Congressional Record -- Extension of Remarks

Thursday, October 11, 1990

101st Cong. 2nd Sess.

136 Cong Rec E 3209

REFERENCE: Vol. 136 No. 135; Continuation of House Proceedings of October 10,
1990, Issue No. 134; and Proceedings of October 11, 1990, Issue No. 135.

TITLE: WAITING FOR THE EXPLOSION IN ALBANIA

SPEAKER: HON. HELEN DELICH BENTLEY OF MARYLAND IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

TEXT:
Text that appears in UPPER CASE identifies statements insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the House on the floor.

[*E3209] MRS. BENTLEY. MR. SPEAKER, I HAVE BEEN SPEAKING FREQUENTLY ON THIS FLOOR ABOUT THE SITUATION IN THE BALKAN STATES AND IN PARTICULAR ON THE CRISIS THAT THREATENS TO DESTABLIZE THE WHOLE REGION.

THE PROBLEMS IN YUGOSLAVIA WITH THE ALBANIAN MINORITY IN THE AREA OF KOSOVO ARE BEING FED BY OLD EMNITIES COMING FROM THE TITO YEARS WHEN THE ALBANIANS WERE BROUGHT IN TO DEFUSE STRONG SERBIAN INSURGENCIES AGAINST THE RUSSIAN-BACKED GOVERNMENT IN BELGRADE AND BY THE MISERABLE TOTALITARIAN CONDITIONS EXISTING INSIDE THE NATION OF ALBANIA TODAY.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TODAY, OCTOBER 11, HAD AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE REPORTING ON THESE CONDITIONS. BEING AWARE OF THE CRITICISMS OF THE ALBANIANS IN KOSOVO -- AGAINST THE PRESENT GOVERNMENTS OF SARBIA AND YUGOSLAVIA -- IN A SITUATION WHERE THEY ARE ALLOWED FREEDOM OF WORSHIP, ADVANTAGE OF SCHOOLING -- IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE UP THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL WITH ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY DEGREES AND MANY JOB OPPORTUNITIES INCLUDING IN POLITICS -- I AM SHOCKED AT HOW REPRESSIVE THE GOVERNMENT IN ALBANIA IS TOWARD ALL OF ITS CITIZENS -- ACCORDING TO THE JOURNAL REPORT.

IT IS DOUBLY SHOCKING THAT THE ALBANIANS IN KOSOVO ARE REPORTED TO WANT TO  HAVE THE REGION ANNEXED TO ALBANIA IN A PLEBESITE-TYPE ACTION. READING THE JOURNAL ARTICLE, ONE WONDERS IF THIS IS REALLY TRUE OR, IF THE PRESSURE IS  COMING FROM OUTSIDE OF YUGOSLAVIA.

I INSERT THIS ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY:

[From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 11, 1990]

WAITING FOR THE EXPLOSION IN ALBANIA

(By Robert D. Kaplan)

Tirana, Albania. -- Shqiperia, "The Land of Eagles, known in other languages as Albania, is a lair of towering limestone fastnesses where people ride crammed together, on the backs of pick-up trucks to labor with cythes and shovels in the fields and in the shadow of Marxist-Leninist billboards, only to return to their homes at night to watch "Dynasty" and CNN on Greek and Italian television frequencies.

"We live like poor, miserable bastards," a man told me in Greek, on a train from the port city of Durres to Tirana, after discovering that I was an American. The other passengers, including soldiers, stared at me; their eyes registering fear, hope and curiousity.

The country remains a living museum of Stalinism, with its attendant poverty and farcical personality cult. Bicycles and ox carts clog cratered roads. I traveled through the country for a week and saw very few cars and no tractors. The ribs pressed against the flesh of every cow I saw. The apartment blocks are  tenuous constructions of corrugated metal and badly mortared brick. I saw one  ambulance, a creaking and rusted box-like vehicle that reminded me of the ambulance Ernest Hemingway drove on the Italian front in World War I. In the pharmacies, not even cough drops are available.

