Ramush!

As I watched Edi Rama dragging you to sign on the national flag in Peja, I felt sincerely sorry for you. All the show of that day was despicable, including the lining to make the eagle sign, but that thing with you passed every limit.

At that moment, the story of your family, your story, before and after the war, the endless Calvary of pain and suffering passed before my eyes.

I recalled a personal story, when in 1997, while in detention in the police station of Has, you asked a big favor from someone. You wanted someone to pass the Kosovo-Albanian border, find the body of your Luan, killed in the border and which you had wetted with gasoline, and set it on fire so that he would not fall in the Serbian soldiers’ hands.

The noble Hasians didn’t do that, instead they went and took the body to bury him in the border village Vlahnë. You received his body only after Kosovo was liberated. I also recalled the other brother, Shkëlzen, relatives, childhood friends, fellow warriors, your soldiers, all killed in the battlefield.

If you’d like to know what Edi Rama was doing in that time of sublime sacrifices for you, you’d better not ask. It would suffice saying he hadn’t called received (later Premier) Fatos Nano’s call to turn to Albania yet.

During the Kosovo conflict, when over a million ethnic Albanians fled from the country, when only in Kukës were over 150 thousand refugees, without mentioning Has and Tropoja, Edi Rama, as a minister of the Albanian government offered his only contribution with the brilliant idea of the county of Kukës joining Kosovo. Not even half of a monthly salary put aside to help those poor people.

Ten years later, Edi Rama, the opposition leader, became the fiercest opponent of the Rruga e Kombit (the Nation’s Road, the highway connecting Albania to Kosovo). And it wasn’t for the so-called corruption. We all know Ramush that road was not for Albania, but for Kosovo. Only not to lose Serbia’s connection to the Adriatic Sea Slobodan Milosevic started four wars, with over a quarter million victims. Meanwhile, Edi Rama’s politic rival “brought” the Adriatic to Prizren.

I apologize for opening your pain wounds, but that was just to remind who you are and who Edi Rama is.

Let’s turn back to the actuality. Edi Rama called you, Sali Berisha and all the opponents of the land swap idea “jackasses”. I’ll try to explain why.

Kosovo, as a matter of fact, has started since a long time to change its borders. It changed the border with Montenegro, in the case of demarcation, by giving away a few thousands of hectares from its territory.

It changed the borders after 2000 too, when the demarcation with Macedonia was made, losing several villages and a few kilometers of Gjilan and Vitia.

Ramush, making peace by offering to give away territories is the easiest thing. Who wouldn’t accept such a peace?

The case with Serbia is more than a land swap, more than peace.

Serbians, even better than us, have known and know who Albanians are, what they represent and what is the future of both nations. Their ideologues, their nationalists knew it. Milosevic knew it too. Also when he met Fatos Nano in Crete.

The land swap idea is not a new one. Neither is it Thaçi’s, nor Rama’s, Vucic’s. It is an earlier idea. It was put in the politic discourse by Ivica Dacic before he became Prime Minister. In 2012, in a visit in Skopje, he said he was “not interested in how many countries Albanians live. I am interested in Serbians living in one country”.

Not only that, a land swap with Kosovo should be done in agreement with Tirana, bypassing Prishtina. As long as Sali Berisha was in power no one took the idea seriously, but things changed with Edi Rama.

Until 2014 it was a taboo, but the mechanism started moving with Edi Rama as Prime Minister of Albania. Belgrade wanted this agreement with Tirana and Rama was ready to give it. To fulfill it, first the terrain should be prepared. The first part was Rama’s transformation into a nationalist.

Ever since the fall of communism, the Socialist Party has had credibility problems in rapport with Kosovo. Edi Rama even more so, for many reasons. But Belgrade needed Edi as an Albanian nationalist. And the right moment was planned with Rama’s visit in Belgrade, the first of an Albanian Prime Minister since 1946, after the football match between Serbia and Albania in Belgrade.

The drone incident in the stadium is known history for all now. Also how the Belgrade media attributed it to Rama’s brother Olsi. After no one bit it, since there was no footage to show him with the remote in his hand, Ballisti showed up. Albanians anywhere in the world became ecstatic. Ballist Morina became a hero!

