The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, reacted to the Vetëvendosje Movement, which a day earlier had mentioned his name for a “change of stance” regarding the Special Court in The Hague, as reported by KosovaPress.
“Before protesting, these actors and politicians should at least show a minimum of repentance for their wrong positions in the past. A clear example is the current Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, who even came to Kosovo on an emergency visit by helicopter to convince the parties here to vote in favor of establishing this Court,” stated a post by Vetëvendosje a day earlier, to which the Albanian Prime Minister responded that it shows the movement has confused Kosovo’s institutional relations with Albania.
Through a statement on “X”, Rama said all this happens “in the stew of municipal run-offs.”
“I am not in any kind of race with the Movement, and I regret that the Movement confuses Kosovo’s institutional relations with Albania in the stew of municipal run-offs. As for the positions from 10 years ago, when it did not even know Kosovo’s anthem, let alone the innocence of Hashim Thaçi, whom it would have loved to see in The Hague forever, I remind the Movement that the Special Court was established for organ trafficking, not to hold the President of the Republic of Kosovo hostage,” he wrote.
While stating that he supports the protest to be held tomorrow in Tirana to demand justice for former UÇK commanders in The Hague, Rama implied that he would not attend the protest.
“And finally, I am neither the organizer nor a speaker of the nationwide protest ‘Justice for the Liberators,’ which I fully support and would have joined as a simple participant if I were not aware that any politicization, whether intentional or not, of that initiative would harm its purpose and popularity,” he wrote.
The protest in Tirana is organized by the Organization of Veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army (OVL-UÇK). Yesterday, during a press conference, they announced that over 60 buses would depart from Kosovo. The participation of the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has also been confirmed for this protest.
Another protest was held in The Hague on September 14, a day before the first hearing of the defense witness, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin. The protest took place near the Special Court building, with around 10,000 Albanians from around the world participating. Likewise, the Organization of Veterans of the UÇK had gathered former fighters and other citizens in Pristina on August 7 for a protest against what they consider to be injustices committed by the Special Court.
