Written by: Mero Baze
It is very difficult to attract the attention of the US President in a minute, if you do not talk about a similar situation to the ones he is in. And the only thing that Edi Rama's speech had, beyond the Peace Board, was to remind Donald Trump that he and the Albanians in Kosovo have a common "enemy" which is prosecutor Jack Smith.
By reminding him that Hashim Thaçi was arrested on his way to your office, he tried to make Hashim Thaçi's fate even more personal for Trump. And, in a way, he managed to provoke him. In the scene when Rama and Osmani talk to him after the signing, the conversation was about Jack Smith's role.
I'm not sure if this helps or hinders Hashim Thaçi's position in The Hague, but now that the prosecution has finished its work and the court has the floor, the only hope is to turn the attention of American politics to what is happening in The Hague.
At this point, Edi Rama's speech was very Albanian in all aspects.
He was Albanian in his style of personalizing international issues and putting the fate of Albanians and the fate of the world's most powerful politician in the balance.
It was Albanian in terms of the insidiousness of provoking the US President and challenging him in his speech by showing him a common enemy.
And he was also Albanian in his intention to help four important Kosovo politicians who led its fight for freedom.
The first time, in 2018, when Donald Trump went to the Munich Summit and threatened to dismantle NATO if the Europeans did not pay their dues, there was an interesting episode. At the informal dinner the night before, while getting to know the prime ministers of NATO member countries, he told them the story of his meeting with Kim Jong-un and the annoyance with the American and North Korean protocols for meeting at the border.
Then he shared a detail: how he got annoyed by protocol and, before shaking hands with Kim Jong-un, started whistling an Elton John song, “Rocket Man.” After a few seconds, he revealed that Kim Jong-un also started to follow the rhythm of the song, breaking the strict North Korean protocol.
After the audience reacted with humor, Edi Rama told him that his country was like North Korea, where listening to Elton John was forbidden.
President Trump was surprised by this fact and throughout the second summit he identified Edi Rama as “Elton John’s guy.” Even when he praised Albania for paying 1.8% of the budget to NATO and asked “who is Albania,” he “remembered” that it was Elton John’s guy.
Now President Trump, if someone talks to him about Albania and Edi Rama, is likely to identify it with Kosovo and Jack Smith. It is not very happy news for Edi Rama, as this could open him up to trouble with many other anti-Trump lobbies in the world, even with his Democratic friends in the US, but it is a good thing for the trial of the four Kosovo leaders in The Hague. At least, if they are convicted, they will not be convicted in the name of the US.
t7 live
