Dr Lec Gradica’s daughter at the protest: We are not asking for privilege, we are asking for justice

At the protest held in a Pristina square under the motto “Not in my name”, against the Specialist Court’s judgment on the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a speech was also given by Lavdie Gradica, the daughter of the fallen wartime doctor, Dr Lec Gradica.

In her speech, Gradica spoke about her father, who during the war served as a doctor and was engaged in treating the wounded. She recounted her parents’ engagement during 1998 and the founding of the Gradica Military Hospital, where, she said, many wounded were treated during the war.

“As proud as I feel to speak before you about the most glorious part of our history, that is how much pain I feel that, so many years after the KLA’s glorious war, as a people we are still struggling to prove to the world that the sons and daughters of this land, who took up arms to defend our lands, to defend our lives and to bring us freedom, are innocent,” she said.

Gradica said her father, Lec Gradica, answered the call to serve during the war, describing his mission as humane and patriotic.

According to her account, during the spring of 1998 her parents stayed in Gradica, where they served KLA soldiers and the population of that area.

“My father was a doctor in the war. He was there to save the lives of the wounded, to help people and to serve his people. My father, too, like many freedom-lovers and white-coats, answered the homeland’s call from the time of illegality, without batting an eye,” she said.

She said that, because of the growing number of wounded, her father undertook the founding of the Gradica Military Hospital.

“My father, seeing that the needs grew day by day, undertook and founded the Gradica Military Hospital, a hospital in which many wounds of freedom were healed,” Gradica declared.

According to her, Lec Gradica continued to serve in the Qyqavica mountains until his fall on September 24, 1998.

Gradica also spoke about her mother, recounting the loss of two of her family members during the war.

“I grew up with the absence and the pain of a family that lost its father figure. But I also grew up with the pride that he chose to be where Kosovo needed him most,” she said.

Referring to the judgment on the former KLA leaders in The Hague, Gradica said the families of the martyrs and their supporters will not allow, she said, the history of the war to be rewritten or distorted.

“Seeing that today in The Hague people who are part of the history of our KLA war have been convicted, we will not allow this judgment to be validated and this history to be rewritten or distorted. We respect justice. But justice must be just,” she said.

She also addressed the former KLA leaders who are in The Hague, saying they are not alone.

“Today, from this square, I want to tell those who are in The Hague: you are not alone. Behind you are the families of those who sacrificed themselves, behind you are the children who grew up without their parents, behind you are thousands of people and the whole freedom-loving people who remembers the KLA’s war and the sacrifice through the centuries,” Gradica declared.

Concluding her speech, she said the demand of the martyrs’ families and the protesters is not for privilege or revenge, but for justice.

“We are not asking for privilege. We are not asking for revenge. We are asking for justice. In the name of the martyrs, for our families and for you who today await justice in The Hague. We want justice for the liberators! Glory to all those who gave their lives for the homeland!”, she concluded, as Telegrafi reports.