Procapitalist gov't declares state of emergency  

BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
Open warfare has broken out in Albania. After six weeks of unyielding protests against the government, the procapitalist regime of President Sali Berisha declared a state of emergency throughout the country March 2. Berisha sent tanks and fighter jets against tens of thousands of working people and other rebels who have taken control of several cities in the southern half of Albania out of the hands of the authorities.

On March 5, Chinese-made MiG-15 warplanes of the Albanian air force bombed a town near the southern port of Saranda, which has fallen to the hands of the rebels. Five T-55 tanks and half a dozen armored personnel carriers guarded an army checkpoint near Fieri, 35 miles south of the capital Tirana, according to the Associated Press. Other government checkpoints were set up on major roads across the country. The state of emergency bans people from gathering in groups of more than four and authorizes "all force" by the army, police, and secret police.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has amassed naval forces nearby, ready for military intervention into the Albanian workers state on the pretext of protecting U.S. citizens in the country. The U.S. rulers aim to salvage the hated regime, or replace it with another pro-imperialist administration, in order to push Washington's goal of reestablishing capitalism in Albania.

"U.S. Navy ships are standing by in the Adriatic in case mounting violence in Albania forces evacuation of U.S. citizens, U.S. officials said today," reported Susanne Schafer, an AP military correspondent writing from Stuttgart, Germany, on March 5.

"We are concerned with events that are occurring there. We are following it closely," stated U.S. defense secretary William Cohen, visiting the European headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Stuttgart that day. "Hopefully, they will be able to resolve the situation on their own." He stated that "as of this time, there are no plans, military plans."

"We have ships in the region, we are in communication with the [U.S.] ambassador [in Albania]," added Gen. George Joulwan, NATO's top commander.

Washington has backed the Berisha administration with economic and military aid since this government came to power in 1992, replacing the previous Stalinist regime. In exchange, Tirana has provided a military base for U.S. reconnaissance activities over the neighboring Yugoslav workers state. It has also discouraged Albanians in the Kosovo region in Serbia from pressing demands for autonomy from Belgrade. Until recently, the big-business media held up Albania as a success story of capitalist "market reform" in Eastern Europe. Recent events in this small country sandwiched between Greece and Yugoslavia, however, have darkened the nightmares of the imperialist powers intervening in the Balkans.

The revolt against the U.S.-backed regime erupted January 15. Since then tens of thousands of people have staged rallies and demonstrations, clashed with riot police, and set ablaze local offices of the ruling Democratic Party, along with police stations and other government buildings. The protesters are demanding that the state cover their losses from failed "pyramid schemes."

The Berisha regime lured more than 500,000 Albanians out of a population of 3.2 million to invest their savings into these fraudulent investment funds by offering exorbitant interest rates. These get-rich-quick capitalist scams then began declaring bankruptcy, ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands. As the Berisha administration refused to give in to the demands of the protesters, the demonstrations turned into an armed rebellion, particularly in the south, where many more people have been affected by the collapse of the pyramids.

Protests turn into armed rebellion
Faced with a police force that has deserted most of its posts, and a miserably paid army that has abandoned many of its barracks out of sympathy with the protesters, the government announced March 2 that the hated secret police, known as the SHIK, would take the lead against what it called "terrorist gangs." Berisha said he will use an "iron hand" to crush the rebellion as his government progressively lost control of city after city.

A gas station and hotel complex in Gjirokastra owned by Gjalica, one of the failed "pyramid schemes," was looted March 3, and smoke was seen rising from the complex later in the evening, according to the ATA news agency.

In Fieri, trucks and cars surrounded the headquarters of an army division and opened fire. The crowd seized all the weapons stored in the barracks before police arrived to rescue the commander.

Albanian state television reported that civilians took over an army arsenal in Vlora, the port city that has been a focal point of the revolt. Civilians also reportedly ransacked army bases in Orikum and Himara, taking weapons and army rations.

In Saranda, residents seized 2,000 rifles and an army boat. The prosecutor's office, courthouse, and nine police cars were torched. The military abandoned its barracks, leaving the arms and ammunition to the opposition. Army commanders reportedly told their soldiers to go home. On March 5, rebels in this city commandeered Russian-made tanks and fired antiaircraft guns and assault rifles at government planes bombing the nearby village of Livena. About 400 heavily armed protesters guarded the city entrance.

"If they move into Saranda, Albania will see the worst bloodshed ever," said Ilias Sideris, one of the rebels. Residents claimed to have at least 25,000 weapons in hand.

Residents emerged victorious February 8 after a battle with SHIK agents, following which the secret police headquarters were ransacked. At least 10 people died in this battle, including three students and several secret policemen. A few days later, gun battles broke out between government troops and rebels 20 miles east of Vlora March 5.

