nr. 115 / 19 mars 2008

Gërdec - the tragedy of politics

The main responsibility for the most shocking event of the century in Albania, with no doubt is on the actual governing majority. There are several institutions, depending either directly or indirectly on the government and the parliament mostly led by the DP, which have caused, either through action or inaction that a village named Gërdec disappeared from the map of our country.

Very few remember the 15th of March in these following days, that the politics is a two side medal: with the majority and opposition. Every individual of minimal ability to analyze is clear in his mind that for many reasons, the majority leading had no interest on “making noise” for an activity like that not just in one, but in many “Gërdec”. The State that is coming every day short of the income because of the economical implementation of the intermediate agreement of SAA has difficulty on making two distributions of the budget, even over 500 million USD in June for the second time in a year. The legal trade of weapons that Albania inherits since the “unknown” time was a great source for the treasure of the State, more than the plan of customs and taxes, in the name of the fight against corruption and fiscal evasion. There’s nothing to wonder indeed, even more when in the midst of this, playing the part of the “mediator”, was an American company, that couldn’t have this activity without the permission of the American State Department or the Defense Department. No matter that day after day we are told that the “Southern Ammunition Company Inc” started everything by selling bikes, acting then just like in Albania, the license was enlarged to another activity, that of dismantling military ammo, yet of little size. This is published even in the website of the company. Until here the blame falls directly or indirectly on the majority, the government, the Ministry of Defense, the Army Headquarters and so on with a certain number of the institutions of the State, better identified by the President of Albania, Bamir Topi, in the meeting of the National Security Council.

Yet, we shouldn’t forget that this is only on side of the medal of the Albanian politics. The cooperation between the parliamentary majority and the opposition is an indispensable starting point for the implementation of reforms. In the “Eureka” program in TV1 Channel, one of the exponents of the left wing opposition, Pëllumb Xhufi, vice leader of the SMI (Socialist Movement for Integration), declared that the opposition knew nothing about the factory of death in Gërdec. Let’s believe this is true, although it is almost impossible considering that even between two simple deputies of the Parliament, beyond the “antagonistic-political” face in the Parliament, there is haggling, like that of hiring relatives or friends in the respective electoral areas. Albania is naturally composed by the “left wing people”, or the opposition, and the “right wing people” or the governing. In every corner of the country, even in a village like Gërdec, SP, SMI, DAP, DSP, SDP, etc. have at least one follower, if there are no party organizations. The same inhabitants of Gërdec have declared after March 15, that they have often hears explosions in the factory near their village. This was surely known even to the (not) intelligent services like ISS, AIS, and even police. As part of what we consider in total as “State”, they may have had no interest on “reporting” these little explosions at least in Media. Maybe even many former workers of the factory had the same concept, in the name of the dangerous earn, yet pleasing for their families, that according to our sources went until 4 thousands of Lek a day. Was there no party of the opposition that tended to report the corruption of the government and the majority, in order to “protect” the inhabitants of the area from a tragedy like that, that had no structure or a member to simply notify what was going on in Gërdec? It is hard to admit that there wasn’t at least one single left wing voter in the area, enough conscious to report in time! It is also unbelievable as much as the declarations of the Prime Minister Berisha, who unfortunately lost a relative (or a candidate relative) in the explosions of Gërdec, who declared that had no knowledge about the factory!? It is natural that the Prime Minister, with all his engagements, had no time to deal with “unimportant” details, but it apparently his wife didn’t want to bother him with these “little family problems”, about the man who shared his life with her sister.

In other words, the responsibility for the incident of Gërdec is only of the Albanian politics and its derivates, majority and opposition. Obviously only the Albanian justice that proved many times to be on one side, will determine the responsible, which will be, of course, some little fish, for the “big fish” have already provided their shield.

