Albanian Prime Minister leading the country toward civil conflict
Dr. Ana L. Scheer
Tens of thousands of anti-goverment protesters have clashed with Albanian state police in Tirana. The rally resulted in dozens of protestors injured, many arrests, and the uncontrolled use of gas by the police in the vicinity of dwelling houses and apartments endangering the health and lives of protestors and inhabitants of Tirana. Opposition leaders accuse Edi Rama’s government of graft and election fraud. They seek the withdrawal of the Prime Minister and the establishment of a transitory government which will ensure a fair and democratic election process.
The world media and several foreign officials have denounced the government of Edi Rama. During his six years in office, Albania has been the heaven of cannabis cultivation and drugs smuggling, reaching an income of five to seven billion Euros, half of the country’s GDP. Furthermore, the high level of corruption in all the instances of the government has weakened the economy, caused further unemployment, has slowed down the integration process toward EU membership, and forced the Albanians to flee their country in large numbers.
For six years Edi Rama’s government has succeeded only in government propaganda, with no foreign investments, no plan of development, and no measures to improve the standards of living for Albanians. Today, in this country the middle class is struggling to survive and the wealth is concentrated only in the hands of few oligarchs, positioned at the right hand of the Prime Minister. Considering that Albania aspires the EU integration, Edi Rama’s government has resulted a complete failure.
Recently a German official stated that EU countries should be aware of the danger that such Balkan leaders, under the name of stability for the region, violate the basic principles of democracy, and that they should cooperate only with reliable partners. Edi Rama’s foreign policy, particularly that of the Balkan region has caused many concerns due to his plan and support for the re-arrangement of borders between Serbia and Kosovo. This initiative is very dangerous because it could escalate into a wider and serious conflict.
In his internal affairs Rama is emerging as a monarch of the middle-ages. The country has no Constitutional Court, no legal parliament, and he has managed to maintain compete rule and usurpation on the judicial and the legislative branches. His involvement with the organized crime and their inclusion into high offices has been denounced for several years by the world media and foreign authorities. The Albanian opposition parties have quitted the Parliament and surrendered their mandates asking the Prime Minister to resign and let a transitory government manage and oversee the election process of the forthcoming elections on 30 June, 2019.
Rama seems to play the bluff and be committed to hold elections despite the refusal by the opposition to participate. This action on his behalf will have serious consequences for the country. It might lead Albania into a civil war. If Rama proceeds with his plan a harsh civil conflict will be unavoidable. With the involvement of the state police and the army, victims and violent riots are to be expected. This will be a setback for the country’s future and the lives of Albanians. A civil war in this small western Balkan state might spread quite easily. The Balkans, “the gunpowder barrel” of Europe, doesn’t need much to explode.
In the present situation the resignation of Edi Rama seems to be the only solution to save not only Albania and its people, to prevent a civil war and loss of lives, but as well as for the entire region.
It is a shame that in modern days, the will of one man can decide the fate of an entire country. Will Rama show integrity and resign for the sake of his people or will he lead the country into a civil war?
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
Any further poorly spelled abuse-heavy troll posts on this thread, from the relevant IPs (you know who you are) will be treated as spam.
[…] is not under his control – in order for him to usurp every single institution in the country. PM Edi Rama, presently, controls the one-party parliament, one-party local government, one-party Prosecutor General office, one […]
I am supporter of democracy from 1990, but the opposition is standing on the way of creating for first time proper judicial system. The party in government in the past has the worst record but is the past and now with the pressure from west is starting the reform. I support it 100% even I don’t agree with most of his members
Most off the comments seem to be from Edi Rama propaganda office’s army. Anyone’s natural position would be to criticize the government because there are always things that could be done better. Corruption in Albania is rife and is coming to surface. With only what we know (what we do not know is always more) Edi Rama’s regime has brought this country to the brink of utter poverty and despair. I hope Albanian people deal with him in a befitting way sooner rather than later.
