Ulterior Motives

CROATS LIVING IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA HAD accepted it willingly. So had Muslims, though with reservations. What was needed for the nine-point plan to offer even a slim chance of peace to a country wracked by war was approval by Bosnian Serbs. That happened Wednesday at the ski resort of Pale, 10 miles east of the besieged capital of Sarajevo, where a parliament representing Bosnia's Serbs approved the plan by a comfortable margin. Under the plan, drafted in Geneva earlier this month, the country would be divided into 10 provinces largely drawn up on ethnic lines. Bosnia would continue to exist as a whole, with representatives from the three ethnic groups forming a weak and awkward federal government.

But it wasn't peace alone that won the Serbs' support. They are convinced the plan can be reconciled with their own self-determination. For some parts of Bosnia, that might mean virtual union with Serbia. Since the Croats have similar designs for the three provinces designated for their control, all of which conveniently abut Croatia itself, Muslims, Bosnia's largest ethnic group, justifiably fear a squeeze. Talks resumed in Geneva on Saturday, but the fighting is sure to outpace the talking.