav federation to discuss specific arrangements for silencing the big guns that have made a shambles of Sarajevo and other major Bosnian cities.

The Bosnian president, a Slavic Muslim, said the proposed provisions for U.N. monitoring of tanks and heavy artillery were too vague and open to the kind of misinterpretation that has allowed the weaponry, already under U.N. “surveillance,” to continue firing on Bosnian civilians.

Izetbegovic said he was assured by Vance that the mediators’ intentions were the same as the Bosnian leadership’s--to ensure that heavy artillery pieces were withdrawn and stored “in order to prevent their use.”

During his brief meeting with the United Nations’ Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, Izetbegovic was provided with the details on how U.N. forces would control the heavy arms, said U.N. spokesman Sergio Apollonio.

While Bosnian government endorsement of the cease-fire plan appeared to be within reach, Izetbegovic stood firmly by his earlier denunciation of the Vance-Owen map detailing their plan for reconfiguration of Bosnia, claiming the mediators’ proposal rewarded the Serbian gunmen for their expulsion and killing of non-Serbs by giving them areas they had “ethnically cleansed.”

“Under no condition shall we give up on this, for these are the biggest slaughterhouses of ethnic cleansing in this region,” Izetbegovic said, naming five regions Vance and Owen have proposed to be part of provinces that the rebel Serbs would control.

He said he would appeal to the Security Council for a redistricting of his country on a more logical basis, giving greater consideration to transportation, communications and other social links than to the ethnic distribution that has resulted from 10 months of siege and displacement.

The Geneva mediators have denied their proposed map aims at ethnic partitioning, but the bizarre configuration of several provinces testifies to the contrary.

Izetbegovic appeared confident of a more sympathetic hearing in New York than he felt the government side got in Geneva, saying that Vance and Owen “wanted more to save their conference than to save Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Some Security Council members are thought to be skeptical of the mediators’ peace proposal because it would dismantle the democratically elected leadership of a state recognized by the United Nations and possibly be seen as a precedent for legitimizing the use of force in the revision of borders in the future.

A Security Council debate on the Bosnian crisis is expected to begin Wednesday, with Vance and Owen meeting with selected council members in the meantime to drum up support for their plans.

Izetbegovic also planned to lobby the Security Council to lift an arms embargo against the former Yugoslav republics, which has prevented his fledgling state from acquiring the weapons to defend itself against militant Serbs bent on wresting their own state out of Bosnia.

Karadzic, accused by U.S. officials of having committed war crimes, has directed the 10-month siege by which his radical followers have conquered 70% of Bosnian territory and forced non-Serbs from their homes.

The war has displaced 2 million civilians and left tens of thousands dead. Izetbegovic claims that the death toll is 200,000, including the masses missing from Serb-held areas and now presumed to be dead.

Bosnian government forces have lately been confronted with assaults from both Serbian and extremist Croat factions.

At least 18 people were killed in Sarajevo on Saturday when Serbian forces intensified their siege of the devastated Bosnian capital. Shelling was also reported to be heavy Sunday.

But a cease-fire ordered by Izetbegovic and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban was reported to be holding in central areas of the republic that had been the scene of fierce fighting between the purported allies in recent weeks.

Fighting also was reported to have died down in the southern Croatian region of Krajina, where Croatian government troops launched an offensive Jan. 22 to oust Serbian gunmen who had seized the territory in a six-month rebellion in 1991.

Armed and instigated by Serbian nationalists in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, Serbian rebels captured one-third of Croatian territory before a U.N. peacekeeping deployment stopped the fighting a year ago.

That cease-fire, also negotiated by Vance under the auspices of the United Nations, has been seriously undermined by the recent Croatian offensive and boastful declarations by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman that his forces are intent on recovering every scrap of Serb-occupied territory.

“We will continue to try to liberate all of Croatia using peaceful means,” Tudjman said during a visit Saturday to the strategic Maslenica Bridge recaptured on the first day of the offensive. “But if it is necessary, we’ve now shown that we are ready . . . to liberate every foot of Croatian territory.”