Blerti Delija

Properties - the Albanian tragedy goes on

After the ‘90s the main problem for Albania and the Albanians has been and still is the problem of the properties. The years of dictatorship, except from sweeping from the memory of people the concepts of property, they also swept their physical borders. Right as a consequence of this phenomenon, since 1990 until now there are thousands murdered or wounded for property conflicts. The failure on solving permanently the problem of property was accepted also by the politics, starting with the ill-famed Law Nr.7501 on the land, which affected for more in increasing criminality and conflicts with property problems in background. In these conditions of failure, the politics is thinking for an abrogation of the Law 7501, risking to leave this problem unsolved for many decades. This, because problems will increase with a new partition of the land, as it was partially partitioned with the Law 7501. Especially in Nord Albania, the problem of property is more acute. Every day, through radio and TV broadcasts and newspapers are given news of murders or injuries for property questions, even between neighbors or relatives like brothers or cousins. The typical case of a property conflict was that in the village Gradec, between the two families Shabaj and Preçetaj, which started in 2005. The cause of a Calvary followed by bloodshed is a piece of land between the two families. As a consequence of the conflict for the land, Naim Shabaj wounded with a cold steel Gjovalin Preçetaj on October 16, 2005, who was in serious danger because of the wounds. Yet this was only the beginning of a long conflict between the families Shabaj and Preçetaj. On November 4, 2005, Gjovalin shoots on Naim Shabaj for revenge, killing him. In September 2006, Gani Shabaj, the cousin of Naim, shoots on a woman of the family Preçetaj wounding in the left leg Pashke Preçetaj, the wife of the cousin of Ardian Preçetaj. The reeve of the village, Luigj Broqai declared for “Shqipëria Etnike” that he made maximal efforts to reconcile these two families, yet without success. Now, except the property questions there is also the blood shed between the two families, and such a story menaces the lives of many in the family Preçetaj, starting with Adrian Preçetaj, his wife, Liljana and their children, Klaudio and Klara. Adrian came from America in October 2007, while his family is safe in Canada. These last days Adrian became victim of serious threats.

A very tragic and distressful history that none knows when will be over, if it ever will. This is one of the hundreds of cases when land property makes the life of thousands of Albanians a true hell, especially in Nord Albania, because of the wild traditions and the nature of this area. In these conditions, when the State and its structures are powerless to stop this, the only thing to say is that the tragedy of the family Preçetaj continues, and unfortunately others too…

Zef Nika

ALBANIA: UNSAFE PLACE FOR JOURNALISTS

SHKODER Mr. Arben Lagreta, our well known colleague has left Albania in a haste since a few days. A very brave investigating article published in one of our daily papers which bears his signature and denounces the illegal affairs of nowadays parliamentary majority of Democratic Party(DP)in the 90^ies has brought up the threatening reaction of the street gangs backed up by the government. Recently the continuous threats unlikely to the previous ones which had started more than two years ago have made impossible his further stay in Albania.

Being estimated as one of the top investigating journalists of Albania, A. Lagreta threw light in his above mentioned investigating article the biggest and samely the most shameful scandal of the Albanian Secret Service (hereafter referred to as SHIK) for the last century. It is about the disappearance of an albanian businessman in 1995 by SHIK, at a time when the same majority in power violated the international oil embargo to ex-Yougoslavia of Milloshevic.

It is worth mentioning that the problem of disappearance of this businessman has been made present the albanian government since 2006 by Amnesty International.

Due to the wide activity he has been involved and not only in journalism, Mr. Arben Lagreta was appointed in January 2007 as Head of Foreign Relations at the Independent Trade Unions of Albania (BSPSH) with the president Mr. Gezim Qato.

For many years he has been a member of the International Union of Frankophone Journalists (UPF) with its seat in Paris and has been invited in many seminars and conferences on human rights organized mainly by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Whereas in August of 2007, Mr. A.Lagreta was selected unanimously by his colleagues as the Head of Trade Unions the “Union of Journalists” in Shkodra Prefecture.

On this occasion, the member of the Board of Directors of the Journalist Trade Union for Shkodra Prefecture, the journalist and author Mr. Prele Milani wrote in “Shqipëria Etnike”:

“Today`s power is reduced only in threatenings, diversions and blackmails with life towards such brave journalists like Arben. For this reason, even on this occasion, due to the lack of juridic arguments to the journalists guilt, there are still being used the illegal street gangs just like in the 1992-97. This situation which does not offer life warranty could be repeated even towards us if we do not react and fall asleep”.

The above mentioned flagrant case happens right in successsion to the scandals that have involved the albanian government recently. It happened quite shortly after the explosion of the arsenal in the village of Gerdec in Tirana which was associated by many victims, as well as after a brutal stroke of a journalist by an MP from the governing majority.

SOKOL PEPUSHAJ