PRISTINA, Serbia-Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica began his
visit to Kosovo Wednesday at a Serb Orthodox monastery to attend ceremonies
for a Serb holiday marking the anniversary of an epic battle against Ottoman
forces.
International
peacekeepers and U.N. authorities running the province were enforcing strict
security measures for Kostunica's visit to the province, where tension
and occasional violence persists between the ethnic Albanian majority and
Serb minority.
Kostunica's first stop was in the Serbian enclave of Gracanica, where
a big Serbian flag adorned the entrance to the Serb Orthodox monastery
and hundreds of Serbs awaited him with folk music and dances.
Shortly before his scheduled arrival, special police units moved against
dozens of ethnic Albanian protesters blocking the roads linking Kosovo
to the rest of Serbia in a bid to prevent the visit.
Police said 116 activists were arrested near the ethnic flashpoint of
Kosovska Mitrovica in northern Kosovo and at the boundary crossing of Merdare,
the entry point for Kostunica to the province.
Underlining the security fears, a heavy police and NATO presence deployed
along the highways leading from the boundary toward Gracanica.
Kostunica and other Serb political and religious leaders are to participate
in ceremonies marking Vidovdan, or St. Vitus Day, the anniversary of the
1389 battle in which a Christian army led by Serbian Prince Lazar was defeated
in Kosovo by invading Ottoman forces, who then ruled Serbia for 500 years,
until the 19th century.
The arrested protesters, members of an ethnic Albanian group calling
itself "Self-determination," described Kostunica's visit as "a provocation."
The group compared the trip to a 1989 visit by former Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic, who used the anniversary to deliver a speech that whipped
up Serb nationalist fervor. The event was seen as key in events that led
to disintegration of Yugoslavia and a decade of Balkan wars.
Milosevic died earlier this year in The Hague, Netherlands while on
trial at the U.N. tribunal there over his role in the Balkan wars. He was
charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity over Kosovo's conflict,
in which Serbia lost control of the province it cherishes as the birthplace
of its nationhood.
Hundreds of pilgrims, some brought to Kosovo by buses from Serbia, stood
in the shade of the monument marking the battle. Two lines of razor wire
surrounded the place where hundreds of thousands of Serbs had gathered
to hear Milosevic.
"Our one wish and aim is for Kosovo to remain what it used to be in
the past, to remain our spiritual and cultural cradle, to remain our Jerusalem,"
Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije said during the liturgy marking the day.
"What Jerusalem is for Jewish people, that is what Kosovo is for the Serb
people. There's no Serbia without Kosovo."
Kosovo, which officially remains part of Serbia, has been administered
by the U.N. since mid-1999, when a NATO air war halted a crackdown by Milosevic's
forces on separatist ethnic Albanians.
Kostunica had asked U.N. authorities in Kosovo for permission to visit.
The province's U.N. administration can deny entry to anyone they believe
could be under threat, or if their presence could pose a threat to others.
Kostunica's visit comes amid U.N.-mediated talks aimed at determining
whether Kosovo becomes fully independent or remains part of Serbia.
Some form of independence for Kosovo is the most likely outcome of the
talks. International envoys are trying to steer the two sides toward a
compromise on issues such as ensuring the survival of the Serb minority,
who live in heavily guarded isolated enclaves scattered around this tiny
Balkan province.
Kostunica's visit came a day after he met British Prime Minister Tony
Blair in London, where he insisted that Serbia would not cave into Western
demands to grant Kosovo independence.
Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of the province's population
of 2 million, want independence. Serbia insists on retaining some control
over the province, which it considers the birthplace of its national identity.
An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in Kosovo's war. Afterwards,
tens of thousands of Serbs fled the province due to reprisal attacks and
threats from ethnic Albanians.
