The PanVlora box

Alfred Lela

To begin with, I need to explain the title—a play on the phrase "Pandora's box," which in Greek mythology represents temptation and impulsiveness, much like the apple of Eve and Adam in the Bible. According to the myth, Pandora, the wife of Epimetheus, Prometheus's brother, opened a box belonging to her husband, releasing all the evils into the world and leaving only hope inside.

Drawing a parallel with the Albanian context and the restrictive measure imposed on the head of the Intelligence Service, one could say that all the evils have already escaped from the box—and the case of Vlora Hyseni of SHISH is merely the latest among them.

Is there any hope left in the box?

On the record, we have several warnings from Sali Berisha—some dating back to the days when he addressed supporters from his window overlooking the Street of Hope—identifying Vlora Hyseni as a national-security problem, rather than its guardian.

Through allegations based on first-hand information or otherwise, Sali Berisha spoke to deaf ears for more than three years. Today, SPAK has finally moved, most likely also following the arrest of Ergys Agasi and the apparently wide-ranging evidence found among the materials seized from his properties.

What has happened goes far deeper than a spy game and should not be viewed with the astonishment and curiosity reserved for the revolving carousel of online news reports and evening television debates. The head of the Intelligence Service—the institution responsible for monitoring national security and the threats against it—is now subject to a legal measure, suspected of links to a man who appears in judicial case files as a coordinator of criminal gangs and as someone wielding extensive power within several state institutions.

Is it really one thing to have access to AKSHI and its Linda, and quite another to exercise influence over SHISH? In fact, both end up in the same box: national security, state secrets, the personal data of Albanian and foreign citizens, and their privacy.

What makes this latest threat so alarming is that both figures, Vlora Hyseni and Ergys Agasi, are protégés personally selected by Prime Minister Rama. It is astonishing to the point of chilling that every one of this man's close associates ends up compromised. They all "eat plums behind his back"—even the head of the Intelligence Service, whose job was to protect the prime minister from people who might engage in forbidden activities behind his back.

What further proof is needed to accept that it is not Vlora, Ergys, Belinda, Ilir, or the others, but Rama himself who opened the box of evils? The only hope left inside was that at least one institution—just one—might have been spared from the madness of seizing everything, preserving, however slightly and somewhere, the semblance of balance that a democracy needs in order to call itself one. SHISH could have been one such institution. Today, we received our answer.

The box has not merely been torn open; even hope has escaped from it.

Espionage or erotica, the temptation of money or power—the box of panVlora has been opened, and only Edi Rama remains inside.

Not even hope, but not the sole obstacle.