Real Life SHTF: Albania Civil Unrest of 1997

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hey guys, Brass Facts here. So, on this channel we mostly focus on review stuff, maybe 60-70% of it. But there's also a pretty large emphasis on preparedness, preparedness theory, and looking to the future for what that might hold. Quite fortunately for us, at least in the United States, uh hardcore preparedness, or stuff beyond just natural disasters, is quite unprecedented. It's never really happened before. So, in some ways we're preparing for something that has never occurred. But we're not entirely flying blind. So, we can look towards at least modern history uh with a number of different nations to get examples of what [music] a, you know, alleged SHTF might look like. So, not as necessarily a one-to-one [music] comparison of what could happen in the United States. The United States, like every country, is a relatively unique in what might happen here. It's probably going to be quite unprecedented as well.

[00:00:53]But, you know, just as a thing that can allow us to understand what might [music] precipitate certain events, what certain elements of a collapse scenario might [music] look like, as well as just being educated about things, you know, outside of the United States. Uh something that is becoming increasingly less common.

[00:01:10]Today I'd like to look at the Albanian civil unrest scenario of 1997, where large sections of the country had no functioning government, vigilante justice ruled, and everyone was armed to the teeth with military-grade hardware.

[00:01:22]No, that's not a CNN-ism. Uh no, they they they actually had full-blown military-grade stuff. Uh kind of based, right? All in a nation that was only a few months prior was essentially completely peaceful, functional, with no real sign, at least to people on the ground, of what was about [music] to come. Like many nations in the region, this one begins with the collapse of the [music] Soviet Union, where a bunch of communist states now needed to begin a transition into both a capitalist and a democratic society. Both of which Albania somewhat, at least on paper, successfully managed to transition into relatively short order. However, unlike a lot of the richer neighbors nearby, Albania was having a bit of an issue drumming up capital, right? They didn't have the strong institutions, specifically a central bank, that could both issue out loans, provide return on investment. Uh the end result is that while other nations sort of kind of got kickstarted by opening its markets to the, you know, broader free market, Albania floundered a little bit.

[00:02:22]However, in capitalism, where money is to be made, people will make some money.

[00:02:27]And a bunch of private, uh sort of institutions, private entities, popped up to kind of fill in this void, providing a credit and a place for people to park their money.

[00:02:36]Unfortunately, unchecked greed is a son of a [ __ ] And as these companies became more and more prolific and represented a major component of the Albanian economy, well, they needed to do increasingly more, should we call it, intense things to provide more and more increased ROI, uh to attract more customers. At first, it was just simply more aggressive investments, then it was crime, uh such as using the invested money to go fund smuggling operations to provide that ROI, and by the end of it, they were in full-blown [music] pyramid schemes. For those that haven't had the near universal human experience of having a old high school friend ring you up after 10 years only to pitch you an MLM or pyramid scheme, or you just need a refresher, a pyramid scheme is very quickly, uh a investment opportunity, with air quotes, where you are promised very high return on investment, so you get an initial round of investors, the word spreads, and a new round of investors come in, and that new round of investors' money is used to pay off the first round of investors, and [music] the massive return on investment is completed, which attracts new investors, uh so on and so forth. Each sort of group of joinees has to be larger than the last, resulting in larger and larger rungs on the ladder. Now, this is not a pyramid, this is a triangle, but I guess a triangle scheme doesn't sound nearly as good, so it's so it's [music] a pyramid scheme, right? A key aspect of these is that they're completely unsustainable because each [music] rung needs to essentially be larger, and you need continuous new investors to provide the ROI for the last set of investors.

[00:04:13]As a result, at some point the pyramid scheme will completely run out of steam.

[00:04:17]These are generally illegal and are considered a scam and not a valid sort of investment strategy.

