Culture of Violence
According to the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, "Honour killings are deeply rooted in Albanian society and were given formal recognition in the collection of medieval tribal laws known as the 'Canon of Lekë Dukagjini'" and still remains the organizing structure of the Albanian society. "...blood feuds were relatively rare among Albanians either in Kosovo or Albania. But after the turmoil of the 1990s, the ideas contained in Leke’s canon revived," writes Fatos Bytyci.
The fundamental rule of Canon law of Albanian clansman organization is Bessa - a concept that simultaneously converges loyalty, fidelity, dignity and honor of one's word. Although restrictive, the concept is such a prevalent force in the Albanian culture so that it got enshrined in many of Albanian folksongs:
"death happens because you betrayed a host, when bread is missing to serve the host, death happens for the faith renounced."
Gjakmarria or taking of the blood is the vendetta killing done in order to restore the violated honor.
Loyalty to the family clan (fis) and vendettas appear to be mutually affectionate features of both the Italian and Albanian gangsters. Much like Sicilian social emphasis on family loyalty, writes the Italy's anti-mafia agency DIA, these mutually alike features are outgrowth of a general social construct and not necessarily criminal. "Albanian mafia is based on family groups... The division among clans or family groups in Albania was originally a social division, not a criminal one. Today, every activity in Albania still works in that way."
In the field of politics, however, the fear of the Canon's consequences is plunging Albania, an increasingly Kosovo, into a seismic convulsion of lawlessness.
Albanian Parliament in Tirana has recently addressed the close connection between the criminal and political. According to the Albanian Daily News, in July of 2004, the Albanian government has adopted a package of anti-mafia legislation and among the provisions is a prohibition of officials convicted of corruption from holding public office for a specified period of time.
However, according to an Albanian writer Faruk Myrtaj: "Not a single trial of a criminal gang has successfully been completed in Albania. According to the data of the Albanian Centre for Studying Organized Crime and Mafia in Tirana, trials of groups linked to politics are usually held behind closed doors by decision of the courts, and the judges usually resign and emigrate from the country", presumably out of fear of being killed acording to the Canon law that grips the Albanian society.
So much for Albania's efforts to curb organized crime.
According to the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, "Honour killings are deeply rooted in Albanian society and were given formal recognition in the collection of medieval tribal laws known as the 'Canon of Lekë Dukagjini'" and still remains the organizing structure of the Albanian society. "...blood feuds were relatively rare among Albanians either in Kosovo or Albania. But after the turmoil of the 1990s, the ideas contained in Leke’s canon revived," writes Fatos Bytyci.
The fundamental rule of Canon law of Albanian clansman organization is Bessa - a concept that simultaneously converges loyalty, fidelity, dignity and honor of one's word. Although restrictive, the concept is such a prevalent force in the Albanian culture so that it got enshrined in many of Albanian folksongs:
"death happens because you betrayed a host, when bread is missing to serve the host, death happens for the faith renounced."
Gjakmarria or taking of the blood is the vendetta killing done in order to restore the violated honor.
Loyalty to the family clan (fis) and vendettas appear to be mutually affectionate features of both the Italian and Albanian gangsters. Much like Sicilian social emphasis on family loyalty, writes the Italy's anti-mafia agency DIA, these mutually alike features are outgrowth of a general social construct and not necessarily criminal. "Albanian mafia is based on family groups... The division among clans or family groups in Albania was originally a social division, not a criminal one. Today, every activity in Albania still works in that way."
In the field of politics, however, the fear of the Canon's consequences is plunging Albania, an increasingly Kosovo, into a seismic convulsion of lawlessness.
Albanian Parliament in Tirana has recently addressed the close connection between the criminal and political. According to the Albanian Daily News, in July of 2004, the Albanian government has adopted a package of anti-mafia legislation and among the provisions is a prohibition of officials convicted of corruption from holding public office for a specified period of time.
However, according to an Albanian writer Faruk Myrtaj: "Not a single trial of a criminal gang has successfully been completed in Albania. According to the data of the Albanian Centre for Studying Organized Crime and Mafia in Tirana, trials of groups linked to politics are usually held behind closed doors by decision of the courts, and the judges usually resign and emigrate from the country", presumably out of fear of being killed acording to the Canon law that grips the Albanian society.
