Pope's Plea to Serb Bosnia's Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims

The unlikely sound of Catholic choirs echoed across the Serb Orthodox stronghold of Banja Luka yesterday as the Pope delivered a plea for live-and-let-live.

Hobbling up to an altar under a papal yellow canopy and a blistering sun, he appealed for a reversal of the ethnic cleansing of a decade ago, attacked weakness in the face of evil, and called for a reunited Bosnia. "Do not seek a comfortable life elsewhere, do not flee from your responsibilities," the 83-year-old pontiff told a congregation of 50,000 at a mass in a Franciscan monastery torched eight years ago by Serbian nationalists. "Make Bosnia-Herzegovina once more a land of reconciliation, encounter, and peace."

While the rhetoric of reconciliation was predictable from politicians and prelates, the mood in the capital of the Serbian enclave, brought about by ethnic cleansing, was one of indifference. "The Pope is welcome here. He's a good father," said Branko, 64, sitting in a park as the hymns drifted through he trees. "But sure, there's been opposition."

There were more police on the streets than locals. While Catholics and some Muslims came, Serbs took a minimal interest.

The first Slav to lead the Catholic church has long taken a keen interest in what was Yugoslavia and made several visits, but the 101st trip of his papacy yesterday was the first to meet Orthodox Serbs.

Serbs in Banja Luka murdered or uprooted tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats. Camps at Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje were part of what is now internationally recognised as an exercise in genocide. Few have returned in the eight years since the the Bosnian war, and the authorities in Banja Luka, running the Serb half of Bosnia, are less than interested in seeing them do so. Borislav Paravac, the Serb leader, welcomed the Pope yesterday with anodyne talk of "inter-ethnic tolerance".

The city's Catholic bishop, Franjo Komarica, was less diplomatic: "The Pope has come to Banja Luka, but there are no Catholics left here." Of 30,000 Catholic Croats who fled, 900 have returned. "Catholics from Banja Luka are still waiting to return to their ancestral hearths, to their parishes, and to re-establish a life worthy of human beings."

The bishop angered Serbs. "There are dangerous words coming out of [his] mouth," said Blagota Dedovic, 57. Two years ago thugs rampaged through a ceremony for the rebuilding of the city's 16th-century Ferhadija mosque, blown up by Serbs in 1992.

Yesterday Serbs vented their disgust at the monastery, home in the second world war to a Croat fascist who led a slaughter of 2,300 Serbs and then commanded a concentration camp. "The Pope should mention our victims," said Branko.

The papal father did not do so explicitly, but did say Catholics had also committed atrocities in Banja Luka: "I ask almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity, and freedom also by children of the Catholic church."