They rage against the Trump clan's luxury construction: "Enough is enough"
On the coast of Albania, species-rich wetlands are being plowed for a luxury resort with strong connections to the Trump family.
But
the people are protesting. The raging "flamingo revolution" is driven
by long-standing anger at the country's government, which is plagued
with allegations of corruption.
- We have had enough, says protester Akil Cala.
The
green hills of Sazan are covered with ferns, broom and laurel. It
smells of lavender and rosemary. Pine trees, hornbeam and holm oak shade
the clear blue waters of the Strait of Otranto, which forms the border
between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.
Ivanka Trump anchored here
during a boat trip in 2021. The American president's daughter has
painted a dreamy picture of the "discovery".
- We swam to the
island and walked barefoot all the way to the top. We were completely
enchanted, she told the American podcaster David Senra at the end of
May.
Over the phone from Tirana, environmental anthropologist Aleksandër Trajçe laughs when Ivanka Trump comes up.
- I don't know which path she took, but her feet must have been bleeding at the end of that hike. It's not exactly soft terrain.
"Breaking point"
Opposite
Sazan, on the Albanian mainland, bulldozers have been rolling over
beaches cut off by sharp barbed wire for a few months now. Here,
preparations are being made for the realization of the vision that was
born during Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner's boat trip: the
mega-construction that will transform the coastal area into a luxury
resort for the richest of the rich.
Behind the project is
Kushner's venture capital firm Affinity Partners – a company whose
capital comes almost exclusively from sovereign wealth funds in the
Middle East, according to Bloomberg. The drawings are full of luxury
villas, infinity pools and docks for luxury yachts.
The plans –
and the lack of transparency surrounding them – have sparked furious
protests. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of Albanians have gathered
to show their displeasure, both in the capital Tirana and at the
construction site in Zvërnec further south.
“They are trying to
sell our country to foreign businessmen. For us, this is a turning
point. We will not allow it,” says protester Akil Cala.
“Enough of the lies”
The
26-year-old was on site during the incident that really caused the
protests to explode at the end of May: when a protester was beaten by
private security guards at the cordoned-off construction site in
Zvërnec. Cala describes how the man was pushed to the ground and roughly
dragged across the beach – while the police watched. Right then and
there, the little trust he had in the government disappeared.
–
Honestly – at that moment I realized that we have very, very big
problems. When the state cannot even protect its own citizens, how can
we trust them with anything at all?
On the streets of Tirana –
where police responded to the protesters with water cannons –
increasingly loud demands are now being heard for Prime Minister Edi
Rama to resign.
– This country has had enough of corruption,
enough of lies, enough of a government that only acts according to its
own interests, says Akil Cala.
What has now grown into a rage
against the entire Albanian government – accused for years of
corruption, dubious deals with billion-dollar state contracts and links
to organized crime – started with protests against the environmental
consequences of the billion-dollar project.
Seals and Pelicans
Sazan
and the adjacent coastal stretch, the Vjosa-Narta wetland with the
large Nartalagun, are part of a critical ecosystem and serve as an
important resting place for migratory birds on their way between Europe
and Africa. More than 200 bird species and over 70 endangered species
live here, according to the bird conservation organization Birdlife.
These include monk seals, loggerhead turtles, grebes and the flamingos
that have now become a symbol of a protest movement dubbed the “flamingo
revolution.”
“Some days we have counted 10,000 flamingos in the
lagoon,” says Aleksandër Trajçe, who heads Albania’s oldest
environmental organization, PPNEA.
He calls the area one of
Albania’s most biologically diverse, one of the “absolutely most
important” for the country’s flora and fauna.
“The beach that is
part of this huge project is one of the few places in Albania where
loggerhead turtles lay their eggs.” And the peak egg-laying season
coincided exactly with the start of construction.
The first time
Trajçe heard about the resort plans was in 2024, when Jared Kushner
himself published an X-post with computer-generated images of a
“development project” on the Albanian coast. Just weeks earlier, the
government in Tirana had suddenly changed the law that previously banned
tourism development in protected natural areas. Then nothing happened –
at least not outwardly – until April of this year.
– There
were no consultations, no experts were called in to give their views on
the matter. No documentation was made public. Then, on April 30, we
heard that bulldozers had arrived. That’s when we organized the first
protest.
Create jobs?
Albania’s
anti-corruption agency has now launched an investigation into the
project, especially into who actually has the right to sell the land. It
reeks of shady dealings, Trajçe notes.
– If you want to write a
textbook on how to do shady business, this is the perfect case. The
government needs to be very transparent now, open up all the
documentation.
Albania is one of Europe's poorest countries, but
parts of the population live in great wealth. In Tirana, new skyscrapers
are popping up every two weeks and in the back alleys, the elite party
with bundles of euro banknotes. At the same time, the country's young
people are fleeing to the EU and Britain in search of a livable life.
-
There is great general dissatisfaction with the way the government
behaves, how it benefits the rich at the expense of the people. The
people's basic needs are being ignored, says Trajçe.
Albania
cannot afford not to develop a "gift" like Sazan, Prime Minister Rama
claimed last year, saying that the country "needs luxury tourism like a
desert needs water". Kushner's resort will create jobs and act as an
economic catalyst for Albania's modernization, according to Rama.
- We don't buy that anymore. The government must start listening to the people, says Aleksandër Trajçe.
FACTS
Albania
Albania
is located on the southern part of the Adriatic Sea and borders
Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to
the east and Greece to the south. The country is about the same size as
Småland and has a population of just over 2.8 million.
For
hundreds of years, Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire, but declared
independence in 1912. During World War II, the country was occupied
first by Italy and then by Nazi Germany, and finally came under
communist rule with the headstrong and brutal Enver Hoxha as party
leader and dictator.
Between 1943 and 1985, Hoxha ruled Albania
with an iron fist. Religion and free elections were banned, the country
was isolated from the outside world and the population suffered under
oppression and difficult living conditions. Mass executions, torture and
wiretapping were commonplace, and in Hoxha's political prison camps,
systematic abuses were committed against prisoners.
After the
final fall of communism in 1990, Albania has sought better relations
with the West. In 2009, the country became a member of NATO and in 2014
it was accepted as a candidate for EU membership.
Since 2013, the
country has been led by a social democratic government under Prime
Minister Edi Rama (born 1964), a former long-time mayor of Tirana and
former national basketball player. Rama's Socialist Party of Albania was
born through a reorganization of Hoxha's Albanian Party of Labor.
The
World Bank today considers Albania a middle-income country. However, it
is still one of Europe's poorest countries, with widespread corruption
and a large informal sector.
Sources: Country Guide/UI
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