Prime Minister Edi Rama’s address at today’s parliament session
Today we have been invited to this motion for debate based on a draft resolution filed with the Assembly of Albania and that popped up from the very same seemingly patriotic chimney, right after the Kosovo Assembly resolution on the tragic killing of a police officer, the late Afrim Bunjaku, by a Serbian criminal gang that committed terrorism in the north of the Republic of Kosovo.
The Kosovo Assembly has not only the right, but it is also its duty to adopt resolutions of such a nature, directed to the allied powers and international bodies that the Republic of Kosovo has yet to join in.
I would like to ask: Whom the DP-sponsored resolution can direct to, given that Albania is a NATO member state, a candidate country negotiating its EU membership, a country holding a seat at the United Nations Security Council and all the institutional communication with the democratic world, and its embassies to all international bodies?
Which NATO or EU member states would adopt such resolutions directed to the world and the organizations in the Euro-Atlantic community, while they are members of this community themselves, and what’s the goal of such initiative except for a seemingly patriotic propaganda for local political gains?
Such proposed resolutions appear all of a sudden as firewood to fuel the fireplace of anti-government propaganda, sometimes as an extension of the claws of the crisis in Kosovo north and sometimes as part of the most detestable daily political rhetoric by referring to the Milosevic’s victims in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, even by referring to the victims of communist dictator Enver Hoxha’s victims in a bid to fight the government in the 21st century parliament.
In which planet should we look for in order to accommodate this category of motions for debate and with preceding fights like that of the barricades in the last parliament session, when charges of treason and traitors were leveled?
It is impossible to direct to the democratic world!
Fortunately, but also very unfortunately for whole Albania, the world which all this gust of extreme political desperation come from, belongs to planet other than ours and which has been called by its true name recently
The Planet Non-Grata!
Such a world has been named after the source of old evil that has infected and contaminated the Albanian politics and has atrophied the organism of a part of it to the point of no return, with its loss of logic, vision, hearing, whilst the planet in question constantly emits toxic waste into the air, through shrill, hoarse and delirious voices …
However, we can’t protect the health of our parliamentary democracy from being harmed by the poisons being emitted here in the name of free speech.
We can just only say our word, as we will do today in respect of the regulation of the Assembly, which forces us to take part in such a parliamentary debate that everybody knows how, who and why it has been put forward.
After all, this is the occasion for me to broadly and bluntly elaborate on his truths about Kosovo, at the crossroads between the past and the future, certainly starting with the criminal aggression in Banjska, which triggered the claws of crisis in Kosovo north to open, again grabbing stronger than ever before the throat of the normalization dialogue and eventual state recognition for the Republic of Kosovo.
The news about the murder of the Kosovo police officer in the line of duty was like a bomb exploding with its full shocking power of an unequivocal signal of the escalation of the conflict on that scene, where the tension has been simmering for a long time now, systematically reversing the normalization dialogue process between Kosovo and Serbia and lit the old lamp of the Balkan crisis in eyes of the democratic world.
The end of that event was exemplary thanks to the professional actions by the Kosovo security forces that didn’t fall into the trap set up by the attack organizers, but professionally neutralized and prevented the conflict from spreading further by responding in the best and fairest possible way to the evil provocation by the Serbian criminal gang.
Whilst the epilogue, the Belgrade’s decision to declare national day of mourning for the criminals gunned down by the Kosovo security forces was the living embodiment of the shadow of the past that coexists with Serbia since its ultimate defeat in 1999 in Kosovo, like the shadow that haunts a person everywhere upon sunrise.
How did Albania react through the Albanian government to that criminal event, as tragic for the loss of life of an honest and completely innocent servant of the state of Kosovo, as significant for the risk of a further escalation of the conflict in the north of Kosovo?
For the first time in at least the last 10 years, Albania didn’t align with the European Union’s statement.
That statement was mainly about Kosovo and its obligations in the dialogue process and there was almost no reference to Serbia at all.
Although the truth is that its approval by the 27 member countries procedurally coincided immediately after the serious event of the murder of the Kosovo policeman and the declaration of national mourning in Belgrade for the criminals and this was not reflected in the statement approved prior to the incident. We didn’t oppose the statement itself, as Kosovo should definitely reflect about the critics and the requests forwarded by Brussels and Washington. However, it is unacceptable that the declaration was released as if nothing else had happened.
Nothing else had happened but something very big, at least in my memory, the most serious event in Kosovo-Serbia relations since 1999.
To make matters worse, the criminal offence was followed by Belgrade’s unacceptable official decision to declare national day of mourning.
