Serbia buries Tito's widow, the last symbol of Yugoslavia

The widow of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito was buried in Belgrade today with full state honours as the last symbol of the communist federation that broke up in the 1990s.
Once described as the most elegant first lady of the Eastern bloc, Jovanka Broz, who died of heart failure at the age of 88 on Sunday, was buried in the mausoleum House of Flowers in Belgrade, where the communist strongman was laid to rest in 1980.
In a sombre atmosphere on a sunny autumn day, some 4,000 people attended the ceremony held with no religious service in a vast green complex of the mausoleum.

A military guard fired honorary shots as Broz was a decorated member of the Yugoslav anti-fascist partisan movement in World War II.
A simple wooden coffin without a state flag was put under the white marble lid engraved with "Jovanka Broz, 1924-2013" in golden letters.
Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic bid an official farewell to "the first lady of Yugoslavia... The woman we have committed the sin against."

"Rest in peace, next to the man you dedicated your life to," said Dacic, whose party traces its roots to Tito's communist party, while many shouted "Long live Yugoslavia".
Once a symbol of elegance and adored in the former Yugoslavia, Broz lived the last three decades of her life as an outcast.

Blamed by Tito's political allies of plotting a coup, she was placed under virtual house arrest a few years before her husband's death.
Many among the mourners, mostly elderly former partisans who proudly carried their World War II decorations, dismissed such charges, solemnly waving red, white and blue flags of the former Yugoslav federation that broke apart in a series of bloody conflicts in the 1990s.
"I wanted to say goodbye to her as I did for Tito, because for me, they were like a family," said 84-year old Minka Jovanovic, who could hardly hide her tears.
Broz's last public appearance was at Tito's state funeral in May 1980, which was attended by more than 200 world leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, Saddam Hussein and Leonid Brezhnev.

After Tito's death, she was forced to leave the former Serbian royal palace where the couple lived in splendour, and spent the following years in isolation and poverty.
Often described as the "first lady of the Non-Aligned Movement" -- a group of states advocating a middle course for developing countries between the Eastern and Western bloc, founded by Tito and the leaders of India, Indonesia, Ghana and Egypt -- she toured the world with her husband.