SALi BERiSHA DENiES CORRUPTiON, DiSMiSSES WESTERN SANCTiONS AGAiNST HiM

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SALi BERiSHA DENiES CORRUPTiON, DiSMiSSES WESTERN SANCTiONS AGAiNST HiM
Albania's former prime minister and president Sali Berisha blamed ulterior motives for sanctions against him from the US and UK.

By Alice Taylor | EURACTIV.com and Exit.al

Despite his fall from grace, former Albanian prime minister and president Sali Berisha is not hanging up his political boots. In an exclusive interview with EURACTIV, he staunchly denied any links with organised crime, and dismissed Western sanctions against him as unfounded.

With his centre-right PD party out of power for a decade, Berisha’s latest woe has been sanctions and entry bans for “significant corruption” and links to organised crime by the US State Department and then the UK, which could challenge his future aspirations in politics.

He maintains his innocence, accusing lobbyists, the current Albanian government, billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and corruption of being behind the move.

“I have to tell you that for me, it is a shameful monument of corruption, the sanction put on Berisha by the State Department. Since the first day, I told the State Department that with the first proof, document, evidence, [if they make it public] I will say goodbye to politics, I won’t stay a day.”

He stated that since May 1991, US agencies have never found evidence against him.

He also claims that reports of his links to organised crime gangs are untrue and that he is the only politician who has ever publicly denounced them by name. Berisha adds that he has always fought against organised crime and will continue to do so.

“If I have done one thing all my life, it was fighting criminality. When I became prime minister, Albania was dominated by tyranny. And I succeeded, Albania became a NATO member. To sign the SAA (stabilisation and association agreement with the EU) or have visa liberalisation, it was because of a strong fight against organised crime. When I left the office, I continued my battle.”

In September 2021, Berisha was expelled from the party he co-founded by then-chairman Lulzim Basha and the parliamentary group following ultimatums from the West over having those designated with sanctions in parliament and power. This triggered a nationwide, Berisha-led movement to remove Basha as leader, causing a big internal rift.

A court ruling on the legality of the matter is pending in the coming weeks.

Future of Albania’s centre-right
Out of power for nearly a decade and with a local election looming in 2023 and general elections in 2025, questions are being asked about what the future looks like for the beleaguered opposition, particularly as many voters are fleeing the country.

With some 700,000 leaving in 10 years, rising to 1.4 million since the transition to democracy, Berisha says the focus is on bringing people back.

“We are trying to extend our links not only with well-educated people in Albania but also with people in the UK, Germany, the United States, France, and everywhere. It’s a huge potential,” he said.

He added that a “brain gain” project will be “one of our most important.”

‘Little Putin’ of the Balkans
On the topic of simmering tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, Berisha is clear that dialogue is the only way forward, but Belgrade and its President Aleksandar Vucic needs to be reined in.

“They blame mostly Kosovo, but they are not solving the problem of (Serbian) troops assembled around the border. I don’t think he will make the adventure to intervene as it is a NATO territory, NATO will protect it, but he has done this all supported by Putin,” he said.

“He is behaving like a little Putin in the Balkans,” he continued, adding, “With a group of thugs in North Kosovo, he disturbed the whole of Europe because of his interest in Russia’s interests. Believe me, Serbia is essential for Russian aggression”

As for whether he would approach the situation differently from incumbent centre-left Prime Minister Edi Rama, Berisha said he believes in a hands-off approach.

“Albania has a basic rule never to interfere in the process even when it happens very high dignitary international officials asked me to be helpful. I told them no, I could be helping more with not intervening the intervening, and it was proved to be right,” he explained.

Pyramid schemes
Berisha said the regret of his political life was the handling of the Albanian pyramid schemes, which eventually collapsed, bankrupting half of the country and taking it to the brink of civil war.

“Pyramid schemes are the regret of my life. Because they started in 1991, they continued, and we totally missed the non-banking and financial boat to check on them. In one sense, we knew very little about them,” he said.

Shortly after the fall of communism in 1991, several companies were set up that encouraged citizens to invest money into various areas of the economy. But in 1996, the structures started to collapse, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with no money and disappearing with over $1.2 billion.

By 1997, the schemes’ collapse erupted into armed conflict, the toppling of the government, country-wide gang rule, the opening of state armouries, and more than 2,000 deaths. A multinational peacekeeping force called Operation Alba restored peace later that year.

“It happened what happened. It was my responsibility and my party’s responsibility. I resigned as president. We set up a parliamentary commission to investigate the links of my government to the pyramid scheme,” Berisha said.

In 1997, he signed a decree against the schemes in a bid to meet calls from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which had sounded the alarm more than a year before the schemes collapsed.

Berisha was accused of willful ignorance, while those in opposition said his responsibility ran deeper and some of the companies may have financed his electoral campaign, something Berisha denies.

He maintains that local and international investigations concluded that there were “no links between the government and pyramid schemes” and that “it was a relief, of course.”

“This is my very special story, but of course, I regret,” he concluded. By Alice Taylor | EURACTIV.com and Exit.al [Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
SALi BERiSHA DENiES CORRUPTiON, DiSMiSSES WESTERN SANCTiONS AGAiNST HiM