The reason for the "civil disturbance" in Albania in 1997-1998 is very interesting to study: the collapse of nation wide Ponzi schemes.
Several different Albanian Ponzi schemes were basically marketing themselves as banks, and they were real legitimate businesses with IT employees and salesmen and everything.
Eventually almost every Albanian had money tied up in these schemes in one way or another, and one by one they all started to go bust as the leaders ran away with the money or were otherwise unable to payout interest on deposits, or even return initial principal deposits.
As a result, the nation rioted, and the PM decided to flee.
Realizing this, certain elements in the Albanian population decided to raid the local police armories for military equipment of all times. And what resulted was an interesting and tragic case study of what happens when several different armed factions and many thousands of bandits begin to commit violence against anyone and everyone under the guise of "re-establishing law and order".
Indeed, a very good case to learn from for people saying "such things can't happen" in a modern civil state country.
Albania is of course not the best examples of a "Western" country, but it is far more than, say, what ex-Soviet states were.
Imagine a few big banks falling in the same manner in a particularly low point for ones country. In a few breakdowns of civil states so far, since the WW2, the prime majority fell to "lightning out of the blue"
> Albania is of course not the best examples of a "Western" country, but it is far more than, say, what ex-Soviet states were
I'm not sure if I'd fully agree with that characterization. Sure, the Balkans as a whole had bit their own thing going on (probably can thank Tito for that), but Albania was still ruled by iron-handed communist regime and at least based on surface reading seemed to be deeper in the (Stalinist/Communist) ideology than many others, including post-Stalin Soviet Union.
I think socialists being still relatively strong during 90s probably contributed in part to the crisis. Overall it's important to remember that the country was still on its first post-communist decade.
> Albania was still ruled by iron-handed communist regime and at least based on surface reading seemed to be deeper in the (Stalinist/Communist) ideology than many others, including post-Stalin Soviet Union.
I don't understand this part given that the rest of your post, and the article you link, makes it clear that they had transitioned out of communism 6 years previously. But yeah they were still terribly poor and perhaps worse off under the post-communist regime. They were seen as more backward and less Western than, say, post-Soviet Latvia which was already deep in talks to join the EU - something that remains a long way off for Albania more than 20 years later.
The quote was referring to the pre transition period, related to how Albanians were in immediate past living in a more authoritarian system than even the SU. And hence were pretty far from a western country culturally.
Quote from the GP linked article:" Capitalism ran amok, transforming Tirana into a 20th-century version of Dodge City, filled with gun-toting lawmen, abrasive money-changers and tough guys dressed in leather."
They may have transitioned from communism, but communism leaves psychological scars (or rather adaptations) which are passed on for generations through culture. The nature of authoritarian socialism is such that it breeds mistrust and selfishness in private.
Albania has been a member of NATO since 2009, and (just this year) has begun negotiations to join the EU.
Not every "Western" country is a NATO member, but NATO members are usually counted as "Western". Similarly, EU member states generally count as "Western", and a country formally negotiating to join the EU probably falls in that bucket too.
Turkey is possibly the big exception to the generalisations that "NATO member"="Western" and "negotiating to join the EU"="Western". However, Turkey used to have much more of a pro-Western orientation when it was ruled for decades by secular nationalists. It is only in the last 20 or so years, with Turkey being ruled by the religiously conservative AKP, that Turkey has been moving away from a "Western" identity. But Albania's politics are very different from those of Turkey. Albania's politics are dominated by secular parties. While both Turkey and Albania are majority Muslim, the kind of religious conservatism which is the driving force behind the current Turkish government is far less popular among Albanians.
I see things like this as the memetic equivalent of the Columbian Exchange; the population lacks immunity to the schemes that are endemic in capitalism, so as soon as one arrives the whole population is infected very quickly.
As an Albanian who had left the country 4 days before those events, I think I should add a few comments.
While there had been unrest in 1997, there had been no civil unrest at the capital, Tirane, for about a year before this happened. Many embassies, including the U.S.A. one were opened. What sparked this unrest was the killing of an opposition politician. There were accusations that the government killed him. It is now mostly clear that the government didn't do it.
