It all started with Ivanka.
And this could lead to the departure of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama – who has long faced numerous difficulties – after violent protests in Tirana and elsewhere, which have engulfed the entire troubled country.
This small country in the Adriatic Sea, located between Greece and Montenegro, is a member of NATO and a close ally of the United States.
The problems began after Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, were on a yacht near the Albanian coast when Ivanka "discovered" Sazan.
Sazani, a haven for birds, is an abandoned island that once served as a military base under the communist regime of Enver Hoxha.
It is located opposite the coastal city of Vlora, next to a protected lagoon and a peninsula that serves as a protected wetland area, rich in biodiversity – including pink flamingos, sea turtles, seals and a wide variety of birds.
“We were on a friend’s yacht and stopped for a swim,” she said. “That’s how we found it. We swam to the island. We climbed barefoot to the top and were completely mesmerized.”
So much so that, after a meeting with Rama, Kushner's private investment firm, Affinity Partners - together with Arab investors - proposed a $1.7 billion development plan to transform the island and its environmentally protected coastline into a luxury resort; not for Albanians, but for foreign millionaires and billionaires.
Rama, who is a socialist, holds the record as the longest-serving prime minister in Europe and has consistently sought to build a close relationship with Trump.
Before the Albanian people realized what was happening, the political terrain had already been prepared for the implementation of plans that would destroy this area rich in wildlife, through the construction of 10,000 private villas, hotels, a yacht marina, as well as roads and bridges in this protected area.
Bulldozers appeared to clear the land and fences were erected. Local residents protested, but were met with violence and pushback from private security personnel. Television cameras captured security guards clashing with local protesters in May when they tried to tear down newly erected fences without warning to keep them off land they once believed belonged to the people.
This sparked what became the "Flamingo Revolution," an anti-Rama and anti-government movement that began even before the Paris riots.
One night, thousands of protesters from all walks of life, fed up with widespread political corruption, poured onto Tirana's main boulevard carrying cut-outs of flamingos and banners reading "Albania is not for sale" and "Ivanka go home."
Albania, since the fall of communism a generation ago, has become the drug money laundering capital of Europe, a place where nothing of importance gets done without kickbacks and bribes.
While the Flamingo Revolution was a largely spontaneous, peaceful, and nonviolent civic movement, things changed drastically when students returned to school at the end of the summer.
Students, generally fed up with Rama, the cost of living, and government corruption, hijacked the Flamingo Revolution and began destroying and burning public buildings. They want Albania for Albanians, not a country for Rama's wealthy (and often corrupt) friends and foreign investors.
The previously peaceful demonstrators stayed home while the students (and miscreants) turned the peaceful protest into the violent anti-government riots, accompanied by tear gas, batons, rocks, fireworks, Molotov cocktails, and water cannons that you see on television today.
While differing in tactics, both groups want Rama, who has ruled for 13 years, to resign.
The main difference between the demonstrations in Paris and Tirana, my sources in Tirana pointed out to me, is the absence of Muslim jihadist protesters, as in Paris. The only flags waved by protesters in Tirana are the flags of Albania, not Palestine.
Would things calm down, I asked, if President Donald Trump intervened and got Ivanka and Kushner to abandon their controversial development plans that caused the unrest in the first place?
No, they replied, it's too late for that. Rama and his corrupt socialist administration must go.
However, it would have been better if Ivanka had sailed further along the coast, towards Croatia – where there are more islands to “discover” – and left the Albanians alone. She lit the fire.
©Author Peter Lucas has written 3 books about Albania. He is a veteran American journalist and renowned writer of Albanian origin. He has a long career in major media in the United States and is known as one of the first Western reporters allowed to visit Albania during the last period of the communist regime (1986).
