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Ditari i Opozitës

Berisha speaks with Rugova's scarf around his neck: He was a missionary! He chose the peaceful path to defeat a regime

Politiko 2025-03-24 19:51:20

Berisha speaks with Rugova's scarf around his neck: He was a missionary! He

Speaking at the promotion ceremony of author Adnan Merovci's books about 'Ibrahim Rugova', the leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, said that he was not only a leader, but a missionary.

'Rugova was not only a visionary leader, but he was the only politician who was as much a leader as he was a missionary,' Berisha emphasized in his speech.

Berisha : Dear Adnan, dear Avni, dear Genc, Edit, my friends here, I feel excited, but also infinitely grateful to the man who did not leave President Ibrahim Rugova at every moment of his life, to the man who followed him at every step of his life, Adnan Merovci.
Dear friends, Ibrahim Rugova is, in my estimation, an Albanian genius in European politics and in world politics.
He is an unrepeatable genius.
The descendant of a patriotic family.
A first-class intellectual.
He is engaged in the issue of his nation and country.
In a genius way, he chooses a path completely foreign to Albanians.
Foreign to most nations of the world. He chooses the peaceful path to defeat an invasion.
Nations, in response to invasions, have either submitted or faced armed confrontation.
Ibrahim Rugova chose neither the first nor the second, but chose peaceful resistance, with which he pushed the walls of time.
With which he, in the most amazing way, let's call it the Rugova miracle, he achieved that a project, which apart from him, apart from the Albanians, I don't remember a second one to support, to support, to leave aside folklore, the independence of Kosovo was supported by no one, except him.
Imagine for a moment fighting alone and everyone against.
But again, he stood.
Why stood? Because he had made a brilliant choice, he had made the peaceful choice.
And I will tell you here in 1992, as president, I met in Istanbul, Konstantin Mitsotakis, who had shown a lot of sympathy for the democratic forces in Serbia, but since the Balkans were being reformed with wars, he had a different attitude towards Milosevic than the others.
And I tell him in Istanbul, I tell him that you should meet Ibrahim Rugova.
Why meet him, he told me.
Meet him because he represents 2 million Albanians and you found someone else who represents them, don't meet him. But, as long as you are interested in developments, they should also have their voice and be heard.
He felt it, he didn't say either yes or no.
Then I tell him, yes he is peaceful, he really doesn't like the project, but you can't reject his position. You are right, he told me. And he is the first prime minister to have received President Rugova. He called him and met him in Thessaloniki.
During the war, Tirana behaved badly with President Rugova.
Belgrade was understandable.
In the fall of 1992 or the fall, Cyrus Wenz and Lord Owen come to Tirana and ask me to convince Rugova to participate in the elections that are taking place in Kosovo.
I tell them, I am not asking such a thing of President Rugova. And they immediately, as they had prejudiced, told me why I didn't want it.
I don't ask, because even if he tells the citizens of Kosovo, they won't participate in the elections. The result is that we won't have a leader like him to talk to. What's the point of the international community devaluing a figure like him?
In the end, they weren't convinced, but in the end I told them, let me give you a suggestion, why don't you go to Pristina and meet Rugova yourself, he's a pacifist, he's an intellectual.
Okay, they said.
And they went, Milosevic played a trick on them, they were very shocked.
What remained in their minds was the meeting with Rugova. They were amazed by the meeting with President Rugova.
They came back and told me that you were very right and they also explained to me the cruelty they had experienced at the hands of Milosevic's gangs.
Rugova was not only a visionary leader, but he was the only politician who, as much as he was a leader, was also a missionary.