It is not clear to this day if the revolt was an attempted coup or not. There is a video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WjksCDho2Y, of the office of the prime minister burning on that day. One would assume that if there was a coup they wouldn't burn the office they intended to occupy. But protesters did occupy briefly the State TV and a member of the opposition appeared and said the situation was under control. The prime minister had left the country. The situation was stabilized by the American embassy who told the opposition that they would not recognize their government if they created one. That was enough to calm the situation in a few days. That was also the last time there was a major civil unrest in Albania (though the office of prime minister has been attacked a few more times).
No matter which side of politics would be in charge they meant no harm to the British interests. Given the respect that the people have for Britain and the legendary good treatment that the Albanians reserve for their guests, the risk to the Britsh embassy was very small. Clearly there could always be opportunistic criminals that can use the occasion to act while the police is not around, but the fact that no foreigners were hurt before, during or after the events should be good enough proof.
I take issue with the article's characterization that the protesters were shooting at his car. While I clearly wasn't there, unfortunately I had been present at other similar events and it was always the case that the protesters and anybody else involved were generally shooting on the air. If a bunch of armed men were really shooting at the car, the car would have been hit.
1. The situation was never that bad as the post makes....
It is similar to the current June events in the US (unrests/protests), but sans looting of random businesses, just burning of the PM office (instead of a police precinct).
2. That politician, was not killed by the government, but it is rumored (never verified) that he was setup by his rival leader of his own party. The same guy who very conveniently then went to the streets and demand the government step down. His own bodyguard was somehow intermingled in this thing.
3. Also, 0 foreigners were harmed during these protests, or past ones... I know Embassies have to take precautions, in Albania foreigners are treat as 'guests' of the house, and treated well. (even during protests). Sounds weird, but that's how it is. It is like the whole nation has the 'responsibility' that the foreign guests have a good time when they visit.
It is from old traditions/customs, dating back to ancient times...
4. This is an example of good American intervention, by then Bill Clinton's cabinet, which was very competent. They basically called the 'bad guy', and told him that the US would not recognize this government, as it was not democratically elected, and you will be considered an outlawed gov. and isolated from the rest of the world. That was enough, for the 'bad politician', to step down, and let a provisory government with members from all major parties to take over until the next elections. The coup-de-ta was over in two days with just one phone call, and probably spared the country from further unrests.
I know for some reason American involvement gets a lot of flack, but great examples of 'just/correct' and successful intervention almost never make the news. It is always the failures that do, unfortunately.
Ps. Also, Albania is a very beautiful Mediterranean country... while it is lacking in infrastructure, It is just as beautiful as neighbors (southern Italy, Greece or Croatia, which most americans are familiar with).
Press accounts of the day speak about only one protester dead and 4 policemen wounded. See for example BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/170367.stm. It's almost sure that all of them were hit by ricocheted bullets or bullets falling from the sky. So most likely the body that he speaks about was one of the wounded policemen. The policemen most probably had just been wounded and was rescued soon after the diplomat saw him. There are no known cases of wounded or dead bodies lying on Albanian streets for long periods of time at any time in the history of the country.
I'm told the key to a successful CIA cover, is that the job needs to be boring, so that people who ask "What do you do for a living?" regret it (Think Ben Stein, talking about the joys of Accounting).
In his case, he started to get into his work. I think he actually began to make a difference in the world.
Also, he developed "doctrinal differences" with the CIA. Despite all the medals and whatnot, he was actually quite liberal and kind. It was difficult for him to deal with what clandestine service became.
Thanks for sharing that. In our time of troubles, it's nice to be reminded of a time when many people felt a calling to help others, it wasn't so much about self aggrandizement.
It's still around. I have been involved in that kind of stuff for almost 40 years. It's just that there's a lot of noise made by "the other folks," so it seems like there's no one left that cares.
Did want to mention one thing: I had an Amazon link to one of my sisters, who had been an illustrator of children's books, but another woman from England, with the same name, suddenly shoved my not-so-famous sister aside, so I yanked the link from my father's bio page.
I spent a week in Albania last year and my experience couldn't be more opposite (obviously there's no civil war on at the moment).
I love the place and it's mostly because of the people. Never have I met more friendly laid back and helpful people.
For example, my airbnb host that I stayed with, for all of 2 nights, kept my large suitcase so I could spend the week in the south with just my carry-on bag. When I got back to Tirana not only did his brother come and meet me with it, he also dropped me off at my next airbnb across town and carried it in for me.
Somewhere I wouldn't hesitate to recommend others visiting. I'll be going back when I can and for longer this time.
