A VIEW OF ALBANIAN CRISIS FROM KOSOVO

The sudden dissolution of the system in Albania, immeasurably more dramatic than the one in 1991 and 1992, led this state into chaos and anarchy which corresponds to the classical description of pre-state, or rather Thomas Hobbs's "natural state", as the war of everyone against everyone else. The economic and political crisis caused by bankruptcy of a large number of swindling banks which have sucked in, that is robbed practically the entire savings of naive Albanian citizens, offering them increasing, enormous interests for their investments, provoked an uncontrolled chain of revolt of the citizens which has acquired cataclysmic proportions, because like an avalanche it has broken down almost the entire state apparatus.

The rebellion began in the south of Albania in cities Vlora and Saranda, where most of the banks which had gone bankrupt had their seats. When the rebels completely took over these cities and addressed an open challenge to the President of Albania, Sali Berisha, demanding his resignation and new elections, the President ordered the Albanian parliament which is almost completely controlled by his Democratic Party, to proclaim the state of emergency in the whole country. Then in conditions of the state of emergency and growing rebellion, confusion and sharp political conflicts, Sali Berisha organized elections in the parliament for his second presidential term of office.

Re-election of Berisha for president enraged his opponents and added oil to the fire of destructive disposition of a part of the masses. The rebellion started to spread. At first it extended to the entire southern Albania where the army, the police and the administration completely surrendered, and the rebels established national salvation committees. During the first few days it was not clear whether this was an organized rebellion, planned and led from some political centre, or a spontaneous rebellion of masses with a lot of confusion, of mostly poor and disorientated, slum strata of Albanian society which later on certain political forces tried to use and lead in the direction of their own objectives. Berisha and the leaders of the Democratic Party wished to lay the responsibility at the door of the most powerful opposition party - the Socialists. They called the rebels communist bandits who wished to restore communism. However, massive raids of police and military armament storehouses, arming of vagrants and criminals, including roguish and irresponsible teenagers, massive robberies of warehouses and stores and savage and aimless shooting in the air which resulted in numerous murders and self-caused injuries, quickly showed that this is not an attempt of organizing the last restoration of a revolution of the Bolshevik type (although some of the commanders of the rebellion indeed are communists and conspirators of the old brand), but rather a desperate, Luddite resembling end of half a century of militarist drill of the Albanian society.

Albania is, now it is clearer than ever, one of the greatest victims of communism and totalitarianism. Half a century of total isolation during which the entire country was turned into a Stalinist gulag and a penal colony, the country in which the yet unseen militarist paranoia of the regime filled the whole country with hundreds thousand bunkers, and manufacturing of arms exceeded several times the needs of defence (according to certain half-official sources it is assumed that Enver Hoxha left to the Albanians an "inheritance" of about 10 million pieces of firearms obtained either by import or made by his own industries) - after deep disappointment in the democratic regime and wrath because of the lost money and property, that is, after the lost dream about easy and quick acquiring of wealth - it seems that they had to give vent to their feelings, on the one hand in Luddite masochism of slum strata of the society who frantically shot bursts into the air and plundered, tore down and set on fire public estates and symbols of the state and repression (police stations, military barracks, administration buildings), and on the other hand, in almost complete desertion and dissolution of state army units. There has been no social and state collapse of such proportions for a long time, at least not in Europe. Almost all institutions of social cohesion collapsed overnight. It turned out that Albania, as a state and a society had just a temporary social and system contract, or rather just a temporary provisional solution for bypassing revolutionary law and dictatorship of the proletariat from the previous period. During five years of democratic authorities, Albania did not succeed to change the communist Constitution, nor to set stable foundations for a new social contract and institutional strengthening of democratic and state institutions.

In climaxes of the Albanian crisis, when the entire south was on fire and uncontrolled by Tirane, for a few days it even seemed that this was a regional rebellion against Berisha's regime, as well as revival of revanchist, autonomy-demanding and even secessionist aspirations of Toskeria in relation to the rest of Albania. A reporter of CNN had her picture taken on the bank of river Shkumbini, which is the natural border between Toskeria and the rest of Albania, that is, the border between the two main dialects of the Albanian language, in order to utter a notorious misinformation that the river Shkumbini was the border between two Albanian entities - Toska and Gega, and that the developments was heading towards flaring up of a new ethnic war in the Balkans. Many hasty and simplified analyses of this sort, although they avoided making the cardinal mistake to proclaim Toska and Gega to be different nations, nevertheless forecast breaking out of a war between the north and the south of Albania, referring to certain old regional rivalry and religious divisions (in the south, the population is mostly Orthodox, in the north Catholics, and in central Albania mostly the Muslims live). Apparently more convincing arguments in favour of the thesis about a civil war were sought by some in a schematic explanation of current political divisions in Albania. It was claimed that the south, traditional stronghold of communists, was oriented to collectivism, Russia and the East in general, while the north of Albania was and still is a stronghold of democrats of pro-western orientation. Such odium towards the south was in the beginning spread by Sali Berisha himself from Tirana, claiming that the rebellion in the south of the country was part of a communist scenario aimed at overthrowing democratic authorities.