[…] Sali Berisha, përmes një postimi në facebook, ka reaguar për shkrimin e Dr. Ana K Scheer në Off Guardian, e cila teksa bënte një përshkrim të detajuar të gjendjes ku ndodhet Shqipëria, shtronte edhe […]
[…] Sali Berisha, përmes një postimi në facebook, ka reaguar për shkrimin e Dr. Ana K Scheer në Off Guardian, e cila teksa bënte një përshkrim të detajuar të gjendjes ku ndodhet Shqipëria, shtronte edhe […]
Embarrassing ,from the gardian ,thought was the sun more like it …..
luck of knowledge .
Not the real story .
Poor …..
Ok, you pass the test of being serious but to say that you are honest is a lie. You are either paid to spread propaganda or missinformed about some key points.
1- there aren’t thousands of people but a group of mafia associated families and people that have been paid to vandalise and terrorise the police which in turn haven’t raised a finger in retaliation but responded with dignity and respect which the thugs don’t deserve.
2- the demonstrations are lead by the opposition party because the government is actually reforming the justice department and the constitutional law which prevents politicians from immunity and make them accountable of their actions.
3-Now the so called demonstrattors are political families of Berisha and Meta trying to destabilise the country in order to escape being taken to court for raping the country dry for the past 30 years.
Most of these countries were better off under communism. Albania/ Poland/ East Germany/ Ukraine/ Yugoslavia/ Baltic States. They were described as Soviet satellites, but even countries like the GDR was less of a Soviet satellite than the UK currently is of the Yew Ess Ayy. They had greater sovereignty than they do today, now just CIA/ IMF playgrounds run by corrupt rabid dual nationals, parachuted in by the State Department, serving a Neocon agenda. Some of them are just plain Mafia states, like Kosovo or Albania. Yugoslavia was a very civilised place, practising a mild form of socialism where private enterprise was allowed within certain limits and people were free to travel and work abroad. They were stable, and provided relatively good basic services for all their people. The privileges of the elite, as seen at places like the GDR Wandlitz, were actually quite modest compared to our snouts-in- the-… Read more »
Dear Dr, I got a question for you; Have you ever been to Albania or have you been there this days? I bet you you didn’t. You don’t have a clue about opposition Parties in Albania. You and journalists or meter of facts (Dr) like you, know Albania only by using Google. I’m not defending the government, which is as corrupt as any other governments in Balkan. Please don’t spread lies when you adding “zeros “ on protestors. They are only hardcore militants, that’s all. Also before you talk for opposition Parties please do some more research WHY ALBANIA IS ON THAT STATE IS TODAY!! and you will find why. Manly because of those thieves which today in name of opposition are shouting “catch the thief “. You got few facts right in your article but, Please do a favour to all innocent, hardworking Albanians all over EU and world.… Read more »
As an Albanian I can confirm that this article does not reflect realty but is simply trying to add smoke to Albanians progress . We will be joining the EU despite the will of this paper . The people protesting have been in power for 30 years , they did nothing but destroy our countys infrastructure , leagal , economical and military structure . In the last election they won just 30% of the votes , we have local elections in the end of June , the opposition has now the opportunity to take part in a democratic protest that represents the true will of people and not of some paid mercenaries that are simply trying to destabilise the country but they will not succeed because we had 30 years to know who they are.
