BY BOBBIS MISAILIDES
ATHENS, Greece - With the presence of the 6,500 Italian- led imperialist occupation troops in Albania, President Sali Berisha's vigilante gangs have intensified their armed assaults on working people of the Balkan workers state. Through his murderous assaults Berisha aims to terrorize working people into submission and to reinforce his hold on power.

Eleven people were killed by Berisha's gangs May 18 in the towns of Tepelene, Memalie, and Gjirokaster in southern Albania, according to news reports on Greek TV channel ERT3. In Tepelene, the armed thugs carried out an assault in the center of the town at the time when representatives of the Committees of Salvation were meeting. The thugs abducted Gioleka Malai, the leader of the rebel committee in Tepelene, along with a police officer.

Armed guards organized by the committee together with police officers loyal to Tirana's national reconciliation government of Prime Minister Bashkim Fino successfully confronted the gang and forced them to release Gioleka and the police officer. Firing indiscriminately, the thugs killed four people including a young woman and her five-year- old son; five people were wounded. In Gjirokaster a bridge was blown apart, cutting the town off from the rest of the country.

The above attacks followed a series of bomb explosions the week before in the city of Vlore, the center of the revolt Albania. Thousands of working people there took to the streets in protest, chanting "Hang Berisha." The Italian and Greek imperialist occupation forces in Vlore have used these armed assaults as a pretext to justify their frequent patrol of the streets in armored vehicles to keep order.

The Committees of Salvation were born in the heat of the rebellion, which erupted in mid-January against the results of the "market reforms" of the pro-capitalist Berisha administration. The armed working people and these committees remain a major obstacle to the efforts of the imperialist forces and the government in Tirana to quell the revolt.

Meeting in Vlore May 16, the rebel councils discussed whether to boycott the elections scheduled for June 29 and to continue their fight until the ousting of Berisha. Although invited to participate, many opposition parties and no representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) attended this meeting.

Democratic, Socialist parties agree to election date
After more than a week of wrangling, Fino's Socialist Party (SP) and Berisha's Democratic Party (DP) said they had reached an agreement May 21 to proceed with the elections. Both of these parties represent competing layers of the bureaucratic caste that has for decades controlled political power in Albania. The details of the agreement were not yet available.

On May 13 Albania's eight opposition parties - with the SP in the lead - had threatened to boycott the planned elections after Berisha's parliament passed an election law that is favorable to his party. The DP holds the majority in that body following rigged elections in March 1996.

A day earlier Fino met with U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright in Washington D.C. Albright voiced support for Fino's government and denounced Berisha's "parliamentary maneuvers which undermine the efforts toward bringing a solution to the crisis in Albania." On May 16 however Berisha dissolved parliament and officially proclaimed elections for June 29. Speaking at a poorly attended election rally at the town of Lats which is 60 kilometers from Tirana, he declared that he will "not make any concessions to the opposition parties on the election law and that is my final answer." Berisha's election law is a version of the previous law that is favorable to the DP.

On May 19 the eight parties that are part of the government reiterated their threat to boycott the elections and gave Berisha three days to accept an election law that will be more favorable to them. In a clear support to Berisha, German Minister of Foreign Affairs Klaus Kinkel warned Fino that the scheduled elections should take place and that "under no circumstances should the political parties boycott them." Franz Vranitzky, the European envoy in Albania also voiced opposition to the threatened boycott.

At a conference in Athens organized by the Union for Balkan Friendship, Greek members of the European Parliament from right-wing parties and the Communist Party of Greece in a common statement complained that the "EU doesn't have an independent policy toward Albania. As in the case of Bosnia, its policy is dictated by the US government." The imperialist occupation forces are backing Berisha, the statement said and warned that if the DP wins the elections "this will cause a civil war in Albania which will spread to Tetovo, Kosovo and the neighboring Balkan countries." The working-class rebellion in Albania has given a boost to the struggle of Albanians in Tetovo and Kosovo for their national rights.

Protests break out in Macedonia
Meanwhile, 30,000 people demonstrated in Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia on May 15 demanding that the government compensate them for the money that thousands lost in a "pyramid" scheme that collapsed in February. It was the sixth fraudulent investment scheme to do so. The protest was organized by the opposition Democratic Party for National Macedonian Unity.

A few days earlier, on May 10, some 5,000 rallied in Bitolj, Macedonia's second largest city, shouting "We want our money! We'll get it with weapons if we have to!" It was the collapse of similar fraudulent investment schemes that triggered the revolt in neighboring Albania. The government has proposed a partial compensation plan that would repay those who invested $29,400 or more $294 per month. The protesters insist this is not enough. They called for early elections and have threatened to stop paying taxes if the government, which permitted such schemes to operate, does not reimburse them.

On May 15, UN secretary general Kofi Annan recommended that the UN occupation force in Macedonia be extended another six months, until Nov. 30, 1997. "Recent developments in Albania have demonstrated that stability in the Balkan region remains extremely fragile," he said. The force of 1,050 troops from the United States, Scandinavia, and Indonesia has been deployed in Macedonia since 1992.  
 
 
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