The first President of independent Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, has historical merits for the country gaining its independence peacefully, without war, victims and destruction, said SDSM leader Venko Filipche at the ceremony marking 35 years of independence “Macedonia is all we have”, organized by SDSM.
Filipche stresses that Gligorov’s historical role, especially in one of the most difficult periods in the Balkans, is still not sufficiently valued in his homeland.
“What have we done with the state that we gained 35 years ago peacefully without victims and without destruction, for which our President Kiro Gligorov has historical merit. To have our own independent state peacefully, after the terrible wars and bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia that affected all republics, his merit is still not valued in his homeland as it is valued by the world, even after three and a half decades,” said Filipche.
The opposition leader recalled that Gligorov belonged to the generation of Macedonian state-builders that participated in creating the foundations of modern Macedonian statehood, and then led the country in the process of independence.
“Two Macedonian eras merged in one person. The generation that created Macedonian statehood within the federation and the generation that was supposed to bring Macedonia out of the federation and introduce it to the world as an independent country,” Filipche pointed out.
“Gligorov’s greatness is seen precisely in his ability to save Macedonia from the war that raged in the region. In those crucial years, Gligorov had something that politics very easily loses and hard to gain. A sense of the measure of his own country. He knew how big we are. He knew where and how we live. He knew what the dangers were. And what is more important, he knew that statesmanship sometimes consists in preventing a tragedy, while around you political parties compete to see who will speak louder about heroism and patriotism,” underlined the SDSM party leader.
