Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Sunday awarded his country’s Presidential Medal on the Rule of Law to Beau Biden, the late son of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Beau Biden, a war veteran and former attorney general of Delaware, died after a lengthy battle with brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
U.S. Ambassador Philip Kosnett accepted the medal on behalf of the Biden family at a ceremony in the capital of Pristina. President Biden sent a pre-recorded message to be played at the event, in which said the award was “a great honor to recognize the legacy of my son.”
The president said Beau Biden “fell in love” with Kosovo when he spent time there after the war for independence from Serbia ended in 1999. The Medal on the Rule of Law award was presented in recognition of the younger Biden’s work training prosecutors and judges in Kosovo.
President Biden said in the video:
Beau could see, even then, the future was possible for your proud country. The future of Kosovo has so long been denied. That’s why he was so committed to working with the people of Kosovo to make sure that the war crimes were thoroughly investigated and professionally prosecuted, to help Kosovo build a fair judicial system capable of bringing justice and reconciliation to the country.
“What the United States and the American people have done for our country, for our freedom, for our right to exist, goes beyond any partnership currently witnessed in the world. Mr. President, Kosovo is your home too,” Osmani responded at the ceremony on Sunday.
Joe Biden, accompanied by much of his family, visited Kosovo in 2016 when a memorial was dedicated to Beau Biden and a 21-mile highway was named after him. The street leads to Camp Bondsteel, where some 700 American soldiers are still based as peacekeepers.
Kosovo still is not recognized as an independent nation by Serbia, or its powerful allies Russia and China. When two women from Kosovo won gold medals in judo at the Tokyo Olympics last week, Serbian newspapers reported their achievement under the headline “So-Called Kosovo Wins Gold in Tokyo” and described the medalists as residents of “Serbia’s southern province.” Serbia’s public TV station cut off its broadcast of one of the winning matches partway through, claiming technical problems.
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