Albania Essay Research Paper Albania one of — страница 2

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new Mercedes stolen from Italy or Germany is $10,000 cash. He passed a law late last year that barred some prominent opponents from running because of their Communist past even though he was a senior Communist Party official himself. He criticized the opposition party as a ‘red front,’ and banned its final campaign rally here. Albania has one, state-owned, television station and no private radio. Independent journalists and politicians are harassed. Mr. Berisha’s most charismatic opponent is in jail on what many believe to be trumped-up charges. Albania conducted parliamentary elections in May, which were rigged by the Democratic Party and boycotted by the major opposition parties. Last months armed riots all over the country brought the number of the killed persons to

approximately 2, 200 and the that of the heavy injured one to 8, 000. While Enver Hoxha (the exe- comunist dictator) produced some 700, 000 bunkers and every mountain in the country was opened through by creating some 2, 500 tunnels and later filled them with an unimaginable arms arsenal. Berisha (the exe-postcomunist dictator) during his five years of democracy instead of bunkers created a gigantic economic pyramid which absorbed from the poor Albnians not less than $1.2 billion and reconpensed them with the same amount of weapons. Government and Democratic Party buildings set ablaze in towns and cities accross the country. People blame government for the lose of their money because the president and the prime minister were assuring the people that they were safe and clean. And

many Albanians claim that senior officials profitied from their links with the pyramid schemes. The prime minister was suspected to be behind one of those schemes. Also it is no secret that the investment firms sponsored government poster campaign and that the DP (the governing party) used pyramid_scheme money to finance last May s controversial elections. The police waded in with truncheons, feet fists among the demonstrators. The result of this chaos and anarchia resulted in empty prisons, burned schools and half of the navy defected to Italy. Thieves have looted the national museums and defaced ancient ruins. children are armed. Still Berisha sited in his presidential palace in the dusty capital, giving orders to his loyalists in the secret police, who patroled the city on

rusty tanks with the confidence only AK-47 can provide. One thing is clear: He would rather sit atop a pile of rubble than relinquish power. It was not supposed to be this way. In 1991, the former cardiologist, an unknown apparatchik with a big medical reputation, from the mountainous north dazzled Washington with his charisma, linguistic ability and, above all, his anti-Communism. The fact he has studied abroad – a privilege granted very few Albanians – and headed the Communist Party cell in his hospital was of little import. As one Berisha supporte in the State Department put it, This guy really wants to help his country. So he did; and details like judicial procedure, separation of powers and political dialogue were not going to get in his way. Step by step, Berisha, 51, a

ruddy-faced man with darting blue eyes and a frequent down-at-the-mouth grimace, seemed to show his true autocratic instincts by assuming control of the police, the secret police, the judicary, the media and – since last spring fraudulent elections – the parliament. By May 1996 Albania had become a corrupt on-party state under a flag of democractic blue rather than Communist red. It is perhaps not suprising that Berisha chose this path. How could he know any other way? Nor is it a suprise that his fellow Albanians, long customed to a paternal leader, accepted it. Shocking and disapointing, however, was the West unconditional praise and supprot for Berisha as the savior of the Balkans long after he had revealed his authoritarian face. The European Union, for example, provided

more aid per capita to Albania tah to any other Eastern European Country, even as Berisha was imprisoning opponents and harrasing media. The United States has given $219 million in aid since 1991, turning a blind eye to police violence and political trials. Only after the 1996 elections did the Clinton Administration take a critical stand by condemning the fraud and calling for new elections. Percieved strategic interest drove this policy. First, Albania offered a useful military outpost in the southern Balkans, especially during the war in Bosnia. Berisha cooperated by opening Albania s ports and airstrips to NATO use and housing C.I.A. planes for reconnaisance flights over Bosnia. Second United States and Western Europe saw neighboring areas of Kosovo, with a large Albanian