Among Kosovo Albanians and Albanian patriots in general, the rebellion in the south caused bitterness and deep suspicion because of the adopted Serb Orthodox symbol - raised three fingers, instead of the Kosovo and democratic symbol of raised two fingers in the sign of letter V which stands for victory. Attempts of the opposition leaders in Albania to interpret the symbol of three fingers as a sign of political coalition of the left, the centre and the right, against Berisha's autocratic rule, was mocked in Kosovo. Kosovo and Albanian patriots, but also many surprised world analysts, initially considered the rebellion of the south as part of a geo-strategic conspiracy aimed at initiation of dissolution of regionalization and division of Albania (as in Bosnia & Herzegovina), in order to diminish or completely destroy aspirations of the Albanians to impose themselves as one of the factors of the balance in the Balkans. Various speculations were made about a conspiracy inspired by Greece, which would help this country establish strategic control over the south of Albania, or by Serbia for which a weak and divided Albania is very convenient because it makes it easier for Serbia to tackle the problem of Kosovo. When speaking of the theories of conspiracy, one of them claimed that this was a conspiracy planned in a strange combination of interests jointly by the Albanian Socialists and the Italian mob, who had allegedly conceived and opened banks which provided great profit for the mob, and enabled the Socialists, besides drawing some benefits from increasing their funds, to direct the wrath of the robbed people to overthrowing of the democratic regime.

All these schematic and hasty forecasts went up in smoke when the rebellion and anarchy of the same type spread around the whole of Albania. For a few days in whole of Albania, there were massive desertions from the army and police and savagery of Albanian slum proletariat. The north acted in the same way as the south, without manifesting any ambition to wage war against Toska. Snatching away of arms, plundering and savage shooting into the air and symbols of the state were a repetition of the same Luddite bloody carnival, and not a manifestation of some frantic regional or collectivist interests. The democratic regime of Sali Berisha tried to make those who had been humiliated and insulted, those who were completely crushed and materially and spiritually impoverished during the previous regime, those who had experienced deep trauma of complete distrust of others, where everyone was an informer about everyone else, where all family and moral values were questioned surrendering in front of the crudest egoism, acquiesce to the new way of life at the time of transition through apparent liberation of the space for small entrepreneurship. The basis of Albanian economic revival, if there had been any plan at all, relied mostly on the support to anarchic individualism and grey economy.

When in 1992, Sali Berisha came to power, Albania was also in total economic and systematic collapse. Nothing worked. There was no food. The entire manufacturing was at a standstill. About one million workers were on forced leave receiving between 7 and 10 dollars of welfare from the state. Italy then sent a special military unit in a humanitarian mission called Pelican to distribute food. The Albanian administration was in a desperate position. The new authorities managed, however, to make a turn and stabilize the situation thanks to foreign aid and cash remittances of several hundred thousand Albanian emigrants mostly from Italy and Greece. Berisha, however, failed to ensure political stability of the country, primarily due to his autocratic ambitions. Strong socialist opposition in the parliament prevented him from introducing systematic changes he wished to make. There was no political consensus concerning the new constitution. Berisha wished to introduce a presidential system with a weak parliament which would have given him absolute power for a long time to come. His project did not pass either in the parliament nor in the referendum which he organized in November 1994, despite a powerful campaign in the media and absolute control of electronic media. The fiasco in the referendum did not soften him enough to seek consensus with the opposition, but on the contrary made him firm in his wish to remain in power and "defend democracy" by means of the old tested recipe of relying on the secret police (SHIK). In his wish to ensure his personal power, he started persecuting and arresting his political opponents (opposition leader Fatos Nano was in prison until just a few days ago) and to lead a constant and severe anti-communist campaign, or rather demonization of every opposition, both communist and restorationist. Last year in May, the political crisis reached the climax with the elections which ended irregularly due to drastic fixing and thefts of votes. Berisha seems to have misunderstood signals from the West which had given him the advantage in relation to the left opposition and insolently and openly stole votes and forced the opposition to boycott the elections and leave the parliament. The United States, which had supported Berisha until then, disassociated themselves from his policy and demanded that the elections be repeated. Europe took a more vacillating stand, believing that Berisha was the only one who could maintain stability in Albania. And it might be that support to Berisha by some European capitals was conditioned by his assurances that concerning Kosovo he would remain moderate.

