It is a vulgar, repeated scene in action movies. A car breaks the seemingly safe surrounding perimeter of an airport. It reaches a car transporting a huge amount of money and steals away millions. The police do not catch them. The ‘thieves’ burn the car to eliminate their traces. The audience is usually thrilled and entertained. It became a real scene in the Rinas Airport last week, the only airport which serves international flights in our country. Only this time no one was thrilled. In the movie it would have taken the directors maybe hours of filming to get to the perfect scene. To the real robberies it took approximately 3 minutes to execute with perfection and precise movements everything they intended to do and get away with it,
Days before this robbery the airport was supposedly made safer by increased checks since the terrorist attack in Istanbul which claimed so many lives. An airport which is not safe for some million Euros could never be safe for the people travelling in it. The scandal of this theft was compounded by the exposure in the coming days that several security tests had been done in the venue and had identified severe problems.
The ping pong game of responsibility continues as painful wave circle to the current day. The police blames the private security firm hired by the airport consortium. The airport blames the police. The private firm claims it cannot intervene in an armed way. The citizens feel even more insecure now that they know that no place can be safe: not the terminal, not the tarmac runway, not the luggage collection center.
Albania is in an elevated security concern state because of the security environment tested by frequent threats of terrorism, radicalism and crime either at home or in the region. It is a source of foreign fighters even though the phenomenon has abated. It participates in battles and military missions abroad. To talk about the importance of Rinas International Airport as the key strategic point of national security would be a futile exercise in stating the very obvious. One is perplexed over what else would it take for the authorities to engage more seriously in shedding light over this grave crime and taking responsibility over it.
The fact that such a grave crime can happen in this spectacular way on the same runway and airport where millions of people travel, where high level foreign dignitaries land and depart from, where security is supposed to be at its best speaks volume about the lack of seriousness with which safety and security is treated. However, the lack of clarity and responsibility speaks even louder. Apart from few arrested and questioned people from the private firm there are no answers to more important questions. There is no outlined plan what will the measures be so that something like this does not happen in the future. Will the police or even army protect the airport from now on? Will the security firm be taken away its contract? How will the consortium take reasonability over its failures to respond to the security test reports?
Serious answers are needed for this issue and nobody seems keen on providing them.
At the risk of sounding pathetic, maybe it is time to remind everyone: this is not Hollywood, this is the real life.
