Close to a million farewell independence leader

Almost half the population of Kosovo turned out yesterday to bid farewell to the province's first president and icon of independence, Ibrahim Rugova, who was buried to the sound of a 21-gun salute.

The man who initiated Kosovo's quest for independence 16 years ago through peaceful resistance to Serbia's repressive regime, united ethnic Albanians once again as almost a million people watched his coffin being carried through the streets of Pristina.

His remains were laid to rest at the place where heroes of the guerrilla movement, who began the armed rebellion against Serbia in 1998, are buried.

The hastily prepared final resting place for Rugova had been planted with 61 pine trees, one for each of his years. He died of lung cancer on Sunday.

Unusually for the Balkans, Rugova's funeral was held without any religious rites. Organisers said that was because of the "national and state character" of the ceremony at the "martyr's graveyard" memorial complex.

However, many believe that Rugova's rumoured conversion to Catholicism was the real reason. Such rumours have been circulating in Kosovo for 10 years and have never been denied.

He was born into a Muslim family but had not been seen in a mosque for many years.

It is widely believed that non-Muslim funeral rites would have deeply disturbed the almost exclusively Muslim ethnic Albanians.

People stood in temperatures of minus 10C in the windy capital to pay their last respects.

Rugova's death left Kosovo without a leader to enter the United Nations-sponsored talks on the final status of the province, due to start in Vienna next month.

- INDEPENDENT