Towards a ‘Greater’ Albania: From an agricultural backwater to...a marijuana heroin exporter (Part 2)

Part TWO

‘Greater’ Albania: From an agricultural backwater to...a marijuana heroin exporter

‘Greece does not have territorial demands on Albania’
Greek Premier Mitsotakis 1992
How did a small isolated ex - socialist country become the Columbia of Europe?

Its very difficult to source materials regarding the relationship between Greece and Albania in the last two centuries as we are dealing essentially with agricultural countries and putting pen to paper wasn’t necessarily their strong point nor were the areas clearly demarcated as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire may have occurred in certain areas of current Greece but they weren’t really clear until the 20th century.

As part of the Ottoman Empire the region of Albania was primarily islamiscised and worked for the Ottomans. In terms of foreign associations due to their size and historical development they appear to have followed always Empires that were on the wane. Fanatically in support of the Ottomans, then the Austro-Hungarians, then the Italians, then the Germans subsequently Stalin's Russia, then Mao's China and then finally the Americans under Bush senior and Clinton. One could argue if one wanted to, look who the Albanians are fanatically in support of and work out who is about to lose. They resemble a gambling man who always believes he will win and always bets on the losing horse. Sad but true.

The point of division between Greece and Albania is an area of around 6-7000sq miles which is labelled ‘Northern Ipirus’ by the Greeks and ‘Southern Albania’ by the Albanians. This area was granted to Albania in 1913 by the Florence Protocol so as to make Albania a viable state. This division of Ipirus enraged the Greeks as it was part of Greece from ancient times with settlements there. This area has continued to be a bone of contention for the two countries (recent killing of a Greek called Katsifas a day before OXI on October 27th 2018 by armed Albanian paramilitary police created tension).

During the Sevres Agreement in 1920 Greece was granted the right to assimilate Northern Ipirus, but the political situation made this impossible at the time in Greece. Between 1927 and 1939 when King Zog of Albania was in charge he handed over control to Mussolini’s Italy and Albania became a province of Italy with the scope of uniting other Albanians areas under one region. Here was first born the concepts of ‘Greater Albania’…

Albanians in Albania and neighbouring countries

The problem of the Balkans was that populations of different identity lived in areas that never became part of the bourgeois transformation of each nation state ie minorities ended up on the wrong side of the border. Bigger powers played on this in order to gain a political foothold in each country promised them something that was never granted. Such was born the concept of ‘Greater Albania’ begging the question what was ever great in Albania? The concept of a Greater Albania adopted by Mussolini’s foreign policy to justify neo-colonialism to a desperate home population suffering severely from the onset of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is an irredentist concept of lands that are considered to form the national homeland by many Albanians, based on claims on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas. In addition to the existing Republic of Albania, the term incorporates claims to regions in the neighbouring states, the areas include Kosovo and the Preševo Valley of Serbia, territories in southern Montenegro, northwestern Greece (the Greek regional units of Thesprotia and Preveza) , referred by Albanians as Chameria, and other territories that were part of the Vilayet of Yanina during the Ottoman Empire and a part of western FYROM.

At some point prior to WW2 Italy adopted them officially and turned them into a province of Italy and then to keep them on board Mussolini sold the idea of a ‘Greater Albania’, in other words uniting all the Albanian speaking areas of the Balkans which in today’s time it implies uniting the Albanians in ex-FYROM and Kosovo thus affecting the operation of two states.

When Mussolini’s invasion of Greece failed and in part that was helped by the refusal of the Greeks in what is now southern albania to play ball, Hitlers 3rd Reich adopted them alongside the short lived ‘Republic of Macedonia’, but obviously to no avail as the whole experiment ignominiously collapsed. Both Serbia and Greece were a hard nut to crack to dismember….

Chamouria – Modern Albanian myths related to the Ottoman period

Albanians harp on about a quarter of northern Greece being theirs despite not having citizens living there and they call the region Chamouria.

During the Ottoman rule, the region was under the Vilayet of Ioannina, and later under the Pashalik of Yanina. During this time, the region was known as Chameria (also spelled Tsamouria, Tzamouria) and became a district in the Vilayet of Yanina.The wars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries between Russia and the Ottoman Empire negatively impacted upon the region.Increased conversions to Islam followed, often forced. Its ironic that history appears to be repeating itself.

https://www.mixanitouxronou.gr/sfagi-tis-paramithias-apo-tous-tsamides-ke-epemvasi-tou-napoleonta-zerva-vinteo/

During the phases of implosion of the Ottoman period enforced islamisication occurred in the regions encompassing modern day Greece. Today we have a similar situation with the promotion of everything islamic (from the opening of the first state funded Greek mosque, to migrant blow ins of islamic heritage being funded to settle in big cities and on the islands of Greece.)