[00:04:23]But this is 1990s Albania. [music] So, not only would did the government not step in and crack down on these essentially scams, uh the government actually got in on the action with a lot [music] of people in power, both on the boards or invited to parties or closely involved with these, you know, around 20, 30-plus companies that were involved in these [music] uh schemes. In fact, it got so bad the President Sali Berisha pushed a lot of the more uh agrarian, you know, peasant type individuals to sell their home, sell their livestock, uh so on and so forth to get in on this ROI in an attempt to sort of push the nation forward. By 1995, 1996, uh the vast majority of the nation had invested in one of these schemes under the promise both of others and the government that it was a very [music] smart idea.

[00:05:11]But as mentioned, all schemes come to an end, and by 1996, 1997, these were beginning to run out of steam, and one by one they began declaring bankruptcy.

[00:05:21]And as one declared bankruptcy, it began to set in motion a degree of panic and sort of a bank run or investment run, but whatever. They tried to get their money out, uh which caused more of them to become insolvent, uh and before you know it, the entire system kind of imploded. And while the government tried to crack down in both directions, both seizing withdrawals and making Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes essentially illegal, uh the damage had already been done. And by early 1997, 2/3 of the nation's savings were completely wiped out, set to zero, which totaled about half of the nation's GDP. And in a perfect case study of what not to do, Sali Berisha, the president, essentially said to the populace, "Wow.

[00:06:04]Ooh.

[00:06:06]That sucks, man. Maybe maybe don't invest in fraudulent schemes next time.

[00:06:10]Uh, not our fault. Get good. Vote for me next election, right?

[00:06:14]Not literally, but uh surprisingly close. There is no government that could pay the money given in a in a free will and a free decision by free citizens.

[00:06:28]>> And you deny the charges that your government is involved in corruption and has profited from these schemes.

[00:06:33]>> is absolutely not involved.

[00:06:35]>> you let the people demonstrate freely?

[00:06:37]>> No. Which added a lot more fuel to the flame, adding a complete crackdown of rallies and protests, uh military deployment, martial law, curfews, and sprinkling a liberal dose of secret police dragging people away in the night. And oh boy, you had the seeds set for a complete revolution. Editing interjection here. I I want to point out these were not like air quotes peaceful protests where, you know, whatever, let them protest. No, these these were full-blown riots, guns were involved, people were getting hurt, people were getting shot. I'm not talking about the validity of it here, I'm just saying, you know, these were fairly intense. While the Berishian Berishian While Berisha's government was able to stabilize the situation in the core northern cities, much of the south rapidly descended into chaos as local governments got disposed by rioting, rallying, and frustrated populace. Port Sarande Sarand Port Sarand Sarande Port Sarande I don't know. The port that starts with S was one of the sort of major inflection points where as a relatively large, you know, by our standards towns, but a large city of Albania essentially flipped entirely into the opposite movement, which was a big deal as there were a lot of military bases here as well as an actual, literal port as the name implies. So, they were able to seize large amounts of naval equipment.

[00:08:00]>> Sarandë is in a state of open armed rebellion against Sali Berisha, the president in Tirana who now has absolutely no control over events in this part of his country. Telephone links have been cut off between here and Vlorë, adding to the tension by firing their guns in the air.

[00:08:22]Berisha's government, seeing what was essentially brewing into a civil war and desperately trying to prevent that from spreading any further, began to mobilize the military, set up roadblocks, and then basically sprint prevent the movement of information and people from the south to the north or from the north to the south, and really began to lock things down. As you imagine, in the south there's a lot of vitriol towards the central government. And because the local governments, by their very nature, have to work with the central governments, most of these got completely ousted as the, >> [music] >> you know, individuals working there fled in fear for their life, or they got forcefully disposed by essentially mobs who were, you know, pissed off at the given situation. And while there was some degree of success transitioning into ad hoc governments, by and large most of the south had descended into full-blown mob rule.

[00:09:13]A lot of individuals did not expect this to go this far, and many felt like they were stuck between two terrible options.

[00:09:21]On one hand, living under tyranny, and on the other hand, living under complete anarchy or even worse, civil war.