I would like to make it clear for everyone wishing to listen that non-alignment with the European Union’s foreign policy is not merely a word, but it is a decision made a candidate country currently negotiating its accession to the European Union and which is preparing to open one of the negotiation chapters specifically on the foreign policy in the coming weeks. It is not definitely an act of heroism, yet it will be recorded as an act of political discordance in the documents about our ties with Brussels.
It was a manifestation of constructive discordance to send a clear message how critically the serious incident may impact the common normalization efforts through regional cooperation dialogue.
Kosovo’s self-weakened diplomatic position in the eyes of the United States of America too, as well as Serbia’s diplomatic self-victimization exactly in the very same eyes thanks to the political gifts so generously granted due to official Pristina’s mistakes in the dialogue process significantly hinder the effort on our part, which we have kept making in every possible instance and circumstance.
The trouble is that both in Tirana and in Pristina there are some who do not wish to realize that today’s Albania is no longer yesterday’s one in the international arena. If we are on a par in any instances and circumstances, this is because we are being hailed for the dignity and clearance we demonstrate through words and deeds, and we are regularly consulted by all stakeholders in the Euro-Atlantic community regarding the regional issues, we are valued as a serious country, which is entrusted with important roles at the main international gatherings (most recently, just two days ago we saw Albania’s election to the UN Human Rights Council among only 15 candidate countries in the world).
We are also being asked to host main Euro-Atlantic summits here in Albania – something totally unimaginable just a few years ago – and this is not because I wear sneakers at international summits and not because those who trust us have no idea about what they are doing and because there is no other country or place where they can gather.
This happens just because we have taken Albania’s foreign policy to a whole new level, we have taken our state’s position to a new high in the region and we have made the country’s long-standing role as a factor of regional peace and stability to shine stronger as a decent and responsible member of the Euro-Atlantic community, pretty active in defending its national interest and the strategic interest of peace, stability and progress in this region.
The difference however is that until lately Albania was just a passive factor in peace and stability, while it has now become the most active factor in regional peace and stability. And this certainly hasn’t gone noticed and it is increasingly becoming more obvious and more respected by the international community.
Our strategic interest in an ultimate peace serving security, economic and social progress of the entire Balkan space is fully compatible either with our national interest or with the strategic interest of the great democratic community, where Albania has the honor to be a part of and where Albania cannot any way afford thinking of playing double games. Never!
Kosovo now faces risk of losing the historic chance the country is being offered under the Franco-German Plan so that it can make an incredible and the most meaningful progress in its diplomatic war with Serbia, as it is losing lost day by day – and this is only because of its refusal to establish the Association of Municipalities – the trust and respect of those who recognized it as an independent state and who are committed to leading it to the final recognition by everyone as an independent republic of the great community of UN member states.
Albin Kurti is a closer friend of mine than Ramush Haradinaj, with whom, at some point of my journey, I have been involved in a personal conflict, when he used to serve as Prime Minister of Kosovo.
On the contrary, I have never had a personal issue with Albin (Kurti) and, not only that, but it is always a pleasure to discuss and engage in a conversation with him.
However, I and the current Kosovo Prime Minister have viewpoint divergences, we differ on the ways how to achieve our national common goal. Therefore, the friendly relationship has not hindered me to express the divergences with previous prime ministers and this is inextricably related to my duty as Prime Minister of Albania.
Likewise, the fact that my friendship with Ramush was broken at some point it cannot prevent me from publicly expressing right here my greatest disgust or contempt about a propaganda video commissioned and distributed most recently via the keyboards of digital civil war, with Ramush being shown clinking his glass with the representatives of the Serbian List at a cocktail party and was lambasted by the trolls of the supposedly patriotic brainwashing!
Having said that, I am obliged to inform parliament today that the line of strategic action of Albania’s foreign policy in the region has not been faltered due to the most recent crisis in Kosovo, nor my feeling of kinship and responsibility for Kosovo as inseparable part of our homeland has not been faltered at this stage of risk to lose peace after winning the war, higher than ever before over all these years, also due to the increased Russia’s actions against the region’s stability, and the risk of escalating weapons by fueling the conflict in the north.
Such irrational rages and furies cannot alter also the strategic line of the pragmatist approach towards Serbia that like it or not we are condemned to accept it as our neighbor on the other side of the mountains, but we are also obliged to see it through the eyes of our national security, common future in the very same neighborhood of Europe, and through the eyes of the regional cooperation among the neighbors in this very neighborhood, just like we are asked and committed to do under the Berlin Process. I would like to just remind you of the fact that the Berlin Process enjoys Kosovo government’s enthusiastic support and that the next Berlin Process Summit will for the first time ever take place outside the EU borders in Tirana next week, and it is not a coincidence at all that the Summit is going to be held in Tirana, exactly in the place where, according to the electoral patriots, the Berlin Process was undermined. Yet it was the Germans who came using some anti-mine devices and they failed to detect any of them and they said we are going to hold the Summit here, because it is the best place to host the Berlin Process in the region.
