ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997 TAG: 9704140077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES AND ASSOCIATED PRESS
John Paul II, who stood up for Bosnia during its brutal civil war, made his long-promised visit.
Ignoring an apparent assassination attempt, Pope John Paul II traveled Saturday to this predominantly Muslim city, a symbol of a war in which religion became the pretext for fratricide and a capital where ethnic nationalism continues to divide.
Just hours before the pope arrived in Sarajevo, police discovered a powerful batch of explosives along the route the pontiff's motorcade was scheduled to take. The cache - more than 20 anti-tank mines and 50-plus pounds of plastic explosives, equipped with a remote-control detonator - apparently was planted under a bridge overnight, U.N. officials said.
John Paul survived an assassin's bullets in 1981. No group claimed responsibility Saturday for planting the explosives.
More than 11,000 police, backed by anti-sniper teams, explosives-sniffing dog teams and helicopters of the NATO-led peace force, are providing security for the pope's 25-hour visit. The scheduled highlight is a Mass at Sarajevo's Kosevo stadium this morning.
Making good on his oft-stated support for Bosnia, John Paul stepped onto the tarmac of the pockmarked Sarajevo International Airport and preached reconciliation and ``true democracy'' to this country's Muslims, Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs.
``Never again war!'' the pope told welcoming dignitaries. ``Never again hatred and intolerance. This is the lesson taught by this century and this millennium, now drawing to a close.''
The pope spoke in Croatian, which is slightly different from the Bosnian language. Then, rejecting a NATO offer to fly him into town by helicopter, he boarded his armored, glass-topped Popemobile for the six-mile ride along Sarajevo's notorious ``Sniper Alley'' - so nicknamed during the war - past thousands of cheering well-wishers to the downtown Roman Catholic cathedral.
``When he realized there were people waiting in the streets to see him, he said, `No way' to the helicopter,'' said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
Besides the bitter divisions among Serbs, Croats and Muslims, the Catholic church here also is split between moderate Sarajevo Catholics and hard-line Catholic Croat nationalists who want nothing of the unified Bosnia that the pope's visit inevitably blesses. Many resent the visit to mostly Muslim Sarajevo. Suspicions remain from the war Muslims and Croats fought in 1993-1994 within the broader Bosnian war.
Pilgrims from Croatia trying to reach Sarajevo on Saturday were blocked by Croatian Interior Ministry officials, international monitors said.
The pope's visit ``can be a turning point, a new beginning in the search for a true, multireligious character [for Bosnia],'' said Father Marko Orsolic, a Franciscan priest who directs a Sarajevo peace institute. ``Or [it] will be a liturgical act, a spiritual parade - a sprinkle and nothing else. That is the danger. Nationalism is destroying everything.''
The Serbian member of the presidency, Momcilo Krajisnik, refused to attend. As Christian Orthodox followers, Serbs do not recognize the pope.
Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of the presidency, welcomed the pope to ``this martyr city'' and praised him for speaking out against Bosnia's suffering while much of the world kept silent.
The pope's visit fulfills a pilgrimage planned in 1994 but canceled because militant Serbs laying siege to Sarajevo would not guarantee his security. It follows bomb and rocket attacks on several Catholic churches, monasteries and two mosques in recent weeks - a spillover, international officials believe, of Muslim-Croat tensions that hit a high in February in the disputed city of Mostar.
Muslims and Croats are allied in a U.S.-created federation that was awarded half of Bosnia in the 1995 peace accords that ended 43 months of war. The Serbs have the other half, the entity known as the Republika Srpska.
Vatican officials said Sarajevo is one of the pope's most dangerous destinations. Tight security intensified after the discovery of the explosives Saturday.
The pope plunged into a delighted crowd outside the downtown cathedral before celebrating an evening service under bullet-shattered stained-glass windows with a packed house of priests, nuns and seminarians.
``He has always been with us in his prayers; now he is with us in the flesh,'' Mariana Kaukcija, 31, said after kissing the pope's hand. ``People just couldn't believe he was coming until he was before our eyes. We hope he will help us overcome our differences.''
Aldijana Sokolovic, a 17-year-old Muslim, waited for several hours in the crowd outside Sarajevo's Cathedral to catch a glimpse of the pontiff.
``I love him,'' she said. ``I'm Muslim, but he means peace to me.''
As the pope arrived, Italian and Egyptian troops in armored cars patrolled Sarajevo streets; manholes were being welded shut. Helicopters flew overhead. Bosnian police went door to door in the neighborhoods around Sarajevo's old Olympic stadium, ordering residents not to look out their windows or stand on their balconies during the pope's open-air Mass, the principal public event of the pontiff's itinerary.
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovicby CNBaccompanies John Paul II after the pope's arrival at the Sarajevo
airport Saturday. color.