On August 30, three different news items were reported by media outlets that at first glance appear to be unrelated.
1. Revista Monitor reports that in 2018 bank credit for the Albanian economy has dropped in comparison with 2017, confirming the downward trend of recent years.
2. The majority has rushed to put the special law rejected by the President on its agenda. The law proposes the demolition of the National Theater and the construction of a new theater with six skyscrapers behind it, even though we have received no answer to any of the 9 arguments on the basis of which the President sent the law back to Parliament.
3. The house of investigative journalist Klodiana Lala has been the target of a mafia-style attack with an automatic weapon.
What is the thread that connects these three news items?
The first one confirms once again the answer to a question that has been raised for a long time: Where does the money come from that funds the construction boom that has befallen Tirana? With what money are the skyscrapers approved by Rama being built? The news confirms a very credible hypothesis, currently formulated by the opposition and others, namely that it is dirty criminal money that does so.
Let’s move on to the second news item. There is no doubt that the skyscrapers that are expected to be built on the public land behind the National Theater follow no commercial logic, because Tirana is filled with businesses going bankrupt. Even with the two so-called skyscrapers that we already have, one, the 4EverGreen tower, has been unfinished for years, while the other, the TID tower, only functions as hotel on 2 or 3 of its floors. So the construction project of a new theater under the condition of constructing a skyscraper behind it next to the empty hotel cannot but lead to the accusation that we are dealing here with the laundering of dirty money.
The fact that in the case of both the many construction permits given out by the municipality and the current super-permit we encounter the active involvement of the government, especially of Prime Minister Rama, strengthens the accusation that this money laundering has been blessed by the government, which has its own strategy to rule with and for crime. The unprecedented growth of drug cultivation and trafficking, the inclusion of criminals in Parliament, and the installation of a Minister of Interior with direct or indirect links with crime is another proof of this strategy.
And that’s where we arrive at the third news item.
Journalist Klodiana Lala, with whom express solidarity as a colleague, is one of the journalists most active in the denunciation of the links between politics and organized crime. Just a few days ago she published the wiretaps showing the relation between PS deputy Çyrbja and the so-called Shullazi gang. And even if it turns out not to be true, the first line of investigation that comes to mind is that we are dealing with a threat that comes from that direction. The aim is clear. The criminal world threatens us to leave its work and projects that it’s undertaking with the government alone.
There are many who ask, how did we arrive at this point? The road of empowering crime until it captures the state has been long, but everyone agrees that the relation of the government with crime has expanded greatly during these years of the Rama government. Some explain this with the special weakness the Prime Minister has for this type of people. Personally, I want to emphasize the further degradation of the economy, which increasingly depends on criminal money.
But the problem today is not an analysis of the causes, but that we arrived at the situation of the boiling frog, who no longer can escape from the pan. For those who don’t know this metaphor, let me explain it: If we take a pan with boiling water and throw a living frog in it, it will jump out because of the heat. But if we take a pan with cool water and put in the frog, it will feel as if in its natural environment. If you then gradually turn up the heat until it gets very hot, the frog will be paralyzed and not longer able to escape the pan with the boiling water, and dies.
I read that the Prime Minister, who works day and night the build with criminals for criminals, who has put criminals in Parliament, apparently has called to the act against Klodiana Lala as “barbarian” and “intolerable,” and has called for the capture of the culprits. They say that criminals kill you at night and mourn you during the day. That’s a great privilege, but when the frog can no longer escape from the pan, also you may enjoy this privilege!
First published by Panorama, translation by Exit.
