The Civil War in cause is the 1997 Albanian Civil Unrest
the Wikipedia article on the subject is quite a read
just the overview
>**The 1997 Albanian civil unrest was sparked by pyramid scheme failures in Albania soon after its transition to a market econom**y. The government was toppled and more than **2,000 people were killed**.[3][4] Various other sources also describe the violence that ensued as a rebellion, or a rebellion that gradually escalated into a civil war.
>
>**By January 1997, Albanian citizens, who had lost a total of $1.2 billion, took their protest to the streets. Beginning in February, thousands of citizens launched daily protests demanding reimbursement by the government, which they believed was profiting from the schemes. On 1 March, Prime Minister Aleksandër Meksi resigned and on 2 March, President Sali Berisha declared a state of emergency**.[5]
>
>On 11 March the Socialist Party of Albania won a major victory when its leader, Bashkim Fino, was appointed prime minister. However, the transfer of power did not halt the unrest, and protests spread to northern Albania. Although the government quelled revolts in the north, the ability of the government and military to maintain order began to collapse, especially in the southern half of Albania, which fell under the control of rebels and criminal gangs.[5]
>
>All major population centres were engulfed in demonstrations by 13 March and foreign countries began to evacuate their citizens. These evacuations included Operation Libelle, Operation Silver Wake and Operation Cosmas, by the German, American and Greek militaries respectively.[6] **The United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 1101, authorised a force of 7,000 troops on 28 March to direct relief efforts and restore order in Albania. The UN feared the unrest would spread beyond Albania’s borders and send refugees throughout Europe. So, the US and NATO provided assistance to the refugees by managing refugee camps, airlifting the displaced populations throughout Europe, and securing the borders.[7] On 15 April, a multi-national peacekeeping force launched Operation Alba which helped restore rule of law in the country by late July**.[5]
>
>After the rebellion had ended, some of the weapons looted from Albanian army barracks and stockpiles were acquired by the Kosovo Liberation Army, with many making their way to the ensuing Kosovo War (1998–99).[8][9]
when your pyramid scheme is so successful, it causes a multinational armed intervention into your country
Typical Albanians. Serbia stronk
the 1990s were truly the Golden Age of pyramid and Ponzi schemes in Europe ,due to the epidemic of those scams in post-comunist countries
in Romania we had multiple ones,the largest one, Caritas, taking up 1/3 of all curency in circulation in Romania at its peak and around 1.4 trillion old lei( 20% of Romanian budget expenditure in 1993
Russia had the mother of all Ponzi schemes,making even the curent Crypto scams seem like small change: **the MMM Ponzi scheme,which led to between 5 and 10 million (by some sources ,even 15 million) people losing their savings**
and unlike scams in the West,where perperators get punished,like Bernie Maddoff( died in prison) or SBF,who will likely get lifetime prison,**the perperators in the Albanian,Romanian and Russian cases barely spent any time in prison**
**the Romanian founder of Caritas spent only 1.5 years in prison and the Russian MMM founder spent only 4 years in prison,and later went on to make Ponzi schemes in India and Africa**
That’s horrible. On another topic altogether: How much washing washing up do you think you could do washing up liquid?
the german pension-system is a big pyramid scheme and about to collaps if they cant find enough gullible idiots to pay in.
Now do the map of countries who signed away their sovereignty over a pyramid scheme.
Ponzi schemes in Albania were wild. My father tripled it’s money before loosing them all and barely breaking even. A lot of people lost all they had, they even sold their houses and their possessions to “make” more money. My grandfather x4 his money and was smart enough to cash his money out and build a nice new villa in the countryside were he lives. After the Ponzi scheme leader took the money and leave the country got upside down in 24 hours. All the ammunition of communist period which was plenty was taken by people and started a rebellion against the government that did nothing to protect their money, because Albanians were and still are very ignorant financially. But in 1997 was easier to forget them the ignorance, now we are afraid to invest because what happened. Anyway, the civil war was freaking wild, I was a little kid but my father would let me fire his Ak47 ans SKS, they used to use same bullets. We had a pistol too, that never got used. Everyone outside Tirana needed to have weapons for protection because people used to rob people frequently. That period marked the start of local gangs, some are active to this day or at least their children or relatives. Most got wiped out between each other, the rest are being wiped out recently.
Remind me in 20 years when European pensions collapse.
Gives us a map where a guy pleasuring himself with a glass bottle caused a war.
That might be the most specific reason ever heard for a civil war.Let alone one I ever imagined, never heard of this.Interesting.
And there is Germany where the whole retirement system is a big ponzi scheme.
