Will the northerners of the Diaspora eat Rama's "Package of Mountains"?

Alfred Lela

In 23 kilometers and over 9 hours of walking in the mountains and villages of Puka, in the Iballe-Berisë segment, I met five people. One was Papi's village, a village with three houses still inhabited. Beyond the people, harshly beautiful mountain rivers, polluted by the debris of homes, bars, and villages geographically above them, hydroelectric plants - or projects in operation for them - and abandoned mining galleries, in fact, open pits in the mountainsides, a variant even the most hurried Albanian of the Californian goldrush.

These were the works of man. God has spoken the word long ago. A generous sun on an autumn day of breathtaking beauty was proof of this.

Captivated by this double feeling, the hand of man and God on our lives, together with a cousin - a son of these parts -I remembered Prime Minister Rama and the promises of the 'package of mountains' for the Albanians in New York.

Edi Rama cannot be held accountable for the emptying of the North. At the same time, we are talking about the free will and movement of the individual, but about his and the government's policies, yes.

So much for the ridiculous promises like this of the 'mountain package.' Primarily when this promise is aimed at northerners, and when it is made after 12 years in power. Rama cannot intentionally promise the fourth term, as if he were a politician seeking the first. The 'mountain package' itself looks like a convenient combination of the beauties of the North with the demand for mountain tourism foreigners. For these two to meet, you need guesthouses, hotels, resorts, ski slopes, winter sports, etc.

Rama's promise is almost cynical because for these to be erected, more than the government's permission is required—its cooperation. Not in hotel investments but in infrastructure, the primary step of which is roads. Everyone knows Rama's record in road infrastructure, even if they are patrons. "Rguga e Arbri" has been promised 12 times and inaugurated four times, but it has neither been completed nor opened.

The Vau segment of Dejës-Koman, even though it connects one of the most beautiful areas in Albania. It lies in that segment that provides electricity to Albania - so it has paid its expenses 100 million times - still resides at the beginning of the years. 90. In this segment, you can find evidence of how communism left Albania. It takes over two grueling hours to traverse a segment that, under normal conditions, is completed in 45 minutes. This road would allow locals and foreigners a dignified guide to Tropoja through Lake Koman to Fierza. In its absence, they enter Tropoja from Gjakova after passing through half of Kosovo.

If you remind Rama of this, you probably expect him to have made the center of Bajram-Curri one of those aesthetics-etatism experiments where all cities look the same. In Shkodër, starting from the bridge of Milot, you go through the taut wire of a one-lane road without any protective curb. The road to Mat is similar to that of Koman.

Kukësi is the only one on the map of civilization thanks to Rruga e Kombit, the work of Sali Berisha, whose infrastructure Rama in the opposition called "the roads left to the roads."

This is the record of the current Prime Minister about the North in 12 years in power. The "mountain package" would be considered a solemn promise, not a joke, only if his government bought a fleet of helicopters to transport travelers to these parts.

But he knows well why he promised the government could neither help nor hinder propaganda.

It is up to Northerners in the Diaspora to understand this. They have witnessed the devastation of the north in the last decade. Economically and politically isolated, Edi Rama and his government have treated them as second-class citizens. This policy was not accidental but deliberate and aimed at dividing the Democratic Party electorate and capturing Democratic strongholds.

In this sense, the Diaspora gangs cannot allow Rama to rob them twice: once from the homeland and the second time from the possibility of personal redemption. Every Albanian who has fled because the government has reduced their homeland, leaving them to leave their homeland or escape as the only alternative, should tell the government to take the 'package of mountains' and put it where it belongs.