Edi Rama’s foreign policy, particularly that of the Balkan region has caused many concerns due to his plan and support for the re-arrangement of borders between Serbia and Kosovo. This initiative is very dangerous because it could escalate into a wider and serious conflict. I’m not sure what this passage is referring to. All border changes in the Balkans are dangerous, but so is leaving them as they are, almost all Balkan borders are disputed by someone and they change every 50 years, usually with violence. So, change by negotiation isn’t any more or less dangerous than anything else. The predominantly Serbian pocket in Kosovo, north of of Mitrovica wants to join Serbia, some Albanian/Kosovars want the Presevo valley (in which ethnic Albanians are a majority), currently in Serbia to join Kosovo in return. I don’t think willingness to negotiate such changes should be presented as an entirely bad thing.… Read more »
What an outrages lie. Shame on you for calling yourself a journalist with integrity. It is people like you who write such pieces of garabage that bring down the true journalism. Just on the first sentence you are lying big. Tens of thousand? More like a 100 people ore a thousand tops, the ones that protest have become their daily job for which they get paid. Are u getting paid to for this completely untrue article? So you and the likes of you want the oppositon, a minority in the parlament by the will of people, come to power why? Because they want to behave like barbarians? Albania is a democracy, if you dont like the current goverment you vote it out. Albanians will not be hostage a group of people who are currupted to the core whenever in power. Stop wrting such articles with almost no truth in it.… Read more »
It would be better to offer a sober critique, citing sources and facts that can be checked. This kind of abusive rant is not encouraged here. Please do not produce a repeat performance
You surely accept the rant just by the article you have produced. You should show facts of what you speak off in the article. Im a mere reader that you have offered a comment section. Your are not credible and your sources are just hearsay, or rather pushed by an agenda. You have no morals. Its easy to be seating somewhere away from Albania and spuing lies and acting all decent. Show me fact in your article, show me the thousands of protesters and show me polls of how much albanian people support such protests, since you say its leading to civil war. Yours is not a critique but someones agenda pushed by redicules articles as such. Shame on you.
[…] LINKU I SHKRIMIT […]
Hi there .. that.s such a untrue
Just have a look the facts .. you who wrote the article are just e layer .. coz.no any primeminister in any country are for a civil war ,as long theu are in power.. and more..
Yet another center left pro EU pro capitalist party with socialist in the parties name
Im a right wing myself but this article is a complete fabrication. The ones protesting are the ones that dont want to end up in jail because of their corruption due to the deep justice reform. This is pure fake news. Hate it.
[…] https://off-guardian.org/2019/05/14/albanian-prime-minister-leading-the-country-toward-civil-conflic… […]
surely one tony bliar should be able to fix this
For those with eyes to see, Albania is the future. We can pretend otherwise: create imaginary scenarios based on technology, human ingenuity, and ‘cognitive capitalist’ information technological liberation from work. But all of these are based on ‘reforming’ the existing hierarchical statist power regimes and ‘climate colonialism’ – which is a polite euphemism for imperialism…which should be enough to debunk them as hopium – if not actual propaganda. The status quo power relations are the problem: not the solution. There has been an undercurrent in comments that capitalism is not to blame for the current incipient statist fascism. Capitalism literally is to blame. Its DNA is exponential expansionism and permanent growth vectors (rate, mass, and velocity of growth). Capitalism is not manipulated by an elite – it merely produces by behavioural reward its own elite …as it lurches from crisis to crisis toward totalised oligopoly and monopoly of wealth and… Read more »
It’s only a matter of time before Albania is colonized by the Germans,Once they finish with Greece
BigB…. I humbly request that you need to start up your own blog. “Remove the elite, and a new elite will quickly grow from the carnivore culture of competitive hierarchy. Like heads on a Hydra”…. You included my two least favourite words: competitive (ion) and hierarchy. They go very nicely with another truly ugly word – Neoliberalism. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I think it’ll be markedly worse than Albania; think full blown Police State, think a vast army of destitute and homeless while a tiny 1 or 2℅ live in opulent decadence, protected by high walls and security guards. We’re virtually there now mate. Not meaning to sound glum, but that’s how I see it. And that’s not even mentioning Bolton, Pompeo, or any of the other Neocon nutters. You’re also right that we need a complete shift in consciousness. And a vastly new way of doing things.… Read more »
Well, at least they have got one thing right.
“Recently a German official stated that EU countries should be aware of the danger that such Balkan leaders, under the name of stability for the region, violate the basic principles of democracy, and that they should cooperate only with reliable partners.”
Corporatocracy States (where gangsterism is the norm and being pro barbaric EU is a mark of success) are here calling out another gangster State for being a gangster State. It’s all very disturbing.
