The Albanian public was recently shocked by four commando soldiers of the Armed Forces, who went to the UK for a special training and decided to not come back.
The first questions that were raised are if this is their personal act, showing the general situation in the country,
General Jeronim Bazo, former Chief of the Armed Forces, Colonel Dritan Demiraj, former Interior Minister, and Arjan Dyrmishi, specialist for security and terror matters and analyst Alfred Lela were Top Story’s guests invited to discuss this matter.
For Bazo, the decision of these soldiers is completely individual. But for the former Chief of General Staff, this pushes the Ministry of Defense to analyze the cost of living for a military man. Bazo underlined that time has come to raise salaries for the military, which have not changed since 2004.
Bazo says the soldiers abandoned the mission, and it could also be called desertion. The soldiers had been in service for the past 4-5 years, and they chose to turn themselves into random illegal immigrants.
The former Interior Minister, Dritan Demiraj, condemned the actions of the four military men but he also asked to analyze the reason why this is happening. He blames politics, which has not been very positive towards the military since 1991.
Arjan Dymishi, the specialist on terror and security matters, says that problem is wider than the four commandos.
“The problems we are discussing are related to a severe morale. It’s not only those four commandos but others involved in terrorism. This will be a constant problem with the army until they start recruiting professionals. When a military is recruited, the government invests in him and he has to be kept. This is another problem. Our model is not based on this scheme”, Dyrmishi said.
For Alfred Lela, Albania gained security with the NATO accession but has lost political and social security.
“Their social desperation must have been very big because they left their family and friends to start it from scratch. We thought things would get better, but we have lost social and political security after we joined NATO”, Lela said.
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