Bill Clinton: “To the people of Albania, on behalf of all the American people, I want to express our gratitude for the courageous stand…”

“To the people of Albania, on behalf of all the American people, I want to express our gratitude for the courageous stand you have taken for peace, tolerance, and freedom in southeastern Europe. And I want to pledge my support for your own efforts to build a strong and prosperous democracy. This spring, when Mr. Milosevic launched his bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, no country bore a greater burden than Albania, and no country did more to help humanity prevail. You opened your skies to the NATO aircraft that brought this nightmare to an end. You opened your ports and your airfields to the troops and aid workers who came here to help the refugees. And most important, you opened your homes and your hearts to more than 300,000 victims of ethnic cleansing, giving them shelter and food and hope, even though your own country still faces enormous challenges. History will record that one of the greatest acts of barbarity Europe has seen in this century was defeated with the help of one of the greatest acts of compassion we have seen. The whole world knows what you have done in the last several months. And we also know that you have done it while struggling to overcome perhaps the most cruel legacy of isolation and repression of any of Europe's formerly Communist states. We still have much work to do. We have to work together to get the Kosovar refugees back to their homes safely. We'll have to keep helping those who must remain a while longer in Albania.…”