If Tito had not assassinated Kennedy the Balkans would not be in the mess they are in today
Further proof (as if we needed any), that Anarchy (rules WITHOUT rulers), is the only true democracy.
Ah, dear Anarchy! If only we could get it to work – stably – in mass societies, FD; and endure in many countries, securely, for long periods; if only…
Humanity has spent most of it’s existence on Earth living in Band societies which are an Anarchist form of organisation.
Oh indeed. But if you check my adjectives above you’ll clock that I’m referring to modern, hitech industrial societies, where our naturally-evolved, instinctual form of mutual aid and caring, true anarchism, that had been working well for thousands of generations, suddenly fell into the abnormality of – first – tillage-agriculture grain-storing societies, and eventually into the modern hitech, vastly overpopulated model; intractably class-based ever since the Agrarian Revolution: state-ruled, constantly-warring societies a world away from little, widely-scattered naturally-anarchistic bands in the global wilderness; the original Garden of Eden, from which we fell. It’s a source of lasting regret that the anarchistic way of living, built in to us by evolution, just seems to break down irremediably in this recent – and I’d say aberrant -setting. Dreadful shame. But then we have socialist democracy, which at it’s very best is a least-worst replacement option; flawed, but tolerable, when considering the modern,… Read more »
The point of referring to early hunter gatherer societies is to highlight that human nature adapts according to social and environmental situations, it doesn’t limit us to any particular type of society not anarchist, not hierarchical, not peaceful, not warlike. Most experiments in anarchist organisation in industrial societies were short lived, Catalonia during the civil war, Donbass during the Russian civil war, however they did not fail in their own internal terms, they were conquered by opposing forces. But while they lasted they functioned, factories produced, transport ran, rubbish was collected, crime didn’t sore. Your “utopian” jibes miss their mark. So, the question isn’t whether a technological Anarchist society can work or not, nobody really knows, and how to we define “work” anyway? The question is how you get to one to even find out. An Anarchist is somebody who defines “progress” as any advance toward such a society and… Read more »
Jibes? Who’s jibing? And can you point out where I used, or even implied, the word ‘utopian’? I’m just doing a sober stating of perceived facts. I presume, C, that – like me – you wish anarchism would work in the modern setting. But – unlike me – you want to go on believing that it will eventually, when we ‘get it right’. You put your finger on the crucial problem when you pointed out that all the previous attempts at an anarchistic state were brought down by attacks by exterior forces. Exactly! I’ve been saying to anarchist true-believers, literally for years: ‘What do you do when the columns of fascist thugs from outside march in and tell you at gun-point – with pour-encourage-les-autre just-killed bodies lying about – that your anarchist collective is now at an end?’ I’ve never yet heard a convincing reply to this critical problem. State… Read more »
You were talking about what a “lovely idea” anarchism was in the “garden of Eden” and then moving onto “actually working” alternatives . Any denial that you were “soberly” rhetorically framing anyone who takes anarchist theory seriously as a ‘utopian dreamer’ lost in a kind of faith is disingenuous. I’ve had anarchist (I prefer the term “Libertarian Socialist”) sympathies long enough to have heard it all before, I ain’t some naive anarcho-kid, I’ve probably put a great deal more thought and study into arriving at this than you. I don’t think we can have a revolution today and end up in anarchist utopia tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll ever have utopia, that’s the whole point of utopia, it’s something on the horizon, not were you are, but I know what direction to sail in. Further I’m not American, so social democracy isn’t exactly an exciting new idea to me, it’s… Read more »
Sorry C. Too bored to go on with this. Consider that you’ve won an argument and I ran away in disgrace – if you like. And keep going with that demonstration project of stable, enduring anarchic communities in the modern world. I’ll try to re-incarnate into one of them a few lifetimes down the line. 🙂 Byeeeee!
