Today, the opposition parties are scheduled to hold a rally in the capital’s central square under the motto, “For more security and equality for all in front of the law.” The incident that prompted this rally was the death of the key witness in an important criminal investigation, the threads of which permeate the G쳤ec tragedy – where 26 citizens lost their lives, on 15 March this year, when a munitions dismantling plant blew up also injuring hundreds of others – and the sale of arms from Albania to Afghanistan.
Kosta Trebicka, the key witness, who according to the police lost his life in a car accident, was the individual who alerted journalists of the New York Times. They, in turn, conducted an inquiry into this affair for one year. The publication of the article raised a storm in a tea cup in Albania, but in the United States it instigated a federal inquiry, brought about the instant severance on the part of the Pentagon of a US$300 million contract concluded with another company managed by a 22-year old male who purchased Chinese manufactured munitions and arms for the US Government, destined for the Afghan Army, something considered not legal according to their laws.
On the same day the accident occurred, the opposition raised suspicions about the involvement of the government. In debates in parliament, the opposition MPs pointed accusing fingers in the direction of the government and the prime minister. The written media all repeatedly publishes information which raises suspicions over the conclusion that this was a car accident. Suspicions are fed by the slowness with which the prosecution is proceeding with the investigation, by the precedents created in the inquiry of very hot issues, by the pressure being exerted on the prosecution and by the general tendency not to believe the government version of the event.
Although six months down the track, every step taken, the speed at which the investigation is progressing are all subjected to public expectancy. To notice any new developments in this investigation is about as difficult as noticing the grass grow. The time it will take to complete this investigation is a problem because if we were to refer to previous precedents of investigations into events involving politics and politicians, then we have to admit that ten years could easily slip by. A case is still open at the Tirana Court on an event that occurred on 14 September, 1998.
Even the opposition itself is divided over their political approach to this case. Ilir Meta, leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration Party, demands that the prime minister be forced to resign through a combination of the opposition battle in parliament and in the city streets, because, in his opinion, the prime minister is stalling the investigation, so the opposition should not be giving its consensus for any further reforms. But this radicalism is countered by the leader of the biggest opposition party in the country, who claims that “the prime minister is falling to pieces of his own accord,” and the opposition must therefore focus on cultivating a new policy where the country’s interests come first and the party banners, second.
The country is about ten months ahead of parliamentary elections and the political temperature, inside and outside of the assembly, will grow. Albania was handed an invitation to join NATO and it is expected that it will be granted full membership at the upcoming Cologne summit. In the meantime, Tirana is faced with the on-going demand to persevere with its reforms, which (the electoral reform and that of the justice system), call for the consensus of the opposition. Parallel with these reforms, emphasis has been placed on getting to the bottom of the Gerdec tragedy, which in itself, is a test for the Albanian justice system and government. A top American official, at a hearing conducted at the US Senate last week on the ratification of Albania’s membership, stated that the solving of the Gerdec case will shake the Albanian government.
Now, this tragedy lacks its key witness. From this point of view, delays in solving the enigma of Trebicka’s death do nothing other than intensify theories of conspiracy, heighten the shock wave against the government, they could stall the reforms, despite the warnings to complete them within the next two months, and radically change how the Opposition will continue to wage opposition.
Perhaps this change will start with today’s rally.
