BITONJA, Bosnia, 27 February 2004 — Macedonia’s president, a moderate leader credited for helping to unite his ethnically divided country, was killed yesterday when his plane crashed in bad weather in mountainous southern Bosnia. Boris Trajkovski was en route to an international investment conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, when his plane with six other passengers and two pilots went down near the village of Bitonja shortly after 8 a.m., officials said. There were no survivors.
Bosnian police said they found wreckage of the US-made Beechcraft Super King Air 200 twin-engine turboprop near the village about 80 km (50 miles) south of Sarajevo.
Bosnian President Dragan Covic told the Mostar conference participants that search teams had recovered four of the nine bodies. Trajkovski was traveling with one Interior Ministry official, three advisers and two bodyguards.
“We lost a friend today... our thoughts are with the families of the victims,” Covic said as the gathering of about 2,000 people observed a minute of silence. He called Trajkovski “irreplaceable.”
A commission was to be formed in Bosnia to investigate the cause of the accident, which occurred in rain and heavy fog. Bosnia declared today a day of mourning, and all cultural events in the country were canceled.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, described Trajkovski as having “contributed hugely to reconciliation in Macedonia” and as a strong supporter of Macedonia’s ambition to become an EU member.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also expressed condolences in a statement, saying Trajkovski “demonstrated great leadership to preserve the unity of his country when it was under threat.”
Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign and security affairs chief, called it “a very tragic day for Macedonia, for all the people of that country but also for many people in Europe.”
Trajkovski, 47, was elected president in November 1999. He was widely respected in Macedonia for his neutral stance in the former Yugoslav republic, where tensions persist between Macedonians and the country’s ethnic Albanian minority following a 2001 conflict.