So much for Albania's efforts to curb organized crime.
[...]
Albanian Mafia and al-Qaeda?
Allegations of an al-Qaeda presence in Albanian inhabited areas have also been made. For example, 24 Wahabi mosques and 14 orphanages have been built in Kosovo since 1999, along with 98 primary and secondary Wahabi funded schools. The chief Albanian Imam in Kosovo has been schooled in the Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia and is of vital political importance to the party of the Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova.
Wahabism is the chief spiritual source of the al-Qaeda terrorists.
More distressing for the West is the existing Albanian criminal infrastructure that has been exported out of Kosovo into Europe, and given clan connections, may infiltrate the US.
In Brussells, for example, two Islamic city quarters - one specializing in terrorism and the other in false and stolen passports - complement one another. In the terrorist part is the Dar Salaam hotel where the accused "shoe bomber" Richard Reid stayed in for 10 days plotting to blow up American Airlines jet, while just across from the hotel is a shadowy Brussels strip of bars and hotels controlled by the Albanian mob specializing in stolen passports. According to the Global Policy, the quarter is a hotbed for "human trafficking, sex trafficking and false documents."
Although Richard Reed did not carry any of the Albanian doctored false passports, the al-Qaeda assassins of the Ahmed Shah Massoud did. The killers of the leader of Afghan's Northern Alliance traveled from London to Karachi using these Albanian doctored false passports before they murdered him.
More ominously still, an al-Qaeda operative, Djamel Beghala, was arrested in Dubai after the customs agent recognized one of these Albanian mafia's manufactured false passports. Under interrogation, Beghala identified a major European al-Qaeda cell that was planning to blow up the United States Embassy in Paris.
Recently, FBI conducted a statistical study on effectiveness of false passports and concluded that at least 10% of the falsified passports have effectively been used to enter the US. Given that 30 million people enter US, Albanian Mafia's monopoly on false documentation may indeed justify FBIs continuing surveillance of the emerging Albanian criminal cartel.
Allegations of an al-Qaeda presence in Albanian inhabited areas have also been made. For example, 24 Wahabi mosques and 14 orphanages have been built in Kosovo since 1999, along with 98 primary and secondary Wahabi funded schools. The chief Albanian Imam in Kosovo has been schooled in the Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia and is of vital political importance to the party of the Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova.
Wahabism is the chief spiritual source of the al-Qaeda terrorists.
More distressing for the West is the existing Albanian criminal infrastructure that has been exported out of Kosovo into Europe, and given clan connections, may infiltrate the US.
In Brussells, for example, two Islamic city quarters - one specializing in terrorism and the other in false and stolen passports - complement one another. In the terrorist part is the Dar Salaam hotel where the accused "shoe bomber" Richard Reid stayed in for 10 days plotting to blow up American Airlines jet, while just across from the hotel is a shadowy Brussels strip of bars and hotels controlled by the Albanian mob specializing in stolen passports. According to the Global Policy, the quarter is a hotbed for "human trafficking, sex trafficking and false documents."
Although Richard Reed did not carry any of the Albanian doctored false passports, the al-Qaeda assassins of the Ahmed Shah Massoud did. The killers of the leader of Afghan's Northern Alliance traveled from London to Karachi using these Albanian doctored false passports before they murdered him.
More ominously still, an al-Qaeda operative, Djamel Beghala, was arrested in Dubai after the customs agent recognized one of these Albanian mafia's manufactured false passports. Under interrogation, Beghala identified a major European al-Qaeda cell that was planning to blow up the United States Embassy in Paris.
Recently, FBI conducted a statistical study on effectiveness of false passports and concluded that at least 10% of the falsified passports have effectively been used to enter the US. Given that 30 million people enter US, Albanian Mafia's monopoly on false documentation may indeed justify FBIs continuing surveillance of the emerging Albanian criminal cartel.
[...]
Source: http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mb/028.shtml
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