KOSOVO: VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA ATTACKED WITH TOMATOES

(14 Sep 2000) Serbo-Croat/Nat

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's supporters in Kosovo have thrown eggs and tomatoes at his strongest challenger in an election rally.

Serbs in the northern, divided city of Mitrovica booed Vojislav Kostunica off a podium on Thursday before he could address a rally.

Vojislav Kostunica has been touring the isolated Serb enclaves in a bid to win votes.

Instead, the soft-spoken law professor faced a mostly male crowd largely disinterested in the message that he was the man who could beat Milosevic.

Security guards tried to shelter Kostunica from the melee and surrounded him as he tried to speak.

After a few futile attempts to speak, the bodyguards then pushed him off the stage.

Milosevic's supporters then grew more violent, attacking Kostunica's convoy and smashing windshields.

No one was injured and bodyguards managed to pull Kostunica away from the mayhem.

Kostunica had been sweeping through northern Kosovo in a Western-style campaign tour.

It was the first visit by any of the candidates seeking the country's top post.

Although Milosevic has pledged to travel to this seat of Serb nationalism, NATO leaders have promised to arrest him on the spot.

Kosovo is critical to the presidential campaign, in part because no census has taken place here for more than a decade and the number of eligible voters is not known.

Lack of data on the size of the electorate opens the door to manipulation of election figures.

The province's overwhelming ethnic Albanian majority has long boycotted any vote.

Instead they are focused on Thursday on an unrelated election - a UN organized ballot for local elections on October 28.

Also on Thursday in the south of the city key Albanian politician Hashim Thaci told the thousands gathered at a rally, that divided Mitrovica would be reunited again.

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