Several of you have asked me about the flamingo revolution and asked if we saw the protests. Every night since late May protesters have gathered outside the Prime Ministry to protest a land deal between the government and an organization associated with Ivana Trump and Jered Kushner. They plan to build a high end resort on land that is relatively untouched along the Ionian Sea. It is a major habitat for pink flamingos, so the protests took on the name of Flamingo Revolution. We saw or heard them every night while in Tirana. Sometimes they marched from the Prime Ministry to the University right under our hotel window. We had a birds’ eye view. Sometimes when we spent the evening in Skanderbeg Square, we walked on the sidewalk beside the protests to get to the hotel. We were not the only ones. Many people on their nightly xhuri (promenade) were strolling on the sidewalk largely ignoring the protests, they have become normal. The demonstrations have moved beyond environmental protection and have become a movement to force Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign or to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
Our friend Noel jokingly, or perhaps not so jokingly, called us “Protest Tourists.” And there really is some protest tourism going on in Albania. While we were not there for the protests we did not shy away from them if they came to us. I am pretty good at reading a crowd and know the ground. But sometimes protest tourists can get into trouble. Here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote in 1997 from Tirana during the pyramid scheme collapse. I was at the protest with a US Embassy Radio to report back on the demonstrations. They had us posted all over the city. I was about a 10 minute walk from my flat. I was wearing a yellow “Human Rights Monitor” T shirt. Several of us working on USAID projects were monitoring.
I read the crowd and it wasn’t good. I decided to withdraw behind a police line, if they would let me through, and find a safe apartment hallway to duck into when I was greeted by a cheery “Hello Rich.” It was the “Love Plus (Security)” condom ladies out on a lark. They are here on temporary assignment to promote the use of condoms to prevent STDs. I worked with them on a media campaign. But right now, they were tourists with no idea of what might happen. I was trying to convince them to move back behind the police line when I saw Erin, the resident advisor for the National Democratic Institute, an NGO connected with the U.S. Democratic party. She was there for the same reason I was, to monitor human rights violations.
We headed for the first police line, it was more of a huddle, cops joking and smoking. The “Love Plus” ladies wanted to stop and have their pictures taken. We moved them on to the second police line. A crowd was running down Ali Dimi toward us and we needed to get on the other side of that line, fast.
We heard shots and the Embassy walkie talkie (Erin and I both had them) reported that someone had fired into the air and thrown the gun into an apartment window. The police stopped chasing the crowd and headed into the building looking for the gun. That bought us some time.
The “Love Plus” ladies began to grasp the situation. One of them asked how we were going to get through the police line. Erin, she of the wicked wit, suggested that the combination of her being blond and having a handbag full of condoms might allow for some possibilities. But it ended up not being a problem. I knew one of the cops and he let us through. On the other side of the line the “love Plus” ladies relaxed and wanted to pose for pictures in front of the cops. They still didn’t get it. They (and we) needed to get out NOW.
Everyone’s radios went off at once, the police and ours. Five thousand students were forming up at the University and heading toward town. Our line of police was ordered out of our neighborhood toward the University. They broke the line and trotted toward their vans leaving us with no line of protection. As they ran past one looked the “Love Plus” ladies and said “bye-bye.” We all got out safely and I filed my report with the Embassy. In four hours, the government would resign.
This demonstration was nowhere as tense. People had their kids, vendors were selling drinks and the mood of the protesters and the police was relaxed so, the one day that we were walking down the sidewalk parallel to the protesters and not seeing them from our hotel window, I took some pictures.
And since I have some bandwidth, and while I am thinking about our hotel windows, here are some Tirana sunset shots. Some from my window, some from the ground.
