Eduard Kukan, head of the Delegation for Balkan at the European
Parliament, and rapporteur for Albania, Nicola Vuljanic, appealed for
justice, for the 4 victims of January 21st.
They say that they will keep raising their voice and that those who are responsible need to be punished.
“There is no compromise for this issue. Albania needs a fresh start, a new beginning”, Vuljanic underlined.
Meanwhile, Kukan added that the relatives of the four victims should never stop looking for justice, regardless of the majority that leads the country.
“I feel sad, I feel very humanely touched, because that is an issue that caused dead people, killed in the streets. This is something that always causes strong feelings within me. One from the human point of view, and the other one, something as a reminder to my consciousness for something which was not finished. In the sense that before I have said many times that until all these events are not properly investigated with all the consequences coming from this objective investigation, we cannot consider it as resolved. You can never resolve the loss of a human life, but at least, those who are responsible should take responsibility. So, that is a negative reminder to me as a politician, but this has not been done as yet”, Kukan declared.
Vuljanoc, a rapporteur for Albania at the European Parliament, declared: “It is completely the same whether we are talking about four people or 4000 people, or even 40.000 people. People were killed because they came on the streets and said what they wanted, and that is unforgivable. Someone has to pay for that. This is above the line of decent thinking. It simply cannot happen in a normal country and should be punished. There are no compromises there, as there are no compromises with stealing and corruption. No compromises. An official who is corrupted cannot come to a private attorney or president and say ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing.’ You cannot do it if you are in the public office. The same thing goes about these killings. Something that should not have happened but has happened and somebody is to blame. I don’t know who. I’m not a Prosecutor or a policeman. Prosecutors and Police officers should find out who is guilty, but somebody is, because people are dead. They have that. They cannot say ‘I don’t know who’. This is the reason why the state exists. To protect people who cannot protect themselves. I don’t need the state to protect me, because I know how to protect myself. But I need the state to protect people who cannot protect themselves. Who are not publicly exposed, who are not clever, intelligent, who are not talkative, but just normal people”.
TCH: Mr.Vuljaniç, as an European politician you have meet with Prime Minister Edi Rama and his coalition partner, the Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta, but not with the relatives of the victims of the January 21st victims, who still have their eyes turned to the European Parliament. What do you suggest to them? What should they expect from you?
Nikola Vuljanic: The European Parliament cannot do anything in this matter. What we can do here is raise our voices, and I am completely prepared to raise my voice to clear this matter, not only because of the families. Because of the families, of course, but not only because of the families. But because of the fact that the country needs a clean started. This is zero, and OK, let’s start from there. All bad people get punished. Beautiful, now let’s start. This is something that should be done. Any country should do this. You cannot simply skip it and say this is not important. It doesn’t work. You push it under the carpet, it jumps out sometime when it is not expected.”
Eduart Kukan: “Those families should not give up, whatever government is in Tirana and in Albania. It is a just cause they are facing. They should keep reminding us, they should appeal to us, because we are also responsible for that. Not directly, but we are cooperating with Albania, we are having a dialogue and we should remind them how this issue should be resolved in the European Union member states, and Albania has to prepare for that. Those people who have really suffered, must go on. I want to encourage them and encourage us, because in the end they will get what they deserve”.
TCH: Since you feel part of the responsibility, and since this mandate is coming to an end, what are your regrets for what you have done or not, on which you should focus in the remaining months until May?
Eduart Kukan: I don’t think that I have any guilty feelings that I didn’t achieve something. Of course, we can do more. But I tried to be as active and objective. It didn’t bring the results which I was expecting. That is the problem, and it applies not only to Albania but to other countries in the region as well. Because we really invested a lot of energy, a lot of personal sympathies, not only rational duty of a politician, but also personal, because I really feel a friend of Albania and I regretted very much the lost time on the way to the European Union, and if I come back, I will try really to compensate for that and to be really instrumental on that.”
Prepared by: Arta TOZAJ, Brussels
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