The Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, in a special ceremony, presented the decree granting Kosovo citizenship to Joe DioGuardi and Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi.
In her speech, Acting President Haxhiu said that Kosovo is a young state, but before it was a state and before it gained freedom, there were people who stood up for it, and now we have a duty not to forget who those people are.
“Joseph and Shirley DioGuardi are among those friends that Kosovo had close to its side before its name took its place on the agenda of the US politics. Your dedication to the Albanian cause had behind it a legacy much older than your political life. It came from your Arbëresh family, from Greci in Italy, from a community that, centuries after being separated from the lands of its ancestors, continued to preserve the Albanian language, the memory of its origin and the connection with the Albanian world. Your father was fifteen years old when he left Greci for the US. When you returned with him to his homeland in 1974, after forty-five years away, he spoke Albanian again to the people with whom he had spent his childhood. The language had survived the distance, time and an entire life on another continent”, said Acting President Haxhiu.
According to her, this legacy, which for many generations had lived as a family memory, also took the form of political commitment in you.
“When the Albanians of America spoke to you about Kosovo in the mid-eighties, you were a young congressman, while very little was known about Kosovo in Washington. In 1986, you raised the issue of the violation of the rights of Albanians in Yugoslavia in the United States Congress,” emphasized Acting President Haxhiu.
She further said that the affirmation of the Kosovo issue in the US Congress in those years was more than a political stance.
“It was necessary to expose an injustice that few people knew about, to face the opposition of a state diplomacy that had roots and old friends in Washington, and to explain to American lawmakers that behind the official vocabulary of Yugoslavia at that time stood a nation whose fundamental rights were being constantly and brutally violated. You started this work many years before the systematic repression, murders, massacres and mass expulsions by the criminal policy of Serbia turned Kosovo into an issue of world politics,” asserted Acting President Haxhiu asserted.
Acting President Haxhiu further said that Joe DioGuardi, even after completing his mandate in Congress, continued his engagement.
“With the establishment of the Albanian-American Civic League, in 1989, that work took on a new dimension. You returned to Kosovo, saw firsthand what was happening, met the people who were articulating the political and intellectual resistance of Albanians, and, together with Tom Lantos, openly challenged the politics of Slobodan Milosevic at a time when this also required personal courage,” she added.
Acting President Haxhiu emphasized that in Washington, meanwhile, an increasingly wide circle of people was formed, who became acquainted with Kosovo and were willing to deal with it.
“Tom Lantos, Bob Dole, Ben Gilman, Claiborne Pell, and many others became names that Albanians would learn and always keep in mind. In creating and nurturing those ties, the Albanian-American League and you yourself had a role that left a mark on the history of relations between Kosovo and the United States of America,” emphasized Acting President Haxhiu.
She pointed out that in those years, Kosovo had no embassy in Washington, nor state diplomacy to represent it, adding further that that void was filled, as best they could, by our diaspora and friends like you, by building connections withUS politics, bringing testimonies from Kosovo, and opening doors to our cause that had been closed until then.
Acting President Haxhiu said that Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi joined this work from a different path and very quickly became one of the most prominent and persistent voices.
“With your experience in publishing, writing and foreign policy analysis, you became a chronicler, testifying, documenting and arguing for Kosovo, because it was not enough to just ask for support. Its history had to be known, the mechanisms of repression had to be understood, what was happening on the ground had to be followed and what was happening on the ground had to be responded to, with facts, by the representations that for years had distorted, lied and falsified the position of Albanians in the former Yugoslavia. You did this work in writings, reports, testimonies before Congress, meetings with policymakers and diplomats and in numerous public appearances”, said Acting President Haxhiu.
Acting President Haxhiu further said that in 2002, both of them went to The Hague to testify in the trial against Slobodan Milosevic, accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for crimes against humanity in Kosovo.
“Even then, as many times before, your task was evidence, and you prove with facts what Serbia had done for years against the Albanians of Kosovo. After June 1999, Kosovo had another battle ahead, the battle to turn the freedom it had gained into a stable political status and, subsequently, into statehood. Thank you for the great support you have given to Kosovo in very difficult times!”, emphasized the Acting President.
Finally, Acting President Haxhiu said that it is a special honor for her that a few minutes ago, as Acting President, she had the honor to grant Mr. DioGuardi and Mrs. DioGuardi the citizenship of the Republic of Kosovo.
“You have been friends of Kosovo long before it became a state. From today, you are also its citizens! It is a special honor for me to congratulate you on the citizenship of the Republic of Kosovo and to say to you: welcome among its citizens. Welcome to your second state, the Republic of Kosova!”, said Acting President Haxhiu at the conclusion of her speech.
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