We haven’t backtracked from telling Serbia openly and decisively everything Albania has to tell Serbia in the eyes of the whole world, just like we did in the wake of the Banjska criminal act.
Albania doesn’t help Kosovo by supporting it when Kosovo’s leadership exposes the inescapable weakness in the geopolitical chessboard, when resorting to a position governed by the domestic political need.
Albania is a state with its increasingly consolidated position to defend the Albanians interests, the interests of all Albanians – I assure you of this – who have never enjoyed a better and stronger protection than today’s Albania and Albania stands no chance of becoming a scapegoat of the daily politics, including Kosovo that can weaken our international position, our position in the geopolitical chessboard of the region and the Euro-Atlantic community.
Hence, these frenzies of blind patriotism, which historically since long ago, in fact, have provided our nation’s enemies with long-standing arguments that Albanians lack state-building skills, just make my sympathy stronger for those who, in fact – and I would like you to listen this carefully – I don’t go in different direction of this aspect of our foreign policy neither because of Serbia nor because of “brother Vucic” or because of “the capture by Vucic,” or the readiness to strongly condemn any condemnable action by the Serbian side, but it is because of a as simple understandable reason for everyone wishing to understand it, as serious for not to be taken seriously. I am going in a different direction because of Albania as a long-standing example of peace and stability in the region and because of the strategic interest of the whole Albanian nation, as the most favored nation in the region over all these years, with Albanians being best represented and respected more than ever before. Like never before in their history, Albanians here in Albania, but also in Kosovo, North Macedonia and elsewhere have their destiny in their own hands. Our fate is no longer decided by others and it doesn’t lie on the others’ hand how to take our national interests forward by becoming stronger, more reliable and by becoming more respectable internationally, by in no way letting the past dictate and decide our effort for the future and by not forgetting for a single minute as long as we continue taking over to represent this country. And this nation has best succeeded over all these years, not due to the heroic isolation from the Euro-Atlantic community, but thanks to the strong ties, steady cooperation and interaction. Whoever thinks otherwise, good luck!
The latter doesn’t imply that we are silent puppets of our big allies and that we lack the dignity by doing and delivering on everything we are asked to do by our partners for everything they say and everything they demand from us, as it was the case until latterly with those who used to represent Albania in the international relations. This also doesn’t imply that we shouldn’t raise our voice anytime the word and the voice of Albanians should be heard wherever it be and it should be heard. How am I supposed to consider you seriously? How are the majority of Albanians supposed to seriously consider the excitement of electoral patriotism both in Tirana and in Pristina, when they are exactly the same?
They are exactly the ones who not only abandoned in his lifetime the political leader of the liberation war, the post-war Kosovo Prime Minister and President as he is fighting the ultimate battle in The Hague for the honor and the glorious history of the Kosovo Liberation Army, but also, although absent and with his hands tied and his mouth closed, they treacherously and savagely insult him with the whip of a scandalous populism through social media and television channels portraying him as the head of evil, crime and theft in Kosovo, according to these means that are disgraceful for history of free Kosovo, for the institutions of the democratic Kosovo, for consciousness of a state still in the making that cannot play tricks at a time when it should be built first.
It sounds as if Kosovo has yet to be liberated from Serbia, but these videos, messages and comments diabolically imply that just like “Kosovo was liberated from Hashim (Thaçi) it will be also liberated from Serbia.” This is perfidious disloyalty and it is not just disloyalty to those who are currently standing trial in The Hague. They are standing trial in The Hague because they lead the army that brought the freedom of speech and pluralism in Kosovo, but it is perfidious disloyalty to the entire new generation in Kosovo that haven’t experienced the war and that can enjoy today’s freedom thanks to their contribution. However, the new generation can easily fall prey to the mind-manipulation clichés as they are not properly informed and are taken away by the mind boggling whirl of the social media, where young people rock like a boat on the waves of the Kardashian family’s fabulous life and primitive quarrels of Albanian political families.