In the meantime, Berisha seemed to have underestimated the danger of bankruptcy of banking pyramids, although he was warned about the consequences in due time. There are opinions, however, according to which he himself was the one who had inflated this balloon of apparent wealth and prosperity in order to ensure the second presidential mandate. However, relying on the secret police and weak and corrupt administration was insufficient to oppose the reaction of the opposition and especially the rage of the deceived and robbed people. To what extent the state apparatus was bureaucratic, slow and inefficient can best be illustrated by the example of aggravating and nonsensical conditioning of foreign investments and realization of aid. For instance, German Siemens which had been in charge of the project of complete reconstruction of the only Albanian airport Rinas financed by the German government, after several months of obstruction and hindrance with issuing permits and preparations of the projects, simply gave up on the project and left.

    When the crisis suddenly flared up in the past month,

Albania found itself exactly where it had been in 1991, when Ramiz Alija, successor of Enver Hoxha, had to yield to the unorganized disorders and accept the coalition government of national harmony. Instead of the government of Alexander Mexsi, in the days of greatest anarchy and crumbling down, Berisha agreed to formation of the government of national salvation headed by the Socialist Bashkim Fino. Even if in the beginning they had stirred up the fire of rebellion, the Socialists seemed to have realized later on that it was no longer funny and that it was necessary to try to save the state from consequences of total anarchy and threat of a civil war. The new government and President Berisha addressed an appeal to world powers for urgent humanitarian, economic and military aid. In the first most desperate reactions, urgent military intervention of the NATO was sought, but later, when awareness of the impracticability of the demand grew, it was mitigated and brought down to foreign military protection of certain strategic posts such as the ports and the Tirana airport. The European Union and the United States have taken the Albanian crisis quite seriously and resolutely declared themselves in favour of state integrity of Albania. They supported the government of national unity and promised humanitarian, and even limited military aid which does not imply direct military involvement in chaotic conditions prevailing in Albania at the moment.

In the meanwhile, in Tirana and greater part of other cities, the situation is somewhat more stable. The new government enjoys support of politically aware and patriotic civic forces which came out in the streets in peaceful counter-demonstrations on 16 March, appealing for preservation of integrity of the country and stopping of anarchy and vandalism of armed individuals and groups. The Government managed to re-establish control of a part of the police and the army (they were promised an increase of salaries of 300 per cent!), and many volunteers responded to the appeal for defence of the country. The key issue for the government of Bashkim Fino probably is not establishment control over armed giving vent to low instincts of groups and individuals. This can gradually be done. Ensuring of food and other aid will not be a great problem either. It might even get aid for partial compensation of the money which the citizens lost in bankrupt banks because of their greed. The greatest problem for the Government will be president Sali Berisha whose resignation is still the condition rebels from the south are insisting upon. Events in Tirana in the past few days have slightly pushed aside the developments in the south of the country. The fact still remains that the south is practically not controlled by Tirana and that along with the unorganized random shooting and vandalism there are certain organized units and self-elected authorities which are still conditioning disarmament and submission to the national salvation government by resignation of Sali Berisha. Some opposition leaders in Tirana also see the way out of the crisis in his unconditional withdrawal.

Nevertheless, among Socialists and a part of the opposition double fear of sudden departure of Berisha seems to prevail. First, if he should immediately leave, the opposition would be forced to take almost full responsibility for governing in a very difficult political and economic crisis. Because of that it probably suits it better to tow along the politically practically dead Berisha, so that he can continue to take the blame for the situation, while the opposition would collect points for constructive and responsible behaviour in circumstances dramatic for the nation. And second, the opposition fears the possible reaction of the armed part of the Democratic Party which is still powerful and a respectable force which resolutely supports Berisha, and this means that their discontent and reaction could lead to new disturbances and maybe even civil war for power. As Prime Minister Fino is from the south and from the Socialist Party, he probably counts on having more success in negotiations with the rebellious south than with angry Democrats if they were left without their leader. One of the arguments which Berisha stated after denying rumours that he had submitted resignation, was that his resignation would probably be inevitable after the next elections planned for May or June, which the national salvation government had promised would be fair and controlled by international observers.

It is, however, still too early to draw conclusions. The situation in Albania is changing from day to day.

As concerning the view of the situation in Albania from Kosovo, it caused great consternation and distress. Stumbling of Albania as silently observed here, fatally coincided with the moments when the Kosovo Albanians were trying to determine the maximum of their aspirations and when they needed support and assistance for it of their parent state. On the same night when the Assembly of Kosovo adopted the Declaration on Independence, 2 June 1990, the crisis of breaking into embassies in Tirana began and later massive exodus across the sea. Nowadays, when new serious negotiations on the status of Kosovo are expected to begin, Albania is experiencing a new not just economic, but also a military and moral collapse. In any case, Kosovo Albanians will now be much more careful in "calculations of variants" and re-examination of their strategy. The situation is constantly forcing them to be rational and pragmatic.

Shkelzen Maliqi