For this anniversary, she revisited part of the speech she delivered last year in honor of the holiday.

“America did not save our lives through empty phrases, historical lectures or pointless debates, but through action and resolve,” Osmani said.

“When some hesitated and hid behind speeches, America acted. When some hid behind interpretations of the law, America acted. When some invoked historical friendship with Serbia, America acted.”

Osmani said that Kosovo’s freedom bears American traces at every step, from the lives saved to the building of institutions.

“When some feared the political cost, America acted on principles, on human values, and once again became the moral compass of all humanity.”

“To stand by us, America acted with planes, with helicopters, with bombs against our enemies, and with American sons and daughters who risked their lives so that our lives could be saved. America acted with funds, with human resources, with expertise, with everything, so that today we can be the state that we are: free, independent, sovereign, democratic.”

“Our freedom has American traces everywhere. In the lives saved, in the institutions built, in every line of the Declaration of Independence, in every recognition of that independence, in every success and every achievement.”

According to Osmani, Kosovo’s February 17 and the US July 4 carry the same meaning, as both represent freedom built on sacrifice and alliances.

“Therefore, when America asks for action from Kosovo, we must respond in the same way it responded to us when we needed it most: with action, with resolve, with support, with friendship. Because a true friend is known in difficult days.”

“Both February 17 and July 4 symbolize the same thing: freedom.”

“A freedom built on sacrifice and alliances. An alliance that will live as long as the state of Kosovo: forever!”

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In the statement published afterward, the embassy highlighted the presence of the participants and stressed that the atmosphere created turned the celebration into a special event.

“Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday at the American Embassy in Pristina to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s Independence! Your presence made this historic celebration truly special,” the Embassy’s statement said.

The embassy also shared some of the evening’s key moments and invited participants to share their memories and photos from the celebration.

“Enjoy some of the evening’s highlights and share your favorite moments using #Liria250. #250Dita e Pavarësisë,” the statement further said.

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He stressed that the citizens of Kosovo were deprived of freedom and fundamental rights for a long period, while US assistance, according to him, was decisive in the journey toward freedom and independence.

Kurti expressed Kosovo’s continuing gratitude to the United States for its support, partnership and irreplaceable alliance.

In his post, Kurti wrote: “250 years!”

He mentioned that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are singled out in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, among the inalienable rights, as the basis of government established with the consent of the people.

According to him, while the civilized world has been inspired by these values, the people of Kosovo were deprived of them for a very long time. He underlined that Kosovo’s experience is unique, because for our country the realization of these values and rights is closely linked to the United States.

Kurti added that American assistance naturally joined the persistence and sacrifice of the people of Kosovo for freedom and independence.

He also said that last night he was honored to take part in the marking of US Independence Day at the American embassy in the capital of the Republic of Kosovo, reiterating that Kosovo is always thankful and grateful to the United States for its help, partnership and irreplaceable alliance.

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In Pristina, the U.S. Embassy has placed a large American flag on its premises as part of the symbolic gestures leading up to the celebration of this anniversary.

On the occasion of this important jubilee for the American state, the Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo, Anu Prattipati, is expected to host a ceremonial reception.

Activities marking this anniversary have also been announced at the local level in the capital.

Pristina Mayor Përparim Rama has announced that on July 2, under the patronage of the capital, the event “America and Kosova – A Freedom Story for the Next 250 Years” will be held.

According to the announcement, this activity will begin at 10:00 and will be dedicated to the history of freedom, partnership, and friendship between the United States of America and Kosovo, as well as inter-institutional cooperation between the two countries.

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He recalls that Milosevic’s speech that day opened the chapter of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, while Ibrahim Rugova’s response, published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, signaled the failure of Serbian policies.

According to Buxhovi, the historical conclusion of this confrontation was Kosovo’s liberation and the declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, although, as he stresses, Serbian clerical fascism continues to try to keep the Kosovo myth alive through the marking of Vidovdan.

Full text:

THE FABRICATED MYTH OF KOSOVO, SERBIAN CLERICAL FASCISM, AND THE STATE OF KOSOVO…

Thirty-seven years ago, at Gazimestan, before a Serbian crowd of one million people, Milosevic, with the declaration that “after six centuries, we again find ourselves in battles and before battles. They are not armed battles, although such things should not be excluded yet,” opened the bloody chapter of the destruction of Yugoslavia, with tragic consequences for its peoples.

That day, at the Gazimestan platform, before the disintegrating Yugoslav presidency and the eyes of a world bewildered by what was happening to Tito’s legacy, the Serbian “vozhd” was promoted, reincarnated from Lazar of Kosovo to restore “Serbian historical glory” and, as was said, “the mission of the Serbs to defend European civilization” (understood to mean from the Albanians, the occupiers of Serbia’s holy lands)!

At the same time, somewhere near Gazimestan, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, then chairman of the Kosovo Writers’ Association, in a historic interview for the German magazine Der Spiegel, among the very few, in the name of the intellectual, historical, cultural, and political conscience, although without its mandate, responded to Milosevic’s threats against Albanians and others at the clerical-fascist celebration of Serbian Vidovdan.

In short, Dr. Rugova’s response to Milosevic, in what was then the most influential German and European weekly, was that on March 23 of that year, Milosevic, with tanks and under a state of emergency, destroyed Kosovo’s autonomy as a federal unit. By doing so, he staged a coup against the Yugoslav constitution. This act is seen by Albanians as the reoccupation of Kosovo, after that of 1945. On this occasion, Rugova warned the Serbs that “whenever a small people, and the Serbs are such a people, have tried to impose hegemony in the Balkans, they have ended tragically.”

Thus, the Serbian clerical-fascist orgy of June 1989 ended exactly as Dr. Rugova had predicted in the German magazine. But from today’s historical perspective, Gazimestan brought to the fore two of its most important actors, who marked eras in opposite directions.

On one side was Milosevic, its loser, who in 2003, as president of the Yugoslav remnant, ended up at the International Tribunal in The Hague for war crimes against humanity, where he also died during the trial in 2006.

On the other side was Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, the historic leader of the Albanians, who, with the founding of the LDK on December 23, 1989, and with the mandate of the free vote from the presidential and parliamentary elections of 1992 and 1998, took on the historic responsibility of active institutional peaceful resistance, with the parallel state, up to the armed one, which brought NATO’s military intervention from March 24 to June 10, 1999.

It can be said that the history between the demystification of the fabricated Serbian myth of Kosovo for hegemonistic aims and Kosovo’s liberation from it, with the epilogue of the independent state of Kosovo declared on February 17, 2008, had the beginning of its end on June 28, 1989, in Gazimestan.

Nevertheless, this extraordinary historical leap has left behind the spirit of Serbian clerical fascism, which on every Vidovdan tries to keep alive in Kosovo the medieval myth of “Kosovo as Serbia’s historic cradle,” even though reality, the state of Kosovo, and the Western orientation of the Albanians have rendered it obsolete to the point of anachronism!

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