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Albania
Domestic Repression under Hoxha and Alia
Enver Hoxha was one of the last Stalinist leaders in Eastern
Europe and continued to employ Stalinist techniques for controlling
the population long after most other East European countries had
shifted from outright terror and repression to more subtle bureaucratic-authoritarian
methods. Western observers believed that no other communist country
had as extensive a police and security organization relative to
its size as the one that operated in Albania.
Hoxha regarded the security police as an elite group, and it
underpinned the power of the ACP and then the APL during the period
they dominated Albania's one-party political system. The secret
police was instrumental in enabling Hoxha and the communist party
to consolidate power after 1944 by conducting a campaign of intimidation
and terror against prewar politicians and rival groups. Persecution
of these opponents in show trials on charges of treason, conspiracy,
subversion, espionage, or anti-Albanian agitation and propaganda
became common. From 1948 until the early 1960s, the Ministry of
Internal Affairs was involved in the search for real or alleged
Yugoslav agents or Titoists in Albania, and the ministry itself
was an initial battleground in the purge of Yugoslav influence.
Yugoslav control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs ran deep
in the years immediately following World War II. Its chief, Koci
Xoxe, was part of the pro-Yugoslav faction of the party and a
rival to Hoxha. In 1949, however, he was arrested, convicted in
a secret trial, and executed.
Hoxha maintained a Stalinist political system even after the
communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China had long since
moderated their totalitarian or radical excesses. In the last
years of Hoxha's life, the Directorate of State Security (Drejtorija
e Sigurimit te Shtetit--Sigurimi), increased its political power,
perhaps to the extent of supplanting party control. After Hoxha's
death, the security forces viewed his successor, Ramiz Alia, and
his modest reforms with suspicion. In the late 1980s, they reportedly
supported a group of conservatives centered around Hoxha's widow,
in opposition to Alia.
Under Hoxha the communist regime essentially ignored internationally
recognized standards of human rights. According to a landmark
Amnesty International report published in 1984, Albania's human
rights record was dismal under Hoxha. The regime denied its citizens
freedom of expression, religion, movement, and association although
the constitution of 1976 ostensibly guaranteed each of these rights.
In fact, the constitution effectively circumscribed the exercise
of political liberties that the regime interpreted as contrary
to the established socialist order. In addition, the regime tried
to deny the population access to information other than that disseminated
by the government-controlled media. The secret police routinely
violated the privacy of persons, homes, and communications and
made arbitrary arrests. The courts ensured that verdicts were
rendered from the party's political perspective rather than affording
due process to the accused, who were occasionally sentenced without
even the formality of a trial.
After Hoxha's death, Alia was apparently unable or unwilling
to maintain the totalitarian system of terror, coercion, and repression
that Hoxha had employed to maintain his grip on the party and
the country. Alia relaxed the most overt Stalinist controls over
the population and instructed the internal security structure
to use more subtle, bureaucratic-authoritarian mechanisms characteristic
of the post-Stalin Soviet Union and East European regimes. He
allowed greater contact with the outside world, including eased
travel restrictions for Albanians, although the Sigurimi demanded
bribes equivalent to six months' salary for the average Albanian
to obtain the documents needed for a passport. More foreigners
were allowed to visit Albania, and they reported a generally more
relaxed atmosphere among the population as well as a less repressive
political and antireligious climate. Official sources admitted
that social discipline, especially among young Albanians, was
breaking down in the late 1980s. The country's youth increasingly
refused to accept and even openly rejected the values advanced
under the official communist ideology. Moreover, small-scale rebellions
were reported more frequently after Hoxha's death. Yet these developments
did not alter the regime's exclusive hold on political power after
the 1980s.
The dramatic collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe in
1989 apparently had a devastating effect on the internal social
and political situation in Albania despite Alia's efforts to contain
it. Massive demonstrations against communist rule followed by
liberalization and democratization in Eastern Europe began to
affect Albania in 1990. The power of the security police was successfully
challenged by massive numbers of largely unorganized demonstrators
demanding reforms and democratic elections. Unrest began with
demonstrations in Shkodėr in January 1990 that forced authorities
to declare a state of emergency to quell the protests. Berat workers
staged strikes protesting low wages in May. During July 1990,
approximately 5,000 Albanians sought refuge on the grounds of
foreign embassies in an effort to flee Albania. The security forces
reportedly killed hundreds of asylum seekers either in the streets
outside foreign compounds or after they were detained, but even
such extreme measures did not staunch the unrest.
In September 1990, Alia acceded to the requirements of the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe, committing Albania to respect
the human rights and political freedoms embodied in the 1975 Helsinki
Accords. When students organized demonstrations in December 1990,
their demands for political pluralism received widespread support
(see ch. 4, Further Moves Toward Democracy). Attempts by riot
police to break up the demonstrations failed, and the party's
Central Committee, in an extraordinary meeting called by Alia
to discuss the growing unrest, decided not to use further force.
The following year, the security forces were not in evidence at
large political demonstrations and were unable to stop thousands
of refugees from boarding ships bound for Italy or from crossing
the border into Greece. However, the security forces attempted
to maintain control by forcing the authorities to give the People's
Army control over the ports of Vlorė, Durrės, Shengjin, and Sarandė.
The army was ordered to clear the ports of potential refugees
and to establish a blockade around them.
Data as of April 1992
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