What happened is that the people took guns from military storages but not only guns. There were grenades and rpgs. There were jets near my town and a kid got inside of it, the other adults were trying to get him out but afraid to get pushy because he as everyone was armed. The kid was pressing buttons and got killed when he pressed the catapult ejection while canope was closed.
As mentioned by others here, it was anarchy, however true anarchy is very rare and since most people cannot wrap their minds around it, it needs to be lived to be believed, the more common term civil war is often used by the public, but that’s not the same thing.
The core of the chaos was March, April and May 1997. The common people were able to loot the arms depots of the army in a matter of days, while the usual power authorities of an organized state such as the police became inexistent or unable to function. Sending in the army against the population would not work in Albania, due to its small size meaning that everyone is someone’s cousin. The 2 main political parties, one in gov and one in opposition are directly responsible for the events as they initially egged on the unrest and “allied“ with gangs in different cities to use them as bravos. In the case of the government they were also responsible for abandoning the arms depots.
However the political sides lost the practical control of the gangs they used as muscle within March and that coupled with the gun free for all is how the situation became full anarchy. It became a survival of the fittest world where society’s psychopaths quickly ascended to the top of the food chain, while the non-psychopaths reluctantly armed themselves to protect their children and homes. Something like The Walking Dead in later seasons.
So the violence was not ideological, there was no purpose to it, people sometimes died from stray bullets of 14 year old shooting AK47s in the air. Neighbourhood gangs took it out on each other with normal citizens in the line of fire. There was no rationality to it, there was no right side or cause to be on. Of course there was always a rethoric of being with one or other political side from the gangs – hello National Rescue Committee guys doing daily rounds in my city’s streets on a stolen tank to “protect” us – but they didn’t actually give a shit and were just playing a deadly football game.
Which is why it ended very abruptly, once the European countries gave the ultimatim, like a collective psychotic episode never to be discussed again.
A note on the Wiki page for this, that page is of very bad quality, please if you are interested to find out more Google and use a reputable source. This very long post is an attempt at a TLDR as the reasons, timeline and aftermath are very complex and long.
17 comments
The Civil War in cause is the 1997 Albanian Civil Unrest
the Wikipedia article on the subject is quite a read
just the overview
>**The 1997 Albanian civil unrest was sparked by pyramid scheme failures in Albania soon after its transition to a market econom**y. The government was toppled and more than **2,000 people were killed**.[3][4] Various other sources also describe the violence that ensued as a rebellion, or a rebellion that gradually escalated into a civil war.
>
>**By January 1997, Albanian citizens, who had lost a total of $1.2 billion, took their protest to the streets. Beginning in February, thousands of citizens launched daily protests demanding reimbursement by the government, which they believed was profiting from the schemes. On 1 March, Prime Minister Aleksandër Meksi resigned and on 2 March, President Sali Berisha declared a state of emergency**.[5]
>
>On 11 March the Socialist Party of Albania won a major victory when its leader, Bashkim Fino, was appointed prime minister. However, the transfer of power did not halt the unrest, and protests spread to northern Albania. Although the government quelled revolts in the north, the ability of the government and military to maintain order began to collapse, especially in the southern half of Albania, which fell under the control of rebels and criminal gangs.[5]
>
>All major population centres were engulfed in demonstrations by 13 March and foreign countries began to evacuate their citizens. These evacuations included Operation Libelle, Operation Silver Wake and Operation Cosmas, by the German, American and Greek militaries respectively.[6] **The United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 1101, authorised a force of 7,000 troops on 28 March to direct relief efforts and restore order in Albania. The UN feared the unrest would spread beyond Albania’s borders and send refugees throughout Europe. So, the US and NATO provided assistance to the refugees by managing refugee camps, airlifting the displaced populations throughout Europe, and securing the borders.[7] On 15 April, a multi-national peacekeeping force launched Operation Alba which helped restore rule of law in the country by late July**.[5]
>
>After the rebellion had ended, some of the weapons looted from Albanian army barracks and stockpiles were acquired by the Kosovo Liberation Army, with many making their way to the ensuing Kosovo War (1998–99).[8][9]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Albanian_civil_unrest#International_intervention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Albanian_civil_unrest#International_intervention)
when your pyramid scheme is so successful, it causes a multinational armed intervention into your country
Typical Albanians. Serbia stronk
the 1990s were truly the Golden Age of pyramid and Ponzi schemes in Europe ,due to the epidemic of those scams in post-comunist countries
in Romania we had multiple ones,the largest one, Caritas, taking up 1/3 of all curency in circulation in Romania at its peak and around 1.4 trillion old lei( 20% of Romanian budget expenditure in 1993
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_(Ponzi_scheme)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_(Ponzi_scheme))
Russia had the mother of all Ponzi schemes,making even the curent Crypto scams seem like small change: **the MMM Ponzi scheme,which led to between 5 and 10 million (by some sources ,even 15 million) people losing their savings**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company))
and unlike scams in the West,where perperators get punished,like Bernie Maddoff( died in prison) or SBF,who will likely get lifetime prison,**the perperators in the Albanian,Romanian and Russian cases barely spent any time in prison**
**the Romanian founder of Caritas spent only 1.5 years in prison and the Russian MMM founder spent only 4 years in prison,and later went on to make Ponzi schemes in India and Africa**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi)
That’s horrible. On another topic altogether: How much washing washing up do you think you could do washing up liquid?
