BY BOBBIS MISAILIDES
SARANDA, Albania - Saranda was one of the first cities
in southern Albania to revolt. Working people in this city
have been devastated by measures that Sali Berisha's
government took in its efforts to impose a capitalist
"market economy."
The only major industry in the region still operating is the state-owned hydroelectric power plant. Farmers were forced to stop cultivating their land for grain crops. Their fields have been turned into pasture for the few remaining sheep herders. Most people here depend on remittances from relatives working in Greece and Italy. Many invested their money into the "pyramid schemes" promoted by the government, whose collapse sparked the current rebellion.
The devastation of the living standards of working people was compounded by Berisha's police repression.
Militant reporters interviewed Minella Bala on March 19 at his home in Saranda. Bala, a retired truck driver, is a central leader of the town's Committee for the Salvation of the People. During the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha, he was sentenced and served nine years in prison for "extremist propaganda serving the interests of foreign powers." He later became president of Berisha's Democratic Party in Saranda and served in that position for two years between 1993 and 1995. To this day, he retains his membership card in this party, although, as he told us, "This is a party but it is not democratic."
We asked Bala to describe how the revolt unfolded in this city. Bala said, "The problems that working people faced were building up and they were not just economic problems but lack of democratic rights."
After the collapse of the pyramids in January, the revolt started in the city of Vlore and spread to other southern towns. On March 2, as Bala described it, "The people by themselves came out in the streets and gathered at Skenderbey Square, chanting `Down with Berisha.' " Tsagiev Zera, Saranda's mayor, tried to address the people but they didn't allow him to speak. "They mayor was chased away," Bala said. "The mayor then got on the phone, called Berisha, and asked him to send the army and police to crush this revolt." As Bala explained, at that point Berisha's parliament had declared "a state of emergency."
Three days later, thousands of working people were still out in the streets of Saranda, a port town of 10,000 in the southwest corner of Albania near the border with Greece. "The people expected Berisha to send his police and army units, and began discussing how to obtain arms to defend themselves. They decided to march to the police station, the army, and the navy base to obtain arms. Virtually the whole town went," said Bala, "old people, children, men and women, everybody went."
According to Bala very few soldiers and officers were at the base and police station when the people got there. In his opinion "the officers had ordered the soldiers to leave the base." The police officers had left the station and disappeared. The few remaining soldiers joined the rebellious working people.
"Among the people," Bala said, "were some criminal elements" who also armed themselves. In the following days the police station, the Democratic Party offices, and other buildings were burned down. Some shops were looted.
Bala said, "The mayor called me and six former army officers to try to calm the people down." The seven formed the Committee for the Salvation of the People. Bala said that the mayor called him in particular because he enjoyed some respect among working people in the town. Even though he was a Democratic Party official in the past, he had joined the revolt.
The opposition parties approached the Salvation Committee but it decided by vote not to accept any party's intervention. "We have no parties in this committee," Bala said. "We have the people and the people can support different parties. We are all united, Greeks, Albanians, Christians, Muslims, and others."
During the following days, the Committee organized self- defense of the city. Armed guards and tanks were placed at the main entrances to the city and at the power station. "We expected attacks from Berisha's men and from thieves," Bala said.
Berisha sent Hisen Arapi, an army officer, with 60 soldiers to Saranda. One guard saw them coming and notified residents, dozens of whom poured into the streets with rifles to confront the soldiers. "There were two sides confronting each other," Bala said, "the people on one side and Berisha's men on the other, and they were ready to clash." Gjevat Koucia, a former army colonel and the de- facto president of the defense committee, went to the middle and tried to prevent bloodshed, but in the end some fighting took place and four people were wounded. "The people soon chased Berisha's men away," Bala said.
Berisha also sent a group of agents of SHIK, the secret police, to Saranda. The civil defense units chased them away too, but in the process were able to capture one. The rebels made him explain his story -that he was sent by Berisha and had a list of people to kill - in front of 4,000 people at the town's main square. While many people would have lynched the cop on the spot, Bala said, the Committee proposed to the rally that he be sent to Vlore to be tried and punished. This was eventually accepted by the protesters.
In the following days, Bala said, the Committee "lost control. Looting and stealing increased and we could not control that. So this is where we are at today." He said the biggest challenge before the Committee at this point is using the self-defense units to organize order and put an end to looting and robberies.
Bala was asked what are the next steps to be taken to win the demands of the revolt. He responded, "The issue is not money." Although the revolt started after the collapse of the pyramids, he said, "what we are fighting for is the freedom of speech, to say what we think, in the streets, in the newspapers, radio, and TV stations, without having the police or the SHIK over our heads. We don't want a one- party state. This is how it was under Hoxha and continued to be under Berisha."
Bala said that working people of Saranda "don't need foreign intervention and humanitarian aid should not be sent at this time." Bala said that much of this aid "ends up in the hands of thieves and they give it to their own people.
"Berisha is a finished man," Bala continued, "but it's undemocratic to remove him with arms. It should be done through elections." Bala is also against working people giving up their arms. "We will accept only a government that comes out of elections," he said. "We can organize the collection of the arms and we will keep them in our homes and our stores. But let's have elections."