Assads chemical weapons to be brought to Europe for dismantling.

Today I wanna write about a political issue I have been following for the last week now . Everybody

Protests today in Tirana

knows that Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad has agreed to put all chemical weapons in his government's possession under international control. Although it's clear that this is just a tactical move and that he will continue killing his own people anyway it is at least something. But what happens with these lethal weapons after Damascus hands them over? They need to be destroyed of course. And the current number one candidate to do so is the south-eastern European country of Albania. While the Albanian government under newly elected Prime minister Edi Rama tries to sell this undertaking as a NATO request to it's citizens people are mounting the barricades and that with more than one reason. This Tuesday and also today hundreds of people gathered in front of the Parliament in the capital Tirana to protest against this plan.

The first reason for the protests is bad experience with dismantling chemical weapons in the past. I'm referring to the explosions in Gerdëc five years ago where they were destroying obsolete ammunition left over from the communistic regime rule 20 years ago. This all was done by untrained staff without the necessary knowledge. While it was planned to blow the weapons up with small controlled explosion it all (very likely through a human error) blew up at once causing an explosion lasting from 12:05 until 2:00 next night killing 26 people and destroying 318 houses and damaging thousands in the surrounding. The shock could be felt in Tirana as well as in the 170km far away Macedonian capital Skopje. Being one of Europe's poorest countries with big deficits in infrastructure as well as in the medical sector ( most people actually go to Greece to be treated due to the lack of medical stuff and supplies) the severity in case this catastrophe should happen again with Assad's is unbearable. 

The second thing is that Rama outed himself as a hypocrite by offering to have the weapons destroyed in his country. It was his party to organize protests against the government when the 2008 explosions of Gerdëc happened under the rule of Democrat Prime Minister Sali Berisha. 20 years after the overthrow of the communistic Hoxha regime the country is still facing big issues concerning corruption and bribery and it is questionable if the money paid for destroying the Syrian weapons will ever be used for the citizens of this country. Overall you can say that Albania does not have the resources (technical and medical) for this dangerous undertaking and that the payments would only support the corrupted system that is causing this country that strives EU membership so many problems and I hope international rulers will think twice before bringing those weapons to European soils.

Of course the internet has become the biggest tool of protest in this case as usual nowadays. The first link is an open letter to US President Obama by an Albanian citizen and former Georgetown scholar who points the major problems of this topic out pretty well. The second is a petition to avoid the import of the weapons.

http://begaa.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/open-letter-to-obama/

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Peticion_kunder_pranimit_te_armeve_kimike_te_Sirise_nga_Shqiperia_No_to_Assad_Chemical_Weapons_in_Albania/?ayeocgb