Those who forwarded the draft-resolution, which was the cause for this motion for debate, and that regularly propose such draft resolutions at least once a year even to raise from the dead the whole army of the communism victims in order to fight the communist dictatorship, I would like to curiously know whether they can tell us why they haven’t propose a draft resolution to call on the democratic world to look into the source from where the trial processes were launched against Hashim Thaçi and three other former KLA commanders, as well as to monitor how the sacred democratic principle of presumption of innocence is being respected in that process and the fundamental right to fair process? I know why the governing majority hasn’t forwarded such a resolution itself and won’t propose such a resolution. This is why!
Just imagine as if a guilty verdict – God forbid it – is rendered by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers about the KLA’s top political leadership as if it were the supreme command of a regular fascist army that has committed war crimes. Such a ruling could become an argument to inspire, encourage, orchestrate and indefinitely hamper Kosovo’s international subjectivity formation and such a decision would give us all sleepless nights. Should there be an “if” here. If we really want abandon the efforts to achieve our main common goal and pass it on to the future generation as a heavy burden on their shoulders, God knows what more troubles could trigger this endless delay of a final solution of the Kosovo-Serbia issue, because I happen to hear some “wiser men”, who say: “No worries, we can spend 100 more years without reaching peace with Serbia”, which would mean 100 more years without fully shaping Kosovo’s international subjectivity. Are you serious?!
There could be no beast worse than man when he loses reason and there could be nothing more ferocious than a hateful flea in the body of humans. Hashim Thaçi is definitely an eagle that even inside the Hague’s cage still troubles many political heads or politicized Albanian heads that think cheaply about how they can win the diplomatic war with Serbia that was defeated with weapons and diplomatic wisdom for almost a quarter of a century by Hashim Thaçi and his friends, who mobilized whole world with the fire of their rifles.
I am very sorry but thanks God we don’t need to obtain permission, and we don’t actually ask for permission from nobody to support the cause of the final Kosovo’s recognition anywhere and anytime we can do so through persistence, wisdom and awareness about the time we are all living in, when history is no longer written through slogans by looking at the past, but through strategic action and with eyes set on the future. And of course this can be achieved with each and every one of us hand in hand with the very same allies, who together with the KLA men and men wrote the history of Kosovo’s victory and freedom with the guns of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the bombs thrown over the head of the Belgrade’s regime that was the big calamity for Kosovo.
I haven’t chosen Serbia’s president. We Albanians haven’t elected and will never be able elect Serbia’s president, just like – as far as I know – God didn’t ask us the Albanians when He settled Serbs next to us and I don’t think God would change His mind if we were to ask Him to change mind and remove Serbs from there.
We are here, while they are there and the future lies ahead of us, just like the past is now behind us and them too. We know what we have done in the past. We know how much we have gained in the past and we know what we should do in the future. That’s why I have been meeting and I will keep meeting the president of Serbia anytime I deem it necessary, either here in Tirana, in Belgrade or in other capitals when such an opportunity is granted, because this way I best serve the interest of both Albania and Kosovo.
Albanians should fight for the ultimate peace in the region and Albania should play its role not simply as part of the Balkans in Europe, but it should play its role as a part of Europe in the Balkans. Kosovo should sit side by side with Albania in the United Nations and in all tables of the Euro-Atlantic community. Albania should do its part for Kosovo and for regional peace. This is what the country is doing and will keep doing.
We will fight to bring as close as possible the future that Albanians have been denied of over centuries and not to keep it open so that we can stick the finger of the voter in the wounds of the past.
We will fight through strategy and diplomatic skills together with as many allies and partners as possible, through clear messages rather than through tension strategies, with our backs turned by our allies and with the illusion that we are indispensable for the democratic world, without which we wouldn’t have made such unimaginable progress as Albanians, wherever we live, reside, elect and be elected in this region, and we would never be able to make the progress we owe to all the children of this nation, to whom we should not pass on conflicts and bequests of war with enemies, but peace!
Concluding, we on this side of the hall, the three-time elected majority in this Assembly, know pretty well what we say, what we do and what we want, just like we do know why we are the majority, since you have yet to realize that you are a minority although you still think to be a majority. You win while we govern and therefore you would either vote our resolution, the simple one, which is not directed to the planet and is not based on the presumption that we are the centre of the world and therefore the whole world should read our parliament’s resolution. On the contrary, the resolution is directed to the people, our institutions on both sides of the border. In the meantime, you can vote your resolutions in the assemblies of your seven political parties and factions and once you find the party’s stamp you can put the stamp what you would agree upon.
We will just adopt this resolution and fully align with the Assembly of Kosovo in a sign of solidarity and we will vote how our government should further continue its efforts and on what we would friendly urge the government of Kosovo in the non-negotiable efforts for the final peace, the indisputable security and the future that cannot be delayed for 100 more years for Albanians on both sides of the mountains.
