Kostunica visits Bosnia, meets with political leadersBy Gregory Piatt
Bosnia bureau
TREBINJE, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Yugoslavia’s new president averted a diplomatic debacle by meeting Bosnia’s political leaders Sunday, defusing anger over a decision to use his first visit to the country to attend the reburial of a prominent Serb poet.
International officials hastily convened the meeting between Vojislav Kostunica and Bosnia’s multiethnic presidency in an effort to ease anger among the country’s Muslims and Croats who suggested he tainted his inaugural visit by giving it ethnic overtones.
Kostunica had intended his visit to the reburial ceremony of Jovan Ducic to be private — a reflection of his devotion to the author’s staunch anti-communist principles and literary grandeur.
Instead, Kostunica discovered that Croat and Muslim members of the country’s multiethnic presidency were outraged by the visit. They considered it to be an insult that the new leader, who pledged to improve relations between the two countries, would choose a trip with nationalistic overtones on his first visit to the country.
This was Kostunica’s first visit to Bosnia since becoming the Yugoslav president earlier this month after street protests whisked him to power and toppled Slobodan Milosevic from power.
Western officials in Bosnia had expressed their concern that Kostunica’s first visit to Bosnia was to the Serbian Republic and that it could be perceived as undermining their efforts at building a multiethnic state with Bosnia’s two entities — the Serbian Republic and the Muslim Croat Federation.
The Dayton peace agreement ended the 31/2-year war in 1995 and created a Bosnia that is made up of the two entities.
As a result of concerns by Western and Bosnian officials, Kostunica didn’t speak to the 1,500 people, mostly Serbs, who attended the Serbian Orthodox burial mass held in a red brick chapel overlooking this town.
But the Bosnian Serbs who attended didn’t seem to mind. They were just happy he could be at an event that exuded Serbian national pride.
"I think that’s great that he is here," said Alexandra Sumar, who made the 200-mile trip from Sarajevo. "I think he wants to show that he is with us [Bosnian Serbs]."
Sumar was among the crowd of people who were mingling with bearded Orthodox priests and nuns.
The flags of the Serbian Republic and Orthodox church fluttered in the breeze. People were selling religious icons and pictures of Ducic, Orthodox chants floated from loud speakers outside the chapel and a large-screen diamond-vision type television screen broadcast the burial mass for those outside.
Ducic died in the United States in 1943 and his remains were sent here for reburial.
After the mass, Kostunica walked in a procession with church leaders dressed in gold robes, politicians from the Serbian Republic and even a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim Imam. As the entourage passed through the crowd outside, a priest from the procession shouted, "The Serb president is with us."
Kostunica, clergy and politicians then went into a second building on the hill for meetings that lasted about 45 minutes.
The crowd waited patiently for Kostunica to re-emerge as he met with politicians, including Western-backed Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.
But when he emerged, the crowds, who didn’t clap for their politicians, applauded Kostunica.
"I think it is very good he is here," said Alexander Milisa of Trebinje, who applauded. "Our people are glad that he came here."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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