I was in Albania in 2002-2007 several times and I was told it is very different today. At that time it was very peaceful and quiet compared to Kosovo (where we traveled in convoys guarded by armored carriers and helicopter gunships), Sarajevo (when landing on the Sarajevo airport, Apache helicopters were deploying flares to protect the civilian aircraft) or Belgrade (big holes visible in building walls from bombs).
The biggest problem 20 years ago was almost nobody was speaking any foreign language in the eastern part of the country and some were understanding Italian on the coast (they watched Italian TV a lot). I was not able to eat anything from Skopje, Macedonia, to the restaurant in Tirana were I went with some Albanian colleagues. I confirm the people were friendly and the country was strangely nice, the eastern part reminded me of Jordan (quite arid) and Tirana was a mess of driving too many cars with very inexperienced drivers on tiny roads and back alleys where you had inches on each side of the car. Their language sounds similar to mine, but it just sounds (not many common words), so the atmosphere in the restaurants was familiar and friendly, I felt like in a smaller city in Romania. At the Macedonian-Albanian border crossing I had a fantastic chance of meeting a guy who was speaking Romanian, we used to be a guard at the Albanian embassy in Bucharest and this is how I was able to cross the border, otherwise I was not able to communicate with anyone else in English, French, Italian or hand gestures.
I was in Albania and Kosovo in '99.
Been back since, can't wait to go again.
Op's observations still hold true.
For info, back then, the 17km (sounds easy) from airport to Tirana was a bunker nightmare.
A real coup would have not let even the SAS pass quite so easily. However, SAS? I bet they had each bunker mapped.
mm I get what you mean, but it was more like: Today Albania is a great country to explore and you'd be missing out if you were in the region and skipped over it.
Another thing is their reputation within Europe is... well to put it as one Albanian said to me laughingly: "They're scared of us. They think we're all gangsters"
Most people don't know a lot about the country so if they just read the article or go from what they have heard a European say, they might have an impression that doesn't truly represent it.
> Another thing is their reputation within Europe is... well to put it as one Albanian said to me laughingly: "They're scared of us. They think we're all gangsters"
As an fellow European, I think most people around here would just lump it together with the rest of Balkans; so nothing personal against Albania specifically :) And having couple of (internal-ish) wars does tend to leave memory, especially if they happen on your back yard (from global viewpoint)
He did say "obviously theres no civil war at the moment". Why do you feel the need to argue bro? On albanian geopolitics nonetheless, go drink a beer or something.
1. The situation was never that bad as the post makes....
It is similar to the current June events in the US (unrests/protests), but sans looting of random businesses, just burning of the PM office (instead of a police precinct).
2. That politician, was not killed by the government, but it is rumored (never verified) that he was setup by his rival leader of his own party. The same guy who very conveniently then went to the streets and demand the government step down. His own bodyguard was somehow intermingled in this thing.
3. Also, 0 foreigners were harmed during these protests, or past ones... I know Embassies have to take precautions, in Albania foreigners are treat as 'guests' of the house, and treated well. (even during protests). Sounds weird, but that's how it is. It is like the whole nation has the 'responsibility' that the foreign guests have a good time when they visit.
It is from old traditions/customs, dating back to ancient times...
4. This is an example of good American intervention, by then Bill Clinton's cabinet, which was very competent. They basically called the 'bad guy', and told him that the US would not recognize this government, as it was not democratically elected, and you will be considered an outlawed gov. and isolated from the rest of the world.
That was enough, for the 'bad politician', to step down, and let a provisory government with members from all major parties to take over until the next elections. The coup-de-ta was over in two days with just one phone call, and probably spared the country from a massive bloodshed/unrests.
I know for some reason American involvement gets a lot of flack, but great examples of 'just/correct' and successful intervention almost never make the news. It is always the failures that do, unfortunately.
> It is similar to the current June events in the US (unrests/protests), but sans looting of random businesses, just burning of the PM office (instead of a police precinct).
Wikipedia claims 2000-3800 deaths during the Albania crisis, in a country with population of <3 million; US protests have 26 deaths (again from wiki), with US population being >300 million. That is like 4 orders of magnitude difference there.
>The situation was never that bad as the post makes....
That's kinda what I figured. They drove around, realized they had zero chances of getting in any firefight let alone one big enough that having a dude running around trying not to drop the food would be a problem and consequently decided to stop for pizza.