You’re not the first whose lack of imagination caused them to wade in out of their depth and over confident in their own presumptions. The very mention of “winning” the argument signifies a somewhat egotistic motivation on your behalf which you have then projected, it’s the ideas not either of us that matter. You thought you’d take a “harsh realist” stance and whup a naive young pup into shape, oedipal style, but then found yourself up against old soldier, that’s stereotyping and the internet for you. Instead of thinking myself a “winner” I’d rather think you might learn something about yourself, your denial of any condescending rhetoric and then hasty retreat looks to me like someone who isn’t entirely aware of their own motivations.
Gnothi Seauton
I call anarchists anarkids they’re just angry kids with attitudes problems who still get mummy to take their plate downstairs for them. Never seen an anarchist who can give a decent explanation for how their system works (it doesn’t)
A lot of “anarchists” are just kids who don’t understand what they are professing in the slightest. Steven Pinker is an example, he keeps referring to the rioting during the 1969 Montreal police strike as disillusioning him of his youthful “anarchism” but anyone who thinks Anarchy is simply the absence of police is an idiot, period. You can’t blame Pinker the teenager for that, but you can blame the adult for repeating the same point as if it was meaningful.
You might find a description of how an anarchist society might work here, direct democracy in each workplace, with federalised instantly re-callable delegates for wider coordination, but you have to spend time actually reading it.
https://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html
Thanks for the link Carnyx. Nice to have anarchism in a (rather long) nutshell.
Anarchists’ respect for the individual is obvious, but where they lose me is when the question comes up of what to do when a delusional, or psychotic individual is respected to the point where he/she will naturally influence others.
Surely, in such a case, we have a mirror image of what happens when a delusional Washington influences Westminster…?
Sheer pandemonium if anybody tries to stop it.
where they lose me is when the question comes up of what to do when a delusional, or psychotic individual is respected to the point where he/she will naturally influence others. No such individual could acquire formal coercive power beyond their immediate followers, in wider society anarchism needs anarchists an anarchist society would produce them, and they would question any authority, including a rising informal one, meaning such a person could never go unchallenged. One of the major causes of conflict within acephalous societies (ones we have recorded) is accusations that one individual is getting or taking more than their fair share, people police this themselves. One traditional arrangement among the Karen people of Burma is to have a village Headman, who is a individual who has earned the respect of the community over time, but he has no coercive authority, his opinion is listened to and sought out, but… Read more »
Thanks again, C.
Interesting food for thought.
The ‘wisdom of the elders’ Carynx.
Where the elders are not permitted to become oligarchs.
Chris Hedges said trenchantly of Steven Pinker that he ought to get out more…
Works here John>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
In our exploitative society the plate would be taken downstairs by an UNDERPAID slave.
Check out Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos. Also take a look at the example of Mondragon. The system we have now is destroying the environment and turning ‘society’ into a dog eat dog social darwinian dystopia. Capitalism = wars, to ‘open up’ new markets, all to enrich a tiny number of psychopathic parasites at the top of the food chain. We live on a finite planet John, we can’t sustain this present system which brings untold suffering to the vast majority of human beings. And I don’t just mean poverty, but also physical and psychological suffering. The current epoch of Capitalism, known as Neoliberalism creates an atomised, alienated, stressed ‘society’ of individual consumers. Much of the West is now a psychic wasteland. People live to consume, and indulge their hedonistic pleasures. Check out Oxfam and their latest report on inequality on this planet. We need something vastly more humane than… Read more »
I’d advise caution about the virtues of anarchy (Fair Dinkum). Most people don’t realize that the US’s system of government is inherently anarchic, its highly devolved with many different, competing, jurisdictions mediated by its constitution, the bill of rights, laws and a powerful legal system. It sounds perfect, except as we all know, it isn’t. The reason for this is obvious — any perfect system of government requires both individuals and the body politic to be responsible and civic minded. In practice its just a running battle to stop it falling into the hands of people who want to be King (or Queen).
Organization like the Mafia are just small scale, organic, versions of this. Private Enterprise At Its Best….
‘US government ‘inherently anarchic’
No.
Laws made by a minority to subdue the majority is not Anarchy.
Laws that the minority flout on a whim.
David says it better>>
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2543048.Direct_Action