23 April 1997       Doc. 7810

ADOC7810

OPINION1

on the state of emergency in Albania

(Rapporteur: Mr Victor RUFFY,

Switzerland, Socialist Group)

_____

A.       From the first to the second mission: a crisis precipitated

1.       When it left Albania, just after the first emergency measures had been introduced, sparking an initial rapprochement between the parties and the beginnings of dialogue between the latter and President Berisha, the mission of 7 and 8 March had the impression that the worst could still be avoided. At the same time, the agreement between the various political forces seemed to rest on shaky foundations and, while civil war had been averted, the situation remained very tense and there was still a danger that new trouble might start in the few towns held by the rebels and engulf whole regions.

2.       When we talked to him, President Berisha was unwilling to discuss the possibility of a government of national reconciliation, including opposition members. He felt that the appointment of a Prime Minister by consensus should be enough to calm the situation and restore public confidence in the country's institutions. He was also against the holding of fresh elections. If the rebels did not lay down their arms within 48 hours, as demanded in the ultimatum, he felt that he could deal with them with the forces at his disposal, and that this could be done without destroying any towns. He was not afraid of the insurrection's spreading to other centres. Tirana could remain unscathed.

3.       The ultimatum calling on the rebels to lay down their arms had no effect, which showed how determined they were. This happened just after our discussions and also after the OSCE missions led by the former Austrian Chancellor, Mr Vranitsky, and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, the Netherlands Minister, Mr van Mieres.

4.       It was at this point that President Berisha adopted a resolution with the political parties and made a number of important concessions. He agreed to the setting-up of a government of national reconciliation, to which the socialist, Mr Fino, was later appointed as Prime Minister. He also agreed to the holding of fresh elections, not later than June which the opposition had in fact regarded as essential to restoring calm to any significant degree in the troubled areas.

5.       President Berisha had amnestied Fatos Nano, already released from prison following the abandon of prison institutions by their staff. The director of the secret police, Mr Gazsdede, who had been given command of the forces responsible for restoring order, was dismissed and his police were disbanded.

6.       Although the political forces were closing ranks, divisions in the country continued, alas, to increase. From Saranda, Delvina and Vlora, the insurrectionary movements spread first to Girokaster, Tepelena and Pennet, and then to Berat, Korça, Pogradec and Elbasan, before moving north to Peshkopi and even Shkodra. This extension of the rebellion led to new waves of violence, the destruction of property, the looting of arms stores and the freeing of prisoners.

7.       This seizure of power reflects loss of confidence in, and even complete rejection of, the central authorities, and it is hard to see exactly what is happening and know what the various spontaneous movements stand for. The Albanian authorities did nothing, apparently for legal reasons, about our wish - expressed before we left Strasbourg - for contacts with representatives of these local movements. Our only choice is thus to put some kind of picture together on the basis of secondhand information from various sources.

8.       The more or less organised groups can be divided into four categories:

i)       those composed of former army officers, dismissed for having served under the old regime;

ii)       those which style themselves "committees of public safety", have taken the place of the local authorities and can claim a certain representativity - enough at least for Italian Prime Minister Prodi and some Albanian party representatives to talk to them;

iii)       those which are, reportedly, mere armed gangs of rebels, far more interested in doing well out of the situation in material terms than in restoring order;

iv)       those which - surprising as it may seem - are spurred on by the authorities which were lawfully elected last autumn, and which are taking advantage of the general movement to assert their desire for independence.

9.       Only a consistent political strategy, geared to the diversity of these complex situations, can restore confidence between the authorities on different levels.

10.       Confronting, or rather subjected to, all these movements, there is the civilian population - suffering, silent, disillusioned, despairing and nearly at the end of its tether. It occasionally speaks out, particularly on the politicians' attempts to patch up the damage. In its view, the last-minute coalition cannot disguise the fact that the party state - a structure which, when all is said and done, was very largely taken over from the old regime by the Democratic Party - is heavily to blame for the present situation. By progressively excluding from its whole apparatus all those suspected of diverging from the majority line, it has surely helped to feed the general sense of discontent? Numerous arbitrary dismissals, numerous threats of orchestrated violence are certainly behind the resentments which boiled over in the recent upheavals, compounding the bitterness of those who had lost their assets. And these more recent complaints do nothing either to make people forget the generalised corruption and the strong centralism which stopped democracy from getting off the ground in various parts of the country, or to silence criticism of the way in which the May and June 1996 elections were manipulated.

11.       However positive it may be, the national reconciliation platform of 9 March 1997 seems to have come too late, and many people feel that it can no longer restore the credibility of the present political structures.

B.       Daily life in Tirana

12.       According to Albanians, Tirana is still the town where people are least afraid. The centre is under control, thanks to numerous police measures by day and by night. The curfew starts at 8 pm and lasts until 7 am. There is very little going on. Most firms are paralysed. One shop in two is closed, the pavement vendors have disappeared, there are very few pedestrians, and one sees no children. The children in fact are shut away at home. All the schools and the university have been closed for the last six weeks.

13.       Buying the most basic necessities is becoming a major undertaking. Commodities of all kinds are kept under 24-hour armed guard to protect them from looters.

14.       Apart from the security measures along the road from the airport to the centre of Tirana, it is worth mentioning that the Europa Park Hotel is now protected by a metal grille during the day. All the local utility vehicles, including those of the Red Cross, are kept in the adjoining park. The hotel is practically empty and most foreign officials have left. Compared with March, attendance at our press conference was very small.

