ROME, Sept. 20--Despite some nervousness at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II has
insisted that he will leave on Saturday for a trip to Kazakhstan, where
officials are planning "unprecedented" security measures during his
four-day visit.
Kazakhstan, where Muslims are a slight majority, is struggling to keep out
Islamic radicals like those who have been fighting sporadically in neighboring
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for the last two years. Militants in those countries
are believed to have been trained in Afghanistan, home to Osama bin Laden, who
the United States suspects is behind the attacks in New York and Washington.
The entire region is on edge waiting for the United States to retaliate, though
ethnic and religious tensions in Kazakhstan itself remain relatively low. The
Vatican says it has no evidence of threats against the pope. In the past, papal
trips to Northern Ireland and Sarajevo, Bosnia, have been canceled over
security concerns.
When aides have raised security concerns, the pope has said it is even more
important now to reach out to Muslims in Central Asia.
His hosts will have 2,400 soldiers and police officers patrolling the streets
of the capital city, Astana, while he is there.
"Given the situation in Afghanistan, we are on alert," Erlan Idrisov,
the foreign minister of Kazakhstan, said in an interview today. Of Islamic
radicals in nearby countries, he said, "There are signs there are attempts
to send that evil to Kazakhstan, but we want to stay free of the disease."
That is one reason the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, lobbied for the
pope to visit in the first place. The country's multi-ethnic population of 15
million includes some 8 million Muslims, 6 million Orthodox Christians and
about 300,000 Roman Catholics, most of them from families deported to there by
Stalin.
Worry over the trip stems not only from uncertainty in the region, but also
from the fact that John Paul has reportedly been targeted by Islamic militants
before; the Philippine police have said they uncovered a plot by Ramzi Yousef,
who was convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, to assassinate
him during a visit there in 1995.
The Italian public is also skittish after the attacks in America, and the press
here has published speculation, some of it apparently based on reports by a
psychic, that the pope is the next target of the terrorists responsible for the
attackslast week.
In Kazakhstan, meanwhile, "there are rumors that in the wake of the
terrorist attacks, he wouldn't come," Mr. Idrisov said, adding that
"we fully appreciate his courage" in deciding to make the trip
anyway.
The 81-year-old pope's determination to make the trip now reflects one of his
most cherished goals: bringing Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians closer
together. Vatican officials believe that he may actually have a better chance
now if only because the Orthodox may for the moment be more likely to see
Catholics less as the competition than as comrades in common cause against
Islamic radicals.
Still, Russian Orthodox Church officials continue to oppose the pope's plan to
visit Moscow someday. The Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan is also under the
canonical jurisdiction of Moscow, where church officials see this trip as
another papal invasion of their territory. In June, the pope visited Ukraine
despite official criticism from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
A sizable Muslim crowd is expected at two outdoor Masses in Kazakhstan, though.
On Saturday evening, the pope's first Mass is at a monument to "victims of
the totalitarian regime," a reference to the many thousands of German,
Ukrainian and Polish Catholics, including a number of priests and nuns, who
died there in Stalinist work camps.
On Tuesday, the pope plans to travel to Armenia, where he will join
celebrations of 1,700 years of Christianity as the state religion. Armenians
were the first to adopt Christianity as their official religion in 301.
Despite his age and deteriorating health, the pope, who suffers from
Parkinson's disease, plans to keep up a packed schedule throughout the six-day
trip and to return to Rome next Thursday.