Albanian dignity and values
The mayor of Tirana, Lulzim Basha, stopped by Johns Hopkins/SAIS this morning to do a public presentation, moderated by Mike Haltzel. Still well under 40, he has already served as Public Works, Transport and Telecommunications Minister, Foreign Minister and Interior Minister. Soft-spoken and low key, he nevertheless wasn’t shy about mentioning main achievements in each of these positions: a big jump in foreign and infrastructure investment, NATO membership and the Schengen visa waiver, which allows Albanians to travel visa-free in the European Union.
He also wasn’t shy about saying he thought his predecessor as mayor, Edi Rama, had paid too much attention to national politics (Rama is also head of the Socialist Party) and too little to the citizens of his city. Lulzim says he wants to focus on citizen needs, not national issues.
This above all means the economy, employment, and transparent governance. Municipal expenditures will all be available soon on line. City hall, which at the beginning of his mandate was absorbing 87% of revenue, will by the end of it absorb only 50%, with the rest spent on citizens and services to them. The margin for discretion by city officials is being reduced, so as to limit opportunities for corruption. Tax collection will be improved, the burdens lowered and the tax base expanded. Public/private partnerships and concessions to the private sector will be used to the maximum extent possible. There will be one stop shopping for licenses and permits. The mayor and his staff are meeting regularly with citizens in town hall meetings and individually.
I confess this sounded pretty good to me, but I liked what I heard from Edi Rama too, when he spoke at the U.S. Institute of Peace a few years ago. What do I know about Tirana and its politics? Precious little. I suppose the only way to judge Mayor Basha is to wait a few years and see whether things have improved, or not. I hope they do: Tirana was a pretty wretched place when I first visited in 1997. It had improved dramatically when I was there a few years later, but that’s not saying much: there was a lot of illegal construction. If Lulzim can meet some of the citizens’ demands and improve the quality of life, I suppose he could be mayor for life.
But he won’t be. Prime Minister Sali Berisha is presumably grooming him for bigger and better things (if Berisha doesn’t decide that Lulzim has gotten too big for his britches and needs taking down a peg). So I asked him about national and regional politics: why are we all hearing much more about Greater Albania than at any time I can remember? What does it signify and how does he regard this talk?
Lulzim conceded that there is much more “red and black” nationalist talk than in the past. It started in Kosovo with Albin Kurti. Now politicians in Albania are trying to attract votes by appealing to “Albanian dignity and values,” which would only be fully realizable they claim in a unified Albanian state.
This idea will not, Lulzim thought, gain much traction. Albanian dignity and values are European. Albanians in the Balkans have understood that the deal they got was a good one: a serious Albanian state, Kosovo independence, and equal rights for Albanians in Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. Unification will come within the European Union, not before. That will serve Albanian dignity and values best.
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Aleanca Kuq e Zi (Red & Black Alliance) in no way advocates unification of Albania with Kosovo, or any other change of borders in the area. Also, there are no political parties nor organizations in Albania who do so. Therefore all this talk about “Great Albania” by Mr Serwer makes it sound like someone from serbianna.com has hacked the website. A very misinforming piece indeed.
To whom it may concern this is the website of AK : http://www.aleancakuqezi.al/rreth-nesh/
The emotional temperature in Tirana has dropped precipitously since Basha took office. At least, the newspapers show fewer corruption charges being hurled in all directions, fewer calls for potentially violent mass demonstrations, and more progress reports on storm drains, the new ring highway, and those meetings with citizens.
Berisha might be overstating a bit when he says, “A thousand protests [nationwide], and he ends up losing the mayor’s office!” – but not by much. Whether there was a real intention to overthrow the government last January or not (depends on the newspaper you read), things were definitely getting out of hand. Like Kurti, Rama seems to think that governing is best done from the streets. After all, Berisha took office after leading massive demonstrations after rigged elections. Perhaps the elections Rama lost were not perfect, but the monitors observing them gave them a pass. (Persian rug makers used to deliberately leave an imperfection in every rug, because “perfection is Allah’s, not man’s.”) Blocking parliament from functioning for months on end, claiming his party had been robbed, and thereby preventing the EU from starting accession talks was a bizarre move, to say the least. (It was right up there with Tea Party Republicans suggesting it would be a good idea for the U.S. to default on the country’s financial obligations.)
Rama is now on a visit to “Eastern Kosovo” – supposedly peddling his book (Scapegoat) after a stop in Kosovo to support Kurti. You can almost see their point – the internationals forced Kosovo to renounce any chance to joining Albania in return for an implied promise of Serbian recognition of Kosovo’s independence, and then Serbia refused to go along, even tacitly. Combine this with the dismal economic situation and some self-righteous and excessively self-regarding politicians and you’ve a potentially explosive situation. (And to be fair, there are sllavogreks who still have their eyes on parts of Albanian territory.) Both Albania and Kosovo are new democracies, and the idea that being an independent and sovereign state does not mean you can get your way in every dispute, domestic or international, by simply being more confrontational than the other guy seems not to have sunk in yet. (Maybe they’ve been watching American politics the past few years?) On the other hand, Rama did lose the last election, his party has returned to Parliament, laws are being passed, and Kurti called off further protests to halt Serbian trucks from entering Kosovo. He’s going to court instead. Progress does not seem impossible.
