Beleris, the begleri of Rama and Mitsotakis

Mitsotakis chose to drop Beleris as a candidate for MEP in order to stop the leaks to the extreme right. Beleris, who appears as the representative of the minority in Albania, is in reality the exponent of the most extreme and cold-war views on the minority. He himself came from the mold of Metropolitan Konitsa Sevastianou, with his sermons about the “real North Epirus doll” falsely creates the image of the defender of the rights of the minority. In reality, he is a fan of the climate of anomaly that attempts to hold the minority hostage to notions of autonomy instead of claiming what it is entitled to. There is, therefore, no better candidate to remind that Mitsotakis can co-housing from the orphans of Karatzaferis to the dogs of Golden Dawn in (his) apartment building of the Right.

The decision to be a candidate for Beleris primarily benefits Edi Rama. The Albanian prime minister is freed from the headache of the Beleri problem with his election as a member of the European Parliament. In order to go to the European Parliament, he leaves the position of mayor. Rama is the great winner for other reasons as well. The minority in Albania has serious unsolved problems, which include the expropriation of Greek minority properties through various legal tricks. Behind this attack on the minority are not only the “dark circles of de-Hellenism of Northern Epirus” but the government businesses of Edi Rama’s friends, who want the shores of Albania to build their tourist paradise. In this design there is also the conflict of interests with the “godfathers” of the minority, who construct a national conflict to cover the real interest in money.

The favor he did Mitsotakis to Edi Rama is that he turned a serious issue of minority rights, which includes the seizure of its properties, into a “Beleri issue”. Rights and the violation of the rule of law in Albania shifted to a one-person problem. Placing Beleris in the European Parliament solves the problem for Rama, who is not asked to apologize for his arbitrariness. At the same time, Mitsotakis acquires the profile of the national concern. Therefore, those loyal to the extreme right come to the elections to worship Mitsotakis, Beleris and his beglery, the instrumentalization and exploitation of serious national issues for electoral gain. “Te lumte” (well done) as Eddie Rama would say.

The choice of Beleris not only shows the adventurism of Mitsotakis, but also reveals his adherence to dangerous practices.

You will allow me to pass from the analysis to the story that I have lived and recorded as a journalist from 1994 to 1999 in relation to Freddy Belleris.

In the morning on April 19, 1995 I arrived sleepily at the Greek-Albanian border as a Mega journalist. A conventional and random block of police had spotted a few hours before two cars with Kalashnikov weapons, radios and full face hoods. There were seven people in the cars who were arrested. The pursuit of one of these individuals (he had initially escaped) led to other weapons in Athens. The police’s assessment was that the persons in question, Albanians of Greek nationality, were a provocateur group that was preparing an armed attack on the Logos camp in Albania. It was a repeat operation of the one that took place in April 1994 in the Albanian camp of Episkopi. Gunmen had entered the camp, killed two soldiers and removed weapons (Kalashnikov and Tukarev) saying that they were acting in the name of the struggle “for Northern Epirus”. The responsibility for the action was taken by the Front for the Liberation of Northern Epirus (MAVI).

The seven arrested, according to the police at the time, were members of MAVI. The leaks from the Greek government spoke of provocateurs with tips on EYP “droplets”, who aimed to disrupt relations between the two countries. Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou made harsh statements, while there were other statements talking about agents of foreign powers.

To confirm what was being said, the Albanian side announced that the Kalashnikovs found in the possession of the seven were among those stolen in the murderous attack on the Albanian camp.

One of the seven who had been arrested and remanded in custody was the then young Freddy Beleris. The investigator (if I remember correctly it was Apostolos Papatheodorou) was a catapult against the seven. It was undoubtedly one of the cases with great journalistic and diplomatic interest.

While the evidence of the interrogation was incontrovertible for the action of the seven, the prosecutor Eleftherios Patsis changed the heavy indictment that related to murders, disruption of relations between countries and dangerous action to possession and smuggling of weapons. According to his prosecutor’s proposal, some good guys and nationalists bought the weapons from some unknown Albanians. Therefore, their only crime was that they possessed weapons out of frivolity.

The arrested were initially sentenced to three to four years in prison and at the appeals court they only got 12-18 months. The trial, although it was a simple case of weapons possession according to the prosecutor, was held behind closed doors in Korydallos prisons for “national reasons”. Now how a simple possession of weapons while being a simple possession at the same time constitutes a national secret is worthy of questioning. The prosecutor Patsis used the publicity several times for other strange cases and left the judiciary, while Beleris and his friends grew up as minority leaders. After the light sentence of the seven there were reports that at the request of an allied country and because the situation with the Albanian speakers in Kosovo was tense, Greece and Albania were asked to close the chapter of their own tension and anomaly. There were already decisions for an independent Kosovo and both countries were needed for what was to come. The story could be titled “from provocateurs terrorists, heroes”, but ultimately it continues with the responsibility of Mitsotakis.