Ever since the time of the wild isolation that was proclaimed as a (anti) national strategy by Enver Hoxha’s communist regime, Albanians started in secrecy to create a myth for everything that existed beyond the borders. Rule of law, free market economy, freedom of thought and business, impartial Lady Justice with the flawless balance and closed eyes, zero corruption, and other values like were the ingredients of that big dream that made Albanians celebrate in excitement when final democracy and politic pluralism were finally here!

Embassies and customs were opened; businessmen and ice-cold diplomats arrived and finally the myth had the occasion to prove itself true. In the beginning, when the Albanian citizens passed through the border crossing points of Kakavia or Kapshtica, or when they entered the embassies for a visa, they were trembling in front of the police officers or heavily suited Consuls because “they made no jokes”.

But before long, convoys of taxicabs and airplanes full of travelers equipped with fake visas that passed without problems occurred. The Mafia of visas was born, with its head inside the embassies and it reached such a level that even Alfred Shkurti bought one with his real name from the Italians and escaped abroad in a time when he was the most wanted person in the country.

A few people remember, but even the most “rigid” embassy, the German, transformed into a market of visas so much that their government was forced, in 2004, to wipe out the entire personnel and one of the main officials was put under investigation when he returned home and subsequently was “shamed” into committing suicide.

Shame and crime there, but “business”, politics and diplomacy here, in Albania!

Many US and European diplomats have pointed out in interviews and their memories that when they were first appointed to Albania they considered that phase of their career as the end of the world, like a deportation and they’d better prefer to go to Africa or Asia instead.

They come with desperation and frowned face, and leave with “tears in their eyes”, because their efforts to extend the service (possibly endlessly) in this problematic always-in-transition country failed.

What metamorphosis happens to these foreigners, ambassadors and their wives in particular, that just like hungry flies never would like to leave the honey they have fallen into despite being clear they’re drowning there?

If they do not speak about the drugs cultivation that is causing havoc and has returned into a business that is run like a state enterprise as it happened in 2016-107; about the money of the world that is being laundered heavily in the economy and concessions without any logic of the market economy; about “The Dwarf”, “Bro”, “Tao” and the long queue of the Renaissance men that don’t even try to hide their links to the organized crime; about the oligarch that have put the government along with the country’s public assets in their sacks; about the black market of votes; about the degraded Judiciary Reform… then why were and are they here?!

We’re not witnessing them to do even those little things their homologues during the time of Enver Hoxha’s communism did: cultural and artistic exchanges between the peoples, songs and dances.

If all these are “domestic affairs”, as the artists that defend the National Theatre and the public property below it were told by the new EU Ambassador Luigi Soreca a few days ago, then what do these gentlemen really do?

What road did Lu and Vlahutin pave for the wheels of the government to work untroubled whereas the majority of Albanians go through dusk to dawn with their baggage ready waiting for the moment to leave towards the countries the ambassadors come from and where these do not want to return?

It’s the right time to tell the truth and their myth – so much revered by Albanians even 28 years later – to be put under the light of truth.

Why has Albania transformed from a country where the foreign diplomats used to come unwillingly into such a coveted oasis for which they make all efforts to come and never leave?

Do they serve to their countries, US and EU, to protect in Albania the essence of the existence of democracy and rule of law or have they – en route towards the “honey” – betrayed these existential columns that hold afoot the societies and nations they come from?

If their governments cry out loud that during the years of the Socialist Renaissance rule the organized crime has seized the state and economy; that Albanian drug gangs have become dangerous for their countries too; that Albania has returned into a haven of organized crime where billions of dirty money is laundered; that it threatens the security of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, then what major reason makes these ambassadors to lock their mouths and even come out in open or “diplomatic” defense of this organization in power which doesn’t bother any more to hide for whom and what it works?

It’s been 28 years we lull to the sweet tunes of the ambassadors’ myth and are fed up with the fairy tale that accompanies it: “thanks heaven they are here, or God only knows how much worse we’d be with these politicians and the government we have”.

It’s time for them to wear off the fake myth and reveal the reality, no matter how ugly it is for a number of them.

If these diplomats are paid with high wages from their countries taxpayers’ money to be guardians of the rule of law and our fragile democracy; to discover to their governments and in front of the Albanians and the crime and corruption that is choking us, then at which “payroll” do they sign to remain silent and cover the reality?

That’s why it’s only fair to ask: Here in Tirana, 28 years later, do we have the myth or the Mafia of the ambassadors?