Under the patronage of the Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, and the Acting Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, a state reception was held on the occasion of June 12th – Liberation Day, in which, in addition to local personalities, the President of the Republic of Albania, Bajram Begaj, was also present.
Acting President Haxhiu, in her address to those present, said that twenty-seven years ago, on June 12th 1999, Kosovo entered a new era of freedom.
“After a long period of oppression and after crimes that no generation forgets, the war of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the NATO intervention forced the Serbian machinery of violence to withdraw forever from our country. That day, the occupation ended and the path of a free Kosovo began, which builds its own future with dignity”, emphasized Acting President Haxhiu.
She further added that anyone who experienced that June remembers life returning to Kosovo.
“The long lines of people that months ago were leaving the country were now returning home. People were taking to the streets to embrace each other, to look for their relatives, and to start life anew amid burned-down houses, but with their heads held high and with dignity. It was the greatest joy of a nation, mixed with its greatest pain”, expressed Acting President Haxhiu.
According to her, that pain did not belong to just one family or just one generation; it belonged to everyone.
“Because freedom was won with the blood of the martyrs and fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army, with the sacrifice of the families who gave everything, with the sacrifice of the legendary Commander, Adem Jashari and his family, with the suffering of those who survived and with the resistance of an entire people who did not bow down even in the most difficult days. And this path did not begin in 1998. It passed through the illegality that kept the ideal of freedom alive, paid for with imprisonment and loss of life. Through the resistance of Adem Demaçi, whose 28 years in prison could not break him. Through the demonstrations of 1981, which were started by students and became the voice of the entire nation. And, through the peaceful movement of the 1990s with President Ibrahim Rugova. We bow today with deep respect to every single one of them,” emphasized Acting President Haxhiu.
She further added that alongside them, we also remember those who were wounded in silence by the war.
“We have some of them among us. The survivors of sexual violence in the war carried an injustice that was not theirs, but the perpetrators of the crime. The Republic honors them and stands by them. We also remember the women of war and the exodus, the freedom fighters and the mothers who kept their families alive in the most difficult days,” said Acting President Haxhiu.
Acting President Haxhiu said that our freedom also has friends that we should not forget, and they are among us today.
“We thank the North Atlantic Alliance and the countries that intervened to stop Serbia’s genocide in Kosovo, led by the United States of America. We thank Albania, which, during the most difficult year for our people, opened its doors, homes and hearts to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The presence of the President of Albania, Mr. Bajram Begaj here today, proves what we all know: the freedom of Kosovo is a shared joy of the entire Albanian nation, emphasized Acting President Haxhiu
At the conclusion of her address, Acting President Haxhiu said that the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo are now working with the utmost dedication to have an even stronger, even more just and even more dignified state.