When you're looking bad, of course it may not have been that bad, but if you're in the middle of it of course you may have a different experience.
And I understand what you're saying about treating foreign tourists well, but incidents happen regardless (the same as they could and do in every country).
You can tell they're professionals because they prefer to avoid conflict rather than aggravate it.
"Benny told us later that the patrol had been menaced on several occasions by armed men, but a few well aimed shots above the heads of the mob had convinced them to melt away and not to mess with the patrol."
Never mind the SAS, who are sauntering around with flak jackets and armed to the teeth, it's Benny the driver, who volunteered to go on patrol with them, who is the coolest character in this story!
I wonder if Benny was a local Albanian. The fact that he spoke Albanian suggests that indeed he was. In that case his actual name would have been Beni (but pronounced Benny).
Awesome blog. The Libya one was even better. I have a picture of Hermes Conrad stamping the forms at the border, using every trick in the book to rescue those foreign workers. British civil service at its finest.
There was a civil war in Albania since 1997 and most other countries had their embassies evacuated. The US Marines cleared the US embassy in Tirana cleared already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Silver_Wake
They might have specifically not notified the government nor the ambassadors because they didn’t know who was safe to know about it and whether there is anyone actually thinking of taking them captive.
They were able to do so because of diplomatic decision making.
They landed a transport plane on an airport. That's not a feat of military might. It's one of having the same blue/yellow emblem somewhere on your plane as on the 10.5 million cartons of infant nutrition you distributed the year before.
Some "shots over their heads" may have been useful in discouraging individual idiots. But the only reason there was anybody left to rescue, and the reason they were allowedd to succeed, is that neither side of the conflict had any actual interest in harming them.
Going into any hot zone as a small squad is always a big deal. There are always rouge actors and self interested individuals, that will exploit the lawlessness of a hot zone. Knowing how to deal with them can mean the difference between life and death. Most are like any other predator, looking for a easy meal without the risk of harm. These higher level soldiers (SAS, Seals, Delta Force, KSK, KSM) guys are trained in this type of psychology and know most secondary actors will disperse in the presence of a creditable threat of resistance. While the embassies where certainly not the target of the primary actors, they are a rich target for secondary actors so it certainly was not a walk in the park for these guys, but I am sure to them it was business as usual.
Haha, who knew HN commentators were not only experts in landing rockets at sea, quantum entanglement and esoteric programming languages but also the finer workings of the special forces
Why do you interpret this as dismissive? Everyone I've ever met in the military seemed quite aware and respectful of their role in a larger system--they want people who understand chain of command, not cowboys, even more so than other large organizations.
That system likely provided these SAS operators both with direct support here (like briefings on what route to take travelling, who would and wouldn't be hostile, etc.), and with the indirect support inherent in anyone who hoped to end up controlling Albania not wanting the British as an enemy. I'd guess the operators felt appreciation for that support and pride in their own contributions to that system, and no diminution of their individual achievements.
Yes, thanks. I was in no way trying to dismiss these soldiers' professionalism.
I was, however, dismissive of HN warriors with World-War 3 lingo of "hot zones" and "threat vectors" and "secondary actors", tom-clancying their way to such magnificient insights as:
> Going into any hot zone as a small squad is always a big deal
It's mostly to do with shitty Click Bait Title Casing. You'd never think 'SAS rescue three' was the name of a military unit.
BTW HN turns submitted titles into Shit Casing if they contain a certain amount of caps (happens easily with acronyms). If you edit it again, it will accept the original. Wish it would just take what you submit in the first place though.
EU started accession process with Albania in March this year.
It appears to be following the same model as Ancient Rome, Napoleon and Hitler, relying on a constant stream of newly acquired territories to continue its existence.
Several different Albanian Ponzi schemes were basically marketing themselves as banks, and they were real legitimate businesses with IT employees and salesmen and everything.
Eventually almost every Albanian had money tied up in these schemes in one way or another, and one by one they all started to go bust as the leaders ran away with the money or were otherwise unable to payout interest on deposits, or even return initial principal deposits.
As a result, the nation rioted, and the PM decided to flee.
Realizing this, certain elements in the Albanian population decided to raid the local police armories for military equipment of all times. And what resulted was an interesting and tragic case study of what happens when several different armed factions and many thousands of bandits begin to commit violence against anyone and everyone under the guise of "re-establishing law and order".