15.       Some observers try to make things sound less dramatic by emphasising that most shots are fired in the air. We heard shooting during the night, as we did in 1991 and 1992 - which made us feel that the clock had been turned back. Communication and the transmission of information are so difficult that no-one seems able to say how many innocent people have been killed so far; but it must be said that the civilian population has been living for weeks in a state of terror and is suffering from collective depression, compounded of psychological and physical hardships.

16.       The country's live forces, the young people who made the revolution, have lost their illusions and, despairing of ever seeing light at the end of the tunnel, want only to leave.

C.       The role of elections in restoring democratic order

17.       The Albanian parties have stated that they favour the holding of elections in June, provided that the electoral laws are reformed to provide for proportional representation, and the regulations on access to the media changed. Obviously, the Albanians themselves must decide when to hold elections, but, before they do, the parties should ideally answer the following questions:

      - if the necessary administrative, technical and material conditions are satisfied, which is far from being the case at present, is it conceivable that the people may be able to make their choice calmly, with a proper knowledge of the various parties and candidates, and so open the way to political renewal?

      - plurality of opinion is undeniably a preconditon of democracy. What scenario is likely to come out of elections held in the present conflict? Are new forces sufficiently strong to provide a basis for a solid coalition likely to emerge? Or are numerous parties likely to arrive on the political scene, making a working coalition hard to achieve and fragile once it is in place? Or, finally, will there be a complete turn-around with the majority shifting to the socialists and the democrats going into opposition?

18.       We shall see what the elections bring but, in the present tragic situation in Albania, they should ideally go in the right direction and play a stabilising role. If they fail, if inter-party wrangling mark the campaign, and elections which are manifestly invalid are none the less accepted, then the cure will be worse than the disease - and Albania will find itself even more paralysed than it is at present.

19.       The necessary pre-conditions must be explored as thoroughly as possible, and the international organisations responsible for monitoring the elections must be able to lay down minimum requirements to limit the risk of abuse, and to verify the correct conduct of the elections on the spot before putting their own responsibility on the line.

20.       Although the representatives of the various parties all favoured the sending of observers by the OSCE, the EU and the Council of Europe, there was disagreement between left and right as to who should lead the observer mission. The left was against Council of Europe leadership and preferred the OSCE, while the Democratic Party, the Social-Democratic Alliance and various small right-wing parties favoured the Council, because of its seniority, because of Albania's membership and because of the positive role the Council played in the local elections last autumn.

21.       To avoid being discredited, it is now more necessary than ever that our Organisations should co-ordinate their efforts with minimum delay and avoid competing for the limelight.

22.       It is highly desirable that EU, OSCE and Council of Europe representatives should meet to discuss this question as soon as possible.

D.       The market economy - a failure

      From sporadic aid to an integrated programme

23.       Those who knew Albania could not help wondering how this society could organise itself in the heart of a totalitarian system, or about the solidity of the economic upturn described in otherwise serious journals. In the light of recent events, the transition to a market economy without proper support measures has failed utterly as a shock therapy, and consequently we must consider other, more promising courses, which should not be difficult.

24.       In point of fact, in the last five years Albania has been marked by an economy of predation, where the collective goods created under the old regime and people's personal savings have been taken away by a minority of Albanians, while the representatives of the political classes and in particular the Government, turned a blind eye if they did not actually benefit themselves.

25.       Considering the colossal effort needed for a fresh start, we must reconsider the efficacy of the channels explored thus far to foster economic development, and particularly the obligation for everything to go through central government.

26.       After five years spent giving priority to strengthening the judicial apparatus and reorganising the administration, the Council of Europe must ask itself if it has not got its priorities wrong.

27.       Upon reflection, the regional and local partners seem to be particularly suitable agents through which to promote economic development, strengthen senses of responsibility and stimulate civil life.

28.       A new distribution of the workload could shift responsibility for democratic principles out to these levels; a task for which the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe is particularly well suited. In our opinion the Charter of Local Authorities and the future Charter of Regional Authorities could find a fitting application in the Albanian context, where the climate of neo-liberal confidence sparked off a headlong race to acquire the material goods of which the people had so long been deprived, destroying the social fabric, neglecting the importance of civil society and exacerbating old rivalries.

29.       Because it has fallen behind, Albania needs massive help, in the form of investments which would be profitable only in the long term, and which should focus initially on basic infrastructures, basic teaching and health.

30.       Because such a huge effort is required, it must be a joint effort, catering first and foremost for the interests of Albania, where development will initially, and for some time to come, be endogenous.

31.       Only an integrated aid programme developed jointly by the major international institutions, which could include the Council of Europe's Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, can save Albania from a chronic economic slump.

32.       We must not ignore the fact that many observers feared an extension of the crisis to the regions around Albania where Albanian people live.

33.       The momentary respite, which we hope will last, must not divert our attention from this concern.

34.       This part of Europe remains subject to a climate of constant instability, which will continue to prevail as long as the Albanian question is not tackled with determination, and as long as no satisfactory solution is found to the legitimate claims of the people.

35.       Although a fresh start is needed in Albania in particular, this will not suffice in itself to guarantee the conditions necessary to security in Europe.

36.       In this respect, an international conference on the Albanian question should be convened as soon as possible, with the participation of the United States, whose Balkan strategy does not always seem to be in phase with that of Europe.

*

* *

Reporting committee: Political Affairs Committee (Doc. 7806).

Committee for opinion: Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries.

Opinion approved by the committee on 22 April 1997.

Secretary to the committee: Mr Dufour.

1 ¹1. by the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries