My Diplomatic Life

Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise

November 3, 2023January 14, 2021 by Jim

Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise. How did this come about? So it was on a cold and windy January morning in 1998 that I arrived at Heathrow airport to catch my early morning flight to Vienna en-route to my final destination Tirana the capital city of Albania. With all the background briefs on … Read more

Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion

November 3, 2023August 1, 2020 by Jim

Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion, details the aftermath of the incident where myself and two colleagues from the British Embassy were ambushed on Dajte mountain on the outskirts of Tirana in Albania in 1998 and my two colleagues shot.

Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot

The story continues:

So we set off. There was a small convoy of police cars plus our vehicle that slowly snaked back up the mountain. Finally we reached the spot. It was not hard to identify as there was broken glass on the road as well as the long tyre marks we had left behind as we burned rubber taking off making our escape.

The convoy stopped and the police got out of their vehicles and I joined them. Some started to cordon off the road while a number with automatic weapons spread out around the scene in some sort of haphazard search pattern looking for clues or traces of the culprits. After about half an hour just standing around, I asked my Embassy driver, Benny to ask the police if I could leave for the hospital to visit my colleagues. The senior policeman on the scene agreed but said he wanted me to visit police HQ later that day to make an initial statement.

After agreeing to do so and telling them that until further notice Benny would be my official interpreter for the time being, both he and I jumped in our vehicle and headed for the hospital in Tirana. I could see that Benny was nervous. Dealing with all of this was definitely not part of his job description. He was doing a great job not only as a driver putting himself in what might have been a potentially dangerous situation but also with helping out with the police.

About an hour later, after an uneventful trip, we arrived at the main hospital in Tirana. Benny and I went in and were taken to where the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) and the Management Officer (MO) were being patched up. The doctor explained (via Benny) that the DHM was lucky, the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of her arm without breaking any bones or damaging any nerves. The doctor wanted to keep her in, but she was insistent of going home once the treatment was completed.

Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot

November 14, 2023July 16, 2020 by Jim

Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot is Part 1 of a story that occurred in 1998. It was a volatile year in Albania’s recent history. At this time, British diplomats who were posted to a volatile or conflict region received virtually no Hostile Environment Training (HET). It was usually the case you popped into King Charles Street for a quick chat with the relevant desk officer. You would get a quick country brief, then it was off to Heathrow.

There was still no HET in place before my next posting to Kosovo after an eventful year in Tirana Albania. However, thankfully the FCO had got it’s act together by 2005. Then, just prior to my posting to Iraq, I received a one week HET training course. This was carried out by a private contract firm just outside Hereford.

It was comprehensive and tailored to the area where I would be serving. Perhaps, if we had had this training in 1998 the event that took place below may have turned out differently. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Albania WW2 RAF Pilots Secret Grave Found

November 14, 2023July 14, 2020 by Jim

Albania WW2 RAF Pilots Secret Grave Found is a story about a small. isolated Albanian village which kept a deadly secret for almost 50 years during the oppressive, communist regime of Enver Hoxha. The secret they kept lay unmarked and untended in the local village graveyard. So, what was this secret that if it had leaked out could have had potentially deadly consequences for the village?

The story developed thus:

During the long and hot Albanian summer of 1998, the embassy was contacted by the Mayor of Saranda.

Saranda was a medium-sized coastal town and popular holiday resort in the south of the country located near the Greek border and lying directly opposite the island of Corfu. The Mayor said that he had been contacted by a resident of the village of Drovian which was located in the mountains just above Saranda.

Apparently, this villager, his family and the whole village had been living with a secret for decades.

It transpired that during the second World War when the Italians invaded Albania, an RAF fighter plane, during the course of a dogfight, had collided with an Italian machine and the badly burned British RAF pilot had baled out.

He landed just outside the village and despite the tender ministrations of the villagers, had tragically died from his wounds. The villagers then buried him in an unmarked grave in the church grounds as they did not want the Italians to find him.

After the war, with the advent of the brutal and repressive Hoxha communist regime and his denial of the extensive British military aid given to him in terms not only of material but also of British lives in defeating his axis occupiers and liberating his country, the villagers did not dare inform anyone outside the village about the hidden British grave in case they would be taken for collaborators.

Albania Bloodshed Avoided At Queens Party

November 3, 2023July 13, 2020 by Jim

Albania Bloodshed Avoided At Queens Party is a story from Tirana, Albania that came about thus. Sitting out and enduring the lockdown , I spent a lot of time trawling through YouTube videos especially trooping the colour and the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. I love our history and traditions and make no apologies for saying so.

Therefore, every year, on the occasion of the Queen’s official birthday, all British embassies and Posts throughout the world organise their own Queen’s birthday celebration.

So, this took me back to a time and place when the apparently straightforward task of arranging an event of this magnitude can often be fraught with uncertainty and a whiff of danger, especially abroad.

It was the first week in June 1998 in Tirana, where the focus then was on the upcoming Queens Birthday Party, (QBP) which I had been told I was to organise.

Exclusive: How SAS Rescued Trapped British Diplomats in Albania

August 5, 2024July 11, 2020 by Jim

Albania SAS Rescue Trapped British Diplomats

Exclusive: How SAS Rescued Trapped British Diplomats in Albania is a story of how the Special Air Service (SAS Motto “Who Dares Wins”) rescued myself and two colleagues who were trapped in the British embassy in Tirana having been evacuated into the embassy on 12th September 12th 1998 as the country erupted into civil unrest and lawlessness. The boys from Hereford did good!

This was my first diplomatic posting and during the course of my career I took part in the evacuation of British nationals (and others) in a number of locations but on this occasion, I was the one being evacuated albeit from my residence to the embassy as a place of safety.

Scene Setter

This was a day I was not going to forget in a hurry. I had just under four months left before my tour ended and I had spent the previous day at work trawling through future job opportunities. The Ambassador was again out of the country and the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) was once more in charge. I should have known from previous experience and recent incidents that trouble always seemed to flare up when Ambassadors are away from post.

On this day, I awoke very early to the sounds of large explosions and the rattle of gunfire that seemed to be going off in all directions. What was going on? There had been no forewarning of trouble and things had been relatively quiet and stable in the city over the preceding weeks.

I tried to get hold of the DHM on my mobile phone but the network was down, always a bad sign. I immediately got on the embassy radio net and contacted her. She said that she had just heard from the German Embassy that a local high profile opposition politician, Azem Hajdari, had been assassinated outside the Parliament building and his Democratic Party (DP) supporters were on the warpath blaming the Socialist government party for the murder.

Azem Hajdari – Wikipedia

Azem Shpend Hajdari was the leader of the student movement in 1990–1991 that led to the fall of communism in Albania. He then became a politician of the Democratic Party of Albania (DP). … He was assassinated in Tirana on September 12, 1998. On October 2, 1998, Hajdari was posthumously awarded Honorary …

Tanks, automatic weapons and armoured personnel carriers had been seized by DP members and the government were now calling this an attempted coup d’etat and responding with armed force of its own.