As an Albanian American whose family has been involved in the the affairs of the Albanian American community for a century, I am embarraseed that Lulzim Basha came to Washington masquerading as a political innovator when, in my opinion, he is little more than a common thief who rode to power on the back of Sali Berisha (who is little more than a corrupt communist dictator in sheeps clothing) and as a result of an abortion of democracy. When will Basha drop the cloke of immunity and appear before Albania’s prosecutor to answer for charges of corruption in conjuntion with road building contracts? Also, four innocent protestors were murdered in Tirana on January 21, 2011. They were shot to death by national guardsmen who were under the direction of Basha who was then Minister of the Interior. When will Basha drop his cloke of immunity to answser questions about whether or not he ordered these murders?
Four protesters/rioters were killed, which is bad enough, but “murder” implies premeditation and at this point the accusation doesn’t seem to be justified.
Murder comment not justified? Based on evidence provided by the FBI, Albania’s prosecutor has indicted Ndrea Prendi,Albania’s head of state security, on charges of murder in connection with the killing of the protestors. So one question that now needs to be answered: did anyone order Prendi to shoot to kill? As anyone familiar with Albania can attest, there were two people who could have commanded Prendi: Lulzim Basha and Sali Berisha. Unfortunately, in a country where the rule of law has no meaning (just ask Ilir Meta) and the courts have been manipulated to serve the interests of Sali Berisha, it is unlikely that Basha or Berisha will be subjected to the legal scrutiny they deserve. Under Bersiha, democratic instutions have steadily eroded as Albania is slips closer to dictatorship, and I believe Basha is nothing more than a capo in Berisha’s mafia-like criminal conspiracy disguised as a government.
In the U.S., shooting to kill isn’t murder if done by a law officer in for a legal reason. Vrasje according to my dictionary can be both murder and homicide – maybe the systems draw the boundary lines differently. In any case, if the crowd had been incited to violence (as some members claim), the officer could have been justified in shooting, meaning no murder – she may have overcharged him. Too bad they didn’t a water cannon available that day.
Hmmm…you seem like a very insightful person. Perhaps you’ll reveal yourself so we can know you better. And then you should offer your insight with the Deda family. Then tell the familes of Kosta Trebicka and Remzi Hoxha about your insight. And when your finished with that, stoll down the road to Gerdec and share your insight with the families of the 26 victims of that tragedy. Then look at the Youtube video of one of the shootings. Any person of great insight will claearly see that that one of the protestors was standing in place and posed absolutely no threat at the time he was shot. That was not self defense, it was murder. And I believe Sali Berisha is a murderer. To be sure, I’m not the first person and won’t be the last to come to that conclusion.
I did not claim “self defense” as a justification. There are reasons why police carry weapons, and it’s not just to protect themselves. Under the circumstances it’s probably too much to hope that politics can be kept out of the trial, unfortunately.
Hmmm??? Was it politics that led the FBI to determine that the video files of the shootings were wiped clean from the computer at Berisha’s office? In the U.S. we call this obstruction of justice and those who engage in such practices pay a price – even U.S. Presidents. Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the scandal we had in America known as Watergate that forced President Nixon to resign. I believe Berisha and/or Basha ordered this blatant obstruction of justice. The question that begs to be answered: why did they go to such lengths? What do they have to hide? Could it be the video proves they ordered the guards to shoot to kill unarmed protestors? The problem is that in Albania there is no rule of law, and this is not politics, this is fact. And because of this state of affairs, I am sad to say that it’s unlikely there will be justice for the 4 unarmed protestors who were murdered in cold blood on Jan. 21. Just like there has yet to be justice for the families of the Gerdec victims, the family of Remzi Hoxha and the family of Kosta Trebicka. And speaking of politics, when will Berisha live up to his campaign promise to investigate the corrupt practices of Fatos Nano?
Watergate? I remember it well, in particular the 18.5 minute gap. The morning the news broke I walked into my professor’s office for a discussion of Slavic sound changes. He just held up the headline, to which I had nothing more intelligent to respond with than “But this is America!” And that was from someone who had never been able to stand the man. Most of the professors in the department were from Eastern Europe and had defended Nixon up to that point (as being a strong “anti-Communist”), and they were totally wiped out by the news.
I’m not familiar with the FBI’s report – maybe you could provide some links? (Newspaper articles, not the report itself, which I assume is not available.) Considering that the American ambassador feels it necessary to call on the prosecutor to ensure a full investigation, I’m not all that confident about the lack of bias in information coming from her office.
Talk about dignity, and “we will do this” “we will improve that”…when? The reality is Tirana is a dump, and we live in it. And if by chance there is no garbage on the sidewalks, there’s likely still a politicians car parked there.
http://tiranadumpsters.wordpress.com/