[00:09:28]One individual, for example, got in a disagreement with someone else and shot at him, followed by that one person's family showing up and she, you know, solving that dispute with 12 bolts to the chest in the man's home. There is continuous daylight robbery and news reporters keep talking about how they keep getting their car stolen from them during daylight robbery. Traveling between towns and cities is becoming increasingly more difficult as basically every single road is locked down. Not just from the opposition looking for secret police, but also just, you know, armed thugs doing shakedowns and essentially taking you for everything that you're worth.

[00:10:02]>> [music] >> And of course, throughout this time because all of the barracks and military structures have been looted, everyone is armed to the teeth. And of course, because I I think this is just hard baked into the human condition, everyone is shooting their guns into the sky every moment of every day.

[00:10:19]Oh, [ __ ] However, despite the lack of food, water, [music] lawlessness, and general lack of organization, most of the southern countryside doesn't actually descend into complete [music] chaos. I If I had to guess, it's that most of the countryside was united with a shared objective, you know, deposing Salva Kiir Mayardit, as well as a sort of assumption that this would either kick off into a organized civil war or that this would resolve a lot of this stuff would be rightfully punished after the fact. In a number of interviews, I found it quite you know, sobering to see a lot of individuals mention that they didn't want to fight, they didn't want to shoot at their own, but they understood the implications [music] this had for their future. And one individual mentioned that no matter how this played out, he would either end up dead or in prison for, you know, the [music] rest of his life. And despite this, he said, you know, this is my duty. I'm going to step up to the plate. We have to protest. We have to keep these people accountable.

[00:11:23]The general that stepped up to organize large components of the southern forces mentioned, no matter how this turns out, he's probably going to get hanged for treason. And the sentiment seemingly was repeated over and over again. The South was not interested in stepping down despite the consequences on the horizon.

[00:11:40]However, fortunately for this situation, uh the northern seat of power begins to unravel. And cities that used to be well under control begin to sort of disintegrate, for the lack of a better term, as curfews begin to be broken, and the military that is told to kind of contain the situation essentially deserts, uh refusing to follow what I assume they consider unlawful orders, likely with a good mixing in of soldiers just not wanting to shoot upon their own. And as the northern cities begin to fall, the international scene really begins to take notice, at first just to evacuate VIPs and [music] embassies, uh but then afterwards, at the request of actually both sides, to set up an interim government and to begin elections to replace the current government. So, yeah, 9 months after it started, the whole situation peacefully resolves. A new president is put in place, ironically a socialist, which, from what I understand, neither side originally wanted, but the candidate was relatively popular, and I think most people were ready to get back to uh day-to-day life, so.

[00:12:39]That's it. Uh no deep-diving conclusion here. I just wanted to share this little piece of history with you on both a sort of unrest scenario that had the potential of getting far, far worse. And it's an interesting sort of study into the sort of state of mind that the people were in during this, where, despite the government's complete willingness to fight this out right to the end, the ultimate thing that ended up resolving this one, at least, was the sort of fortitude of the people in the opposition, as well as the general refusal of the government's ultimate form of power, its monopoly on violence, really not panning out, as those there just sort of refused to follow orders for ultimately what everyone agreed was a government dodging accountability.

[00:13:24]And that way it's kind of a feel-good story, right? But you know what? can die. We're not going to give up. We don't want Sally. It's war.

[00:13:33]He stay 5 years in her chair and he he he he fight with the same guns who hold us fight 50 years.

[00:13:43]And we will not leave. But what if President Berisha sends in his soldiers, his police, his tanks? What will happen here then?

[00:13:51]We I know that I I I tomorrow I am I have to go in the prison for 20 years or 30 years. I know.

[00:14:00]I'm sure that I fight.

[00:14:03]You can tell it's summer time.

[00:14:07]Cuz Nova just wants to lay in the grass all the time now.

[00:14:11]Oh, yeah.

[00:14:19]Is that comfortable?

[00:14:42]You need more pets?