Albanians marching for their Ottoman past for the made up kingdom of Chamouria

Citizens of theirs that collaborated with the 3rd Reich in brutal killings of Greeks were expelled. That fear always lingers on in the back of the mind of every Albanian. It explains in part why Albania wants to be shot of all Greeks within their midst and Eddie Rama has pushed for the expropriation of Greek property whilst the President has provisionally blocked it.

Albania itself for most of its modern existence was an agricultural country and remains so. It never really industrialised.

In the conflict between Albanians Hoxha and Russias Khrushchev Russia didn’t want Albania to industrialise and saw no reason for it to do so as Russia could provide it with industrialised goods in return for agricultural ones. So emphasis was placed on investments in agriculture and Albania did become self -sufficient in food but lacked in industrial and consumer goods and its perpetual conflicts with both Russia and China meant that for a couple of decades they were isolated from the world market and did not update their infrastructure. Under Hoxha they built a national railway and a port they built did station a Russian submarine but once they fell out with each other Albanians took it over and sold it for parts.

This isn’t the area to analyse the merits or non merits of the socialist experiment under Hoxha. That can be left to future historians.

What concerns us is the interaction between those who departed from Albania and Greek labour. The reason being is twofold. Did they raise the experience of Greek labour and increase the general standard of living of both the host working class and themselves or did they lower the general standard pinning it to the floor? Did the free movement of labour between Greece and Albania create better conditions for life in general or make it all worse? The irony of the whole situation is that although they alleged free movement only really applied for countries that negotiated it in the EU with its four freedoms, this was brought to Greece a couple of decades early and the results have been catastrophic.

The Albanians having been socialised under Hoxha as he died in 1985 so if they were a minimum of 20 when they made a dash across the Albanian border to Greece they were born in 1970, 5 odd years before Hoxha broke off all relationships with the outside world, they came full on anti-communist only interested in making a fast buck. If they were 30 they were born in 1960. However which way one looks at it there is no explanation as to how a country emptied by half in the space of a decade or so after Hoxhas death and they were all ready made to undercut the labour of foreign workers, to be viciously anti-communist and at the same time in various sectors of the Greek economy to become one with the KKE (allegedly pro-communist)

Albania Rocks: Marijuana Galore & Imported Heroin

Albanian marijuana plantations

The mainstream BBC has even reported on the business which is Albanias main export.
“In Albania, a kilo of this illegal drug sells for between 100 and 200 euros (£85 to £170). In Italy it will fetch about 1,500 euros. And most of the country's cannabis crop is trafficked out - north through Montenegro, south to Greece, or west across the Adriatic to Italy. There is no significant home market. One source estimates the illicit industry may be worth five billion euros (£4.25bn) per year - about half of Albania's GDP.

The 20kg of stinking greenery slowly drying in the sunlight that streams through an open window does not represent this man's entire crop.
"I've produced 350kg," he says. "This year almost every single house in the village grew cannabis - tons and tons have been produced in this community alone."
This man employs 15 people to pick and process, and armed guards to defend his crop. He says he is in charge here, but he probably belongs to a wider network. So if everyone is growing it, and that seems to be common knowledge, why has there been no police raid?
"I pay the police 20%. Everybody has to pay. If you don't pay they will take you to jail," he says.
Then, he gets defensive.
"This is our curse - there are no jobs, no work here. There's no money in growing anything else. I know it's not a good thing I'm doing, but there's no other way."
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38111945

The road to the EU
The issues that will arise is that if a US retreat occurs from Afghanistan, Albania – Kosovo loses its pivotal role as a Heroin processing and distribution hotspot and if moves are made to bring it into the EU, loses its status as a state where its citizens have essentially diplomatic immunity from criminal acts in neighbouring countries as all they need to do is rush back across the border and all is well. Extradition does not apply. Famous in this was a corporate lawyer (Zafiropoulos) for top politicians in Greece who got paid by Albanian mobsters to spring one of their own from a Greek prison and when that didn’t materialise was shot at point blank range in his office and the perpetrators went back to Albania no questions asked.
https://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/858056/dolofonia-zafeiropoulou-sokarei-o-teleutaios-dialogos-tou-dikigorou-me-tous-ektelestes-tou/

This is where Albanias problems arise. Having carved out a niche as a narco terror state the Columbia of the EU they have to tone down their act as eg France and Holland aren't happy in being undercut in marijuana production and for Albanian citizens having diplomatic immunity from criminal acts.