A few weeks later, Rama visited Belgrade. He said it to Vucic’s face that Kosovo was independent.

Hysteria in the televisions!

A storm in the social networks!

The terrain was created.

Ballist a hero, Rama leader of all Albanians. But, there were two problems. Ballist did not command the drone, Rama didn’t become a leader either. Ramush, the drone was not raised by Ballist, it was a gift of Vucic for Rama (I challenge you to prove the opposite).

After Belgrade, an ecstatic Edi Rama went to Preshevo, passed the Kosovo border en route to Albania. Both Rama and Vucic were expecting anyone, young and old, to flood the streets and hail the Great Leader. But, to their disappointment, no one came out.

Not even one, literally!

As a consequence, he stopped somewhere near Prizren, dined and then bitter and cursing returned to Albania. The scheme failed.

Thaçi’s coming to stage with the idea of a great agreement through changing/correcting/adopting/or whatever terms they’ll invent from now on, is nothing but a Plan B, considering that Plan with Rama as a nationalist leader failed.

We understand this has been discussed for two years between Vucic, Thaçi and Rama. The same time has passed since the negotiation in Brussels stopped. The same time since Belgrade’s offensive for undoing the recognition of Kosovo from some small countries.

The stalling of visas liberalization between Kosovo and Schengen Area has been going on for the same period of time too.

Ramush, Kosovo has been cornered and getting punched and kicked first by Rama and Thaçi and then from Vucic and bloodless European bureaucrats.

After beating it nicely, Thaçi went to Washington and in meetings with officials of different levels proposed the border changes. The fable that Rama, Vucic, and other actors had prepared sounded like music to the ears of the new administration and goes more or less like this:

Kosovo is a problem you inherited from the previous administrations. While you face innumerous challenges worldwide, let us, Albanians and Serbians, solve it ourselves. All we want from you is support, nothing else. It’s an easy fruit. You’ll get rid of a nuisance, and also solve a crisis.

Someone there, inexperienced, got excited. The calm minds said: Come first with a proposal, then we’ll see.

Reactions in Prishtina and Tirana were refusals. A storm started. Rama nowhere to be found. Neither was asked, nor responded. The show, according to the scenario, had to be directed by Thaçi.

So when Thaçi remained alone, without support, Edi Rama went to Pejë and made that show of a nationalist wannabe. It was a forced move, but a good one. Thaçi needed help. Rama helped him, with you by his side, putting you, willingly or unwillingly, in the same pot.

If our men don’t know where they are going to, Belgrade is quite clear. Actually, Belgrade doesn’t really care too much about Kosovo or Mitrovica. Anything they grab is good as long as borders change.

Anyone in Belgrade knows they’ve lost Kosovo for good. It would only be a burden to them. Their concern is not Kosovo, but Republika Srbska. To open the Bosnia game, they first need to open way with Kosovo, by changing borders. A peaceful change of borders is made around a table, where the Russians too will sit tomorrow.

Russians removed their soldiers from Kosovo in 2003, accumulating a debt of €350,000 to KEK (Kosovo Power Corporation) from their base in Gjilan. Before inviting them to your table, at least ask them to turn the debt.

With that money you may cover the expenses of the negotiation team.

Ramush, Thaçi’s and Rama’s personal problems are not Kosovo’s or Albanians’ ones.

When in March 8, 2005 the International Tribunal for War Crimes in Yugoslavia Tribunal indicted you, you stepped down as Prime Minister and traveled to The Hague to be cuffed.

You did it because you did not want your problem to become Kosovo’s problem. That was the second time you showed you were the man for Kosovo. Today it’s the third time.

When I watched you in Pejë being dragged by Rama to put your hand on the flag I screamed: WTF Ramush?!

And Rama proved me right only one day later! In front of the same flag, he showed up again, this time not with you, but with his baggy pants! Because this is the difference between you and him: In the flag’s red you see the color of blood; Rama, in the flag’s black, sees the color of his baggy pants.

If you can’t see this difference, well, it’s up to you!