Milosevic calls tune as Bosnian Serbs ponder deal: Local leaders may not want the Vance-Owen peace deal but they dare not defy the one-man show in Belgrade

WHEN Bosnian Serb delegates meet in Pale to vote 'yes' or 'no' to the Vance- Owen peace plan they will have in mind the fate of the last Serb assembly to defy the will of the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic - it was scrapped and another more compliant body convened within days to do his bidding.

That was in Serb-held Krajina in Croatia after local Serb delegates made the cardinal error of ignoring Mr Milosevic's 'advice' to accept the Vance-Owen peace plan for the region. Their defiant squeaks counted for nothing in the end. A new Krajina 'parliament' met in the town of Glina days later, duly voted 'yes' and the UN plan came into force.

Mr Milosevic has spelt out his views on the Vance-Owen deal with absolute clarity on Serbian television. Referring to Biljana Plavsic, the Bosnian Serb vice-president, who exhorted Serbs to sacrifice 6 million lives in order to achieve their national goals, Mr Milosevic exclaimed: 'Such people, if they are not put in hospital, must be kept from occupying any public functions.'

He went on to claim that the territorial and political goals for which Bosnian Serbs have been fighting were now achieved. He warned that aid to Bosnian Serbs would be severed if they failed to see the wisdom of this position. Most crucially, he offered to go to Pale, the former ski resort near Sarajevo which serves as the provisional Bosnian Serb capital, to oversee in person the Bosnian Serb assembly's endorsement of the plan.

Notice has been served. If the Pale parliament says 'no' to the plan, the fate of the now-forgotten Krajina parliament in Knin awaits it.

The Bosnian Serb parliament comprises the Serb rump of the old parliament of the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was elected in 1990. In this election, three ethnic-based parties won nearly all the seats, ending 45 years of Communist one-party rule. For a while the three parties maintained an uneasy coalition. But a parting of the ways became inevitable as Muslim and Croat leaders espoused an independent Bosnia while Serb delegates demanded much closer ties with Serbia.

The delegates of the Serbian Democratic Party, the SDS, promptly split off from the Bosnian parliament, and at a session held in the Sarajevo Holiday Inn proclaimed the parliament of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Most of the delegates kept their old jobs. The president of the Bosnian parliament, Momcilo Krajisnik, became president of the Bosnian Serb parliament, while the old Serb members of the Bosnian presidency, including Ms Plavsic, became members of the new Bosnian Serb presidency.

As in the Serb-held Krajina in Croatia, the fiction of a real parliament in a real state with its own stamps, prime minister, football teams, press passes and so on, was encouraged by Belgrade - but only while it remained convenient for Mr Milosevic to claim that Serbia was not involved in the fighting.

When this charade of independence became inconvenient, as it did when the Krajina assembly in Knin voted 'no' to the Vance-Owen peace plan, Mr Milosevic took off the gloves and scrapped the assembly. Being an artificial creation and without any life of its own this was very easy to do. The Belgrade media merely ceased to report on its activities. Starved of this vital oxygen, these then ceased.

This week various delegates from the Bosnian Serb assembly have been signalling defiance of the Vance- Owen plan - encouraged by Serbian television, which wants to give the world the impression of an impending knife-edge debate in which Mr Milosevic, posing in the guise of Man of Peace, pulls off a narrow victory.

Many of the delegates no doubt sincerely oppose the plan - especially delegates from towns assigned under the plan to Muslim and Croat provinces. They all stand to look like buffoons, as it was only 10 days ago in Bijeljina that the same assembly unanimously voted no to the same plan. They are now engaged in a last- ditch attempt to blackmail Belgrade into turning against the plan.

One delegate from eastern Bosnia has said this week that acceptance of the plan will mean a mass exodus of up to half a million Bosnian Serbs into Serbia proper. But these threats will have little effect. The Serbian government is a one-man show, where the one man in question, Mr Milosevic, appears to have made up his mind.

Serbian television has turned its formidable propaganda arsenal against opponents of the plan, and the results are already visible in public opinion surveys. Last week a Belgrade poll showed most Serbs passionately opposed the Vance-Owen peace plan. Earlier this week a new survey showed that most Serbs were equally passionately in favour of it.