Published 12.15
On the coast of Albania, species-rich wetlands are being plowed for a luxury resort with strong ties to the Trump family.
But the people protest. The raging “flamingo revolution” is fueled by lingering anger at the country’s rule, dogged by allegations of corruption.
– We have had enough, says protester Akil Cala.
Sazan’s green hills are covered with ferns, ginseng and laurel. It smells of lavender and rosemary. Pine trees, hornbeam and holm oak shade the clear blue waters of the Strait of Otranto, which forms the border between the Adriatic and Ionian seas.
Ivanka Trump anchored here during a boat trip in 2021. The American president’s daughter has painted a dreamy picture of the “discovery”.
– We swam to the island and hiked barefoot all the way to the top. We were completely enchanted, she told American podcaster David Senra at the end of May.
Over the phone from Tirana, environmental anthropologist Aleksandër Trajçe laughs when Ivanka Trump speaks.
– I don’t know which way she took, but she must have had bleeding feet at the end of that walk. It is not exactly soft terrain.
“Breakpoint”
Opposite Sazan, on the Albanian mainland, since a few months ago, bulldozers are rolling over beaches cut off by sharp barbed wire. Here, the realization of the vision born during Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner’s boat trip is being prepared: the mega-construction that will transform the coastal area into a luxury resort for the richest of the rich.
Behind the project is Kushner’s venture capital firm Affinity Partners – a company whose capital comes almost exclusively from sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, according to Bloomberg. The drawings are full of luxury villas, infinity pools and berths for luxury yachts.
The plans – and the lack of transparency surrounding them – have sparked furious protests. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of Albanians have gathered to show their displeasure, both in the capital Tirana and at the construction site in Zvërnec further south.
– They are trying to sell our country to foreign businessmen. For us, this represents a turning point. We will not allow it, says protester Akil Cala.
“Had enough of lies”
The 26-year-old was present during the incident that at the end of May caused the protests to really explode: when a protester was beaten by private security guards at the cordoned-off construction site in Zvërnec. Cala describes how the man was pushed to the ground and roughly dragged away across the beach – all while the police looked on. Then and there the little trust he had for the government disappeared.
– Honestly – at that moment I realized that we have very, very big problems. When the state can’t even protect its own citizens, how can we trust them with anything at all?
On the streets of Tirana – where the police responded to the protesters with water cannons – there are now increasing demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
– This country has had enough of corruption, enough of lies, enough of a government that only acts according to its own interests, says Akil Cala.
What has now grown into a rage against the entire government of Albania – accused for years of corruption, dubious dealings with billion-dollar state contracts and links to organized crime – started with protests against the billion-dollar project’s environmental consequences.
Seals and pelicans
Sazan and the adjacent coastal stretch, the Vjosa-Narta wetland with the large Nartalagun, are part of a critical ecosystem and serve as an important resting place for migratory birds on their way between Europe and Africa. More than 200 bird species and over 70 endangered species live here, according to the bird protection organization Birdlife. There are monk seals, loggerhead turtles, crested pelicans and the flamingos that have now become the symbol of a protest movement dubbed the “flamingo revolution”.
– Some days we have counted 10,000 flamingos in the lagoon, says Aleksandër Trajçe, who leads Albania’s oldest environmental organization PPNEA.
He calls the area one of Albania’s most biologically diverse, one of the “absolutely important” for the country’s flora and fauna.
– The beach included in this huge project is one of the few places in Albania where loggerhead turtles lay their eggs. And the peak spawning season coincided exactly with the start of construction.
The first time Trajçe heard about the resort plans was in 2024, when Jared Kushner himself published an X-post with computer-generated images of a “development project” on the coast of Albania. Just weeks earlier, the government in Tirana had suddenly changed the law that previously prohibited tourism development in protected natural areas. Then nothing happened – at least not outwardly – until April of this year.
– There were no consultations, no experts were called in to give their views on the matter. No documentation was made public. Then, on April 30, we were told that bulldozers had arrived. Then we organized the first protest.
Create jobs?
Albania’s anti-corruption agency has now launched an investigation into the project, primarily regarding who actually has the right to sell the land. It oozes shady deals, notes Trajçe.
– If you want to write a textbook on how to do shady business, this is the perfect case. The government must be very transparent now, open up all documentation.
Albania is one of Europe’s poorest countries, but parts of the population live in great wealth. In Tirana, new skyscrapers pop up every two weeks and the elite party with bundles of euro notes in the pubs. At the same time, the country’s young people are fleeing to the EU and Great Britain in search of tolerable lives.
– There is a great general dissatisfaction with how the government behaves, how they favor the rich at the expense of the people. The basic needs of the people are neglected, says Trajçe.
Albania cannot afford not to develop a “gift” like Sazan, Prime Minister Rama claimed last year, saying the country “needs luxury tourism like a desert needs water”. Kushner’s resort will create jobs and act as an economic catalyst for Albania’s modernization, according to Rama.
– People don’t buy that anymore. The government must start listening to the people, says Aleksandër Trajçe.
Albania
Albania is located on the southern part of the Adriatic Sea and borders Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south. The country is roughly the same size as Småland and has roughly 2.8 million inhabitants.
For hundreds of years, Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire, but declared independence in 1912. During the Second World War, the country was occupied first by Italy and then by Nazi Germany, to finally end up under communist rule with the wayward and brutal Enver Hoxha as party leader and dictator.
Between 1943 and 1985, Hoxha ruled Albania with an iron fist. Religion and free elections were forbidden, the country was isolated from the outside world and the population suffered from oppression and difficult living conditions. Mass executions, torture and wiretapping were commonplace, and in Hoxha’s political prison camps systematic abuse was committed against the prisoners.
After the final fall of communism in 1990, Albania has sought better contacts with the West. In 2009 the country became a member of NATO and in 2014 it was accepted as a candidate for EU membership.
Since 2013, the country is led by a social democratic government under Prime Minister Edi Rama (born 1964), former longtime mayor of Tirana and former national basketball player. Rama’s Socialist Party of Albania was born through a reorganization of Hoxha’s Albanian Labor Party.
Today, the World Bank counts Albania as a middle-income country. However, it is still one of Europe’s poorest countries, with widespread corruption and a large informal sector.
Sources: Landguiden/UI