In the poorest Third World countries, children board buses and trains to sell chewing gum and other cheap items. In Albania, children beg for gum, since it is unavailable. I watched a gang of semi-naked children fight over a packet of Chicklets that they knew was empty. Here is a primitive service economy that produces nothing: Tailors and cobblers are abundant in Albanian towns because there are no factories producing clothes and shoes, and little or nothing is imported.

The countryside is defaced with tens of thousands of domed, concrete bunkers, built in the 1960s to defend Albania against a joint invasion by "Anglo-American Imperialists" and "Russo-Bulgar revisionists." This mad vision was enunciated by Enver Hoxha (pronounced HO-JA) -- Albania's World War II guerilla leader, who, until his death in 1985, kept isolated from even the other communist states in Eastern Europe. Hoxha's name, face, and sage advice stare out at one from billboards that are just as ubiquitous as the bunkers he had built. Tirana's "Museum of Enver Hoxha" is the only well-constructed edifice in Alabania. Its  gray marble and polished copper interior, with reverential music piped in on JVC speakers, suggest the atrium of a shopping mall.

The Shqiptars (Eagle-men), as the Albanians call themselves, are already in revolt. Last June, thousands of young Albanians crashed the gates of foreign embassies in Tirana, resulting in a mass exodus and a nervous promise of reform from the regime, along with a crackdown by the SIGURIMI (secret police). At the beginning of this month, the bodies of two ethnic Greeks who tried to escape to Greece were hung upside down in the main square of a village near the town of Korce. The Greek government called the action "barbaric," and has threatened serious consequences.

A few days later in the same area three soldiers and three civilians successfully escaped to Greece after a brief gun battle. Despite the building of concrete walls topped by broken glass at the Greek and other foreign embassies in Tirana, throngs of Albanians gather daily at the diplomatic compounds, demanding asylum.

"Our hearts are pounding. We know what has happened in Romania and the rest of Eastern Europe. Albania is still alone, and we are not proud of this fact. There could be more blood here than in Romania," an engineer in his 30s told me in Durres. Another young Albanian I met compared Hoxha to Adolf Hitler. And another told me how he was secretly baptized. (Albania is an official atheist country where religious worship is a criminal offense.) Such statements do not have to be solicited; Albanians are desperate to talk to foreigners.

Ramiz Alia, Albania's communist ruler since the death of Hoxha, is trying to forestall a Romanian-style uprising by issuing passports, opening a dialogue with the U.S. and other such moves. Though Albanians admit that Mr. Alia is an improvement over Hoxha and his hated wife, Nexhmije, (still a formidable figure in Tirana with a power base of her own inside the secret police), they see Mr. Alia's actions as those of a desperate man, offering too little, too late.

A Western diplomat here said the situation is completely unstable and therefore unpredictable. But an Albanian student I spoke with believes that the crisis in the Persian Gulf "provides a breathing space for the regime, since the world's attention has shifted away from Eastern Europe."

Although Albania, with a population of only 3 million, is Eastern Europe's smallest country, the eventual collapse of communism here will have powerful repercussions both in neighboring Yugoslavia, where another 2 million Albanians are locked in a struggle with the resurgent Serbian nationalist movement over the region of Kosovo, and in Greece, where irredentists are calling for the restoration of Northern Epirus (southern Albania) to Greek sovereignty. The number of Greeks inside Albania may be as high as 400,000 -- more than 13% of the population. I was stunned by the prevalence of Greek speakers in Albania, as well as by the undercurrents of hostility between Greek Orthodox Christians in the south and ethnic Albanians in the central and northern regions, many of whom are Moslem.

[*E3210] When the official cult of atheism and worship of Hoxha cracks, and traditional religion and religious antagonisms reassert themselves, Moslem violence against Orthodox Christians is a distinct possibility, and one that could easily create populist pressure within Greece for a military adventure in Northern Epirus. There is already talk of a Greek guerilla movement. Ethnic Greeks point out that the Romanian revolution was ignited not by Romanians, but by the Hungarian ethnic minority.

For the moment, Albania appears to be in the lull before the storm. I spent some of my time snapping photos of the statues of Hoxha and Stalin in the main squares, figuring that the monuments will not be around much longer.