Spring of KLA's Great Loneliness

It says: Ismail Syla

1

After 22 years, the Kosovo Liberation Army era is being marked without the possibility of honour in the tomb of martyrs in Prekaz by four major and important figures in Kosovo's new history. Without the honours of Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

2.

These names stand behind bars of an absurd prison, with the only blame -- that they committed themselves to Kosovo's freedom and independence, that their work and vision overturned Belgrade's dream of ruling Kosovo forever. Their goal and that of many generations before them supported the most democratic part of the world.

3.

These names remind you of the 40th anniversary of the 1981 Grand Spring, when a wave of arrests and imprisonments began following demonstrations that became the inevitable platform towards realisation of the Republic of Kosovo for some 20 years. Each of the four decades has their own profile, already in half a story.

4.

Names standing behind bars in The Hague today will have the status of Albanian political prisoners internationally. They are currently in their greatest loneliness. Nothing is the closed door, nor the effect of the pandemic on the virus, nor the inability to visit family members, as is their institutional abandonment.

5.

The prison's names in The Hague remember the position of Kosovo Liberation Army in summer and autumn 1998, when Serbia was given green light to destroy KLA. As damaged and traumad at the time, the Liberation Army was not broken, Serbia failed to destroy it. The KLA summoned itself and emerged as the winner of the freedom fight.

6.

The prison names are at the height of their loneliness. There is no parliament, no government has no Kosovo presidency that protects them. There are no NGOs, nor national and international organisations, who raise their voices to protect them with seriousness and dignity (excluding associations derived from the war, as they say with a zhargonic expression).

7.

Names that today cannot pay tribute to the tomb of Legendary Commander Adem Jashari, the graves of numerous Jashares and others for Kosovo's freedom and independence, as did the Kosovo Liberation Army that survived the summer offensives and autumn 1998, will face the current great loneliness and triumphs.