On behalf of Acting President Haxhiu, the First Deputy Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, Ardian Gola, held an address.
He said that in at the red hall today, where we have gathered in memory of the Day of the Martyrs and the fall of our national hero Agim Ramadani, there is no smell of gunpowder nor are there shots by our our brave men heard,as 27 years ago in Koshare. Because we are not in Koshare, but what Koshare brought us is present here among us. It is present in the way we live today and how we move freely.
“The removal of the Albanian-Albanian border was the greatest achievement of the Battle of Koshare. A border that had separated us for almost a century. A border that taught us to stop, to restrain, to wait. And over time, it became part of the way we thought and how we saw the world. This was our truth until April 1999,” emphasized Deputy Speaker Gola.
According to him, the Battle of Koshare, as the most glorious battle of our modern history, beyond being a military operation, was also an intervention in the very meaning of the border. When that border was broken, another border was dismantled. The one we had within ourselves. The one that also limited our dreams.
Deputy Speaker Gola further added that “Our dream of freedom did not take shape in books, but in the lives of people, as was the life of Commander Katana. Agim Ramadani had a great creative spirit. He painted, wrote, and thought differently. He was educated at the Zagreb Military Academy, grew up in Kosovo and later, as a persecuted person, was forced to migrate to Switzerland. There, together with the love of his life, the rival of the school benches, and fellow activist in the underground, the honorable Mrs. Shukrije Ramadani, and with the children Jeton, Edon and Lorina, he built his life”.
He said that this reflects the fact that Agim Ramadani did not enter the war because there was no other way. He had every reason to stay in Switzerland and he did not stay. He abandoned European comfort and joined his friends because he could not separate his life from what was happening to the country.
“He understood early on that waiting is not enough. Therefore, he did not let this question remain pending. He did not keep it as a poetic dilemma, but turned it into a decision. And he returned to his homeland towards a concrete danger. Towards an unequal war, where, as his comrades-in-arms show, it was not enough to be brave, you also had to be a strategist and a visionary. And he did this without fuss, without grand declarations, but with a clarity that distinguishes a man who has made up his mind. In Koshare, he was a commander, but above all, he was a man who bore responsibility for others. Those who fought alongside him remember him for his calmness in decision-making, for his discipline and for the conviction that what they were doing had meaning even beyond the day of battle. They speak of his dignified stance in difficult situations and for his responsibility in decisions,” emphasized Deputy Speaker Gola, adding further that “When he fell on April 11th 1999, he left behind a great void, but he also left behind a standard. The standard of a man who, when his homeland calls, does not sit idly by. The willingness of Commander Katana and his comrades convinced others that what seemed impossible could be done and was being done. He inspired an entire generation to see freedom as an ideal that requires concrete action, risk and sacrifice. This generation was the Kosovo Liberation Army, an army that was built in impossible conditions, but with complete clarity about what needed to be achieved”.
According to him, the commemoration of Agim Ramadani today puts us face to face with ourselves. Face to face with the standard that he and his comrades set and face to face with the way we today carry out our responsibility. It forces us to keep the state of Kosovo at the height of that standard and protect justice from any deviation.
At the conclusion he said that today we bow to all the martyrs of the Battle of Koshare, to those who gave their lives on that border line and gave direction to our freedom.
