O'Dea visits Balkans battle site
Defence Minister Willie O’Dea will today visit a famous battle site that sparked a decade of war and ethnic violence in the Balkans.
The Field of Blackbirds in Kosovo was the scene of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s inflammatory 1989 speech declaring: “Serbia is Kosovo. Kosovo is Serbia.”
Political uprisings followed across former Yugoslavian republics which culminated in the 1999 Kosovo War when Milosevic was indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal.
Today the Field of Blackbirds, or Kosovo Polje, and adjoining monument are protected by armed UN troops who fear an attack by the majority Kosovar Albanians in the land-locked province.
Mr O’Dea, who is concluding a two-day tour of Irish peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, will visit the bleak site near Pristina before returning to Ireland.
The Battle of the Field of Blackbirds originally commemorated a heroic 1389 Serbian revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which is now remembered by Serbs on June 28 every year.