Officials of Vefa, the biggest investment scheme that has not officially failed yet, said its business property in Vlora, including a hotel complex, industrial park, and about six factories, was destroyed, according to Albanian state radio. These reports cannot be independently confirmed at the moment, however, since the government has imposed censorship, forbidding reporters to travel to the south of the country, and restricting what news media can say about the unrest.

Five of the failed funds were based in Vlora, two in nearby Lushnja, and one in Tirana.

In Vlora people became angrier when their protests were ignored by authorities. Fifty-seven students staged a hunger strike, which they abandoned when Berisha declared the state of emergency. "Our president has set Albanian against Albanian," said 21-year-old Albana Zenollari, one of the hunger strikers. "That's the worst thing he has done."

Many recent articles in the capitalist media try to paint protesters as "looters" or gangsters and swindlers connected with the Italian Mafia who made money through organized crime and thus invested in pyramid schemes. Tens of thousands of those who put money into the pyramids, however, are workers who immigrated to Germany, Italy, or Greece in search for jobs and a living income.

`Market reforms' fuel economic crisis
During its five years in office, the Berisha regime implemented austerity measures such as cutting social services, sold off some state-owned companies to foreign investors, and has relied on loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to finance imports. These measures made only a little dent in the noncapitalist social relations that exist in Albania.

Only about $200 million in direct foreign investment has come into the country since the early 1990s and most of industry remains state owned. Berisha's procapitalist policies, however, have plunged the Albanian workers state, already backward economically, into a deeper crisis by making it more vulnerable to the ups and downs of the capitalist business cycle in a period of world depression.

Today, some 300,000 people are unemployed, 90 percent of industry is shut down, and most in the country's majority rural population live barely above the poverty level. Average wages are less than $100 per month, and the per capita gross domestic product of $850 per year is on par with many countries in Africa. About half the country's GDP comes from remittances of Albanian workers and peasants who have emigrated abroad.

That's why so many people poured their life savings into pyramid funds - promoted by the government and used for enrichment of many of its officials - offering between 8 and 25 percent interest per month.

Berisha first tried to defuse the protests by declaring the pyramids illegal and promising the state would cover some of the losses. But the anger of hundreds of thousands built up as promises were never met. After Vefa announced it would return thousands of deposits without interest, thousands of people have lined up every day at the company's flashy offices in Tirana waiting for their names to be read out. But depositors say the names read never seem to correspond with anyone in the crowd.

As demands for the resignation of the government mounted, Berisha tried another trick to appease protesters. On March 1, the president ordered the resignation of prime minister Aleksander Meksi and his cabinet, but to no avail. Armed demonstrators threatened to march to Tirana unless the president dissolved parliament and formed an interim government until new elections are held.

A day later Berisha organized for parliament - where his Democratic Party holds absolute majority after fraudulent elections in May 1996 - to reelect him president for another five-year term. Hours after taking the oath to "protect and develop democracy, freedom, and human rights," Berisha ordered the state of emergency. He described the unrest as "a communist rebellion backed by foreign intelligence agencies."

But many of the government troops have already refused to obey orders for a crackdown on the opposition Socialist Party, which is the former ruling Stalinist Communist Party, and other opponents. On March 4, two Albanian air force pilots flew their MiG-15 planes to Italy and asked for asylum there. "We fled because they gave us the order to fire on a column of civilian vehicles near Gjirokastra," Capt. Agrae Dasci told reporters in Lecce, southern Italy.

Attitude of the imperialist powers
So the imperialist powers, which have supported the current Albanian government, are scrambling for ways to rescue Berisha or at least replace his regime with one of their liking.

While preparing for a possible intervention, Washington has also taken some distance from the regime. White House spokesman Michael McCurry declared in Washington that U.S. President William Clinton "views with some alarm" Berisha's reelection by parliament.

The government of Greece has taken a more aggressive stance, amassing troops to the Greek-Albanian border and threatening Tirana if the ethnic Greek minority in the south, the center of the unrest, is attacked.

The government of Italy, Albania's former colonial master prior to the worker and peasant revolution that overthrew capitalist rule in the 1940s, is expected to ask for more funds from the European Union to stabilize the situation in Albania. And the IMF is scheduled to send a delegation soon to negotiate new loans. That is, if developments over the next weeks still leave this door open.

As an article in the March 5 Wall Street Journal put it, "Although analysts and diplomatic officials are unsure how the crisis will end, one thing is certain: The uprising will dash the country's feeble reform process and add strain to the already-struggling Balkans."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home