the german pension-system is a big pyramid scheme and about to collaps if they cant find enough gullible idiots to pay in.
Now do the map of countries who signed away their sovereignty over a pyramid scheme.
Ponzi schemes in Albania were wild. My father tripled it’s money before loosing them all and barely breaking even. A lot of people lost all they had, they even sold their houses and their possessions to “make” more money. My grandfather x4 his money and was smart enough to cash his money out and build a nice new villa in the countryside were he lives. After the Ponzi scheme leader took the money and leave the country got upside down in 24 hours. All the ammunition of communist period which was plenty was taken by people and started a rebellion against the government that did nothing to protect their money, because Albanians were and still are very ignorant financially. But in 1997 was easier to forget them the ignorance, now we are afraid to invest because what happened. Anyway, the civil war was freaking wild, I was a little kid but my father would let me fire his Ak47 ans SKS, they used to use same bullets. We had a pistol too, that never got used. Everyone outside Tirana needed to have weapons for protection because people used to rob people frequently. That period marked the start of local gangs, some are active to this day or at least their children or relatives. Most got wiped out between each other, the rest are being wiped out recently.
Remind me in 20 years when European pensions collapse.
Gives us a map where a guy pleasuring himself with a glass bottle caused a war.
That might be the most specific reason ever heard for a civil war.Let alone one I ever imagined, never heard of this.Interesting.
And there is Germany where the whole retirement system is a big ponzi scheme.
It wasn’t a civil war, more like total anarchy
it was anarchy not a civil war
ALBANIA MENTIONED 💪💪💪🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱💪💪💪🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱SHQIPËRIA 🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱💪💪💪
What happened is that the people took guns from military storages but not only guns. There were grenades and rpgs. There were jets near my town and a kid got inside of it, the other adults were trying to get him out but afraid to get pushy because he as everyone was armed. The kid was pressing buttons and got killed when he pressed the catapult ejection while canope was closed.
As mentioned by others here, it was anarchy, however true anarchy is very rare and since most people cannot wrap their minds around it, it needs to be lived to be believed, the more common term civil war is often used by the public, but that’s not the same thing.
The core of the chaos was March, April and May 1997. The common people were able to loot the arms depots of the army in a matter of days, while the usual power authorities of an organized state such as the police became inexistent or unable to function. Sending in the army against the population would not work in Albania, due to its small size meaning that everyone is someone’s cousin. The 2 main political parties, one in gov and one in opposition are directly responsible for the events as they initially egged on the unrest and “allied“ with gangs in different cities to use them as bravos. In the case of the government they were also responsible for abandoning the arms depots.
However the political sides lost the practical control of the gangs they used as muscle within March and that coupled with the gun free for all is how the situation became full anarchy. It became a survival of the fittest world where society’s psychopaths quickly ascended to the top of the food chain, while the non-psychopaths reluctantly armed themselves to protect their children and homes. Something like The Walking Dead in later seasons.
So the violence was not ideological, there was no purpose to it, people sometimes died from stray bullets of 14 year old shooting AK47s in the air. Neighbourhood gangs took it out on each other with normal citizens in the line of fire. There was no rationality to it, there was no right side or cause to be on. Of course there was always a rethoric of being with one or other political side from the gangs – hello National Rescue Committee guys doing daily rounds in my city’s streets on a stolen tank to “protect” us – but they didn’t actually give a shit and were just playing a deadly football game.
Which is why it ended very abruptly, once the European countries gave the ultimatim, like a collective psychotic episode never to be discussed again.
A note on the Wiki page for this, that page is of very bad quality, please if you are interested to find out more Google and use a reputable source. This very long post is an attempt at a TLDR as the reasons, timeline and aftermath are very complex and long.
Why would you even map this?