Pope wraps up gruelling 100th foreign pilgrimage

Pope John Paul wrapped up his gruelling 100th foreign pilgrimage today with a stop in Zadar, a hotbed of nationalism where locals revere a fugitive general wanted on war crimes charges.

John Paul’s motorcade took him past a giant poster of Army Gen Ante Gotovina with the words, “A hero, not a war criminal.”

Although Gotovina is sought by the UN war crimes tribunal for 1990s atrocities, many in the town hail him as a hero, underscoring Croatia’s struggle to shed its nationalist past.

Officials pulled down other posters of the general ahead of the Pope’s visit, but left the large one in place out of concern that removing it might incite war veterans and nationalists.

More than 100,000 people packed a pine-dotted seaside promenade, clogged Zadar’s narrow marble alleyways and watched from hundreds of boats bobbing in the harbour.

The 83-year-old pontiff waved repeatedly to the crowd, but he looked drawn and fatigued after enduring withering heat in his taxing five-day, five-city tour of Croatia. John Paul suffers from Parkinson’s disease and crippling knee and hip ailments, and uses a special hydraulic chair so he can celebrate Mass while seated.

Although a June 22 day trip to Bosnia is still on, top Vatican officials have suggested that a proposed visit to Mongolia in August could be dropped.

Although nearly a decade has already passed since Croatia’s war with minority Serbs who rebelled against the country’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, its leaders are still working to overcome lingering nationalism, hatred and bitterness.

“Today we still bear the wounds from the 20th century and the three wars that grievously afflicted our people,” Zadar’s archbishop, Ivan Prendja, told John Paul.

“The difficulties of transition that we are enduring, together with the other nations of Eastern and Central Europe, are not inconsiderable.”