From 'grass', 'flirting' with the government to campaigns against the opposition, why will Yuri Kim be remembered?

After more than three years, Yuri Kim delivered her farewell speech as the US ambassador to Albania.

In her speech to the media, Kim said that she is grateful that she had the opportunity to get to know our country.

She added that although a lot of progress has been made in many areas, corruption still remains a problem for the country, where as an example she mentioned the right to property and the opportunity for Europeans to develop their businesses in Albania.

Such statements have been repeatedly brought to attention by Kim. However, after leaving, Kim will be long remembered for some moments that will not leave a bad taste for Albanians.

Below we list some of them: 

She will be remembered, whenever it is written about the US ambassadors in Albania, her role, influence and silhouette in Albanian politics, as the diplomat who became enmity with the opposition and united with the government, in the years when the latter owned almost 100 percent of power in the country.

In November 2021, the woman who entered the history of this country as the one who threatened half of the electorate with eating grass, blatantly intervened in the battle between the two DPs.

As soon as Sali Berisha confirmed that he is the majority within the Democratic Party by submitting 4,200 signatures for the meeting of the National Assembly of Democrats, Kim gave an interview on Top Channel stating: "We recognize Lulzim Basha as president and ... we will not have relations with the Democratic Party if Berisha wins". Later she insisted: "we don't shake Sali Berisha's hand and we don't even set foot in his office if he was elected head of the DP".

As if this was not enough, before the Assembly on December 11, she posed on social media with a photo full of subtext. She appeared on her account with Hemingway's novel: "For Whom the Bell Tolls",  which the pro-Rama media interpreted with its true meaning.

This meddling in the affairs of a party was then extended to the eve of the March 6, 2022 local by-elections.

Kim publicly asked Freedom House candidates how they can participate in a campaign when they are sponsored by Berisha, whom the United States has banned from their country, accusing him of corruption and undermining democracy.

Kim-democrats: Do not eat grass!

In the summer of 2021, the ambassador used the famous propaganda slogan of the Communist era to imply the need to separate the Democratic Party in opposition from the interests of Berisha, declared undesirable for "major corruption" by the State Department. Berisha considered it offensive and Albanian-phobic.

Decades ago, the communist regime in Albania taught Albanians that they had to be ready to eat even just grass in order for the Labor Party to maintain its power.

The expression was: " The Albanian people eat grass and do not extend their hand to the enemy ", so one of his expressions can only sound absurd today: the enemy the dictator was referring to was the democratic world, first of all, the United States of America America.

And in what Yuri Kim calls a historical irony, she suggests that the Democratic Party, the country's leading anti-communist force, "shouldn't eat grass" for the interests of a single man.

"It would be a historical irony but also a tragedy for the country, not only for the party, if the party were to eat grass for the sake of one man's personal interests, " declared Yuri Kim, a not-so-hidden reference to Sali Berisha, of which the followers refer to as the "historical leader".

Arvizu "hits" Yuri Kim

The former US ambassador in Tirana, Alexander Arvizu, has given an interview to Euronea television in Albania, criticizing the statements of Kim, who has repeatedly demanded the departure of Sali Berisha from politics.

Arvizu underlined several times that Albanians should be treated with respect and that they have the right to choose their leaders.

"These kinds of decisions, about who is in the opposition and who should be in the government, belong to the Albanians and not to Washington or Brussels", declared the former ambassador.

Attitudes towards Rama and Meta, with two standards

A year ago, Kim defended the former head of SPAK, Arben Kraja, against the attacks made by Ilir Meta, after he found out that he was being investigated by the special prosecutor's office.

As always, the devil is in the details. If we see how the ambassador reacted to Rama and the way she stood up to Meta, the difference is night and day.

After the prime minister instructed the SPAK that he had to investigate the former president, the ambassador apologized several times for exceeding the diplomatic language, justifying that he was speaking bluntly, said that the model of justice is not that of ordering prosecutors from the political power .  

But when Meta "defended himself" against a SPAK who was strictly following Rama's orders, the ambassador's vocabulary was several times harsher.

She, without justifying herself for exceeding diplomatic language, hastened to say that "impunity is coming to an end", that "there are no more untouchables", that "justice reform is giving more and more results", proving to us an application of double standards.

For this, analysts have often commented on Kim as the most biased ambassador to the country since the Ryerson era.   

What will her legacy be?

In fact, it is the mark of someone who did not know how to interpret American politics in the most pro-American country in the world. If many other countries hold American-skepticism as an emblem of honor, it does not happen in Albania.