BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BOBBIS MISAILIDES
VLORA, Albania - Through a popular, armed rebellion, working people of Albania have thrown into utter crisis the rule of the bureaucratic caste that has controlled political power in this workers state for nearly half a century. They have also pushed back imperialist attempts to reestablish capitalism in Albania.

The country's armed forces have been virtually dissolved, with many units and thousands of individual soldiers and officers joining the rebels. The police have been rendered utterly ineffective, with many precincts shut down and police stations burned, particularly in the south. The country's jails have been thrown open and inmates set free. The courts are functioning only in parts of the country, almost every household in Albania now has weapons.

The defense councils that were born in the heat of the rebellion have formed the National Front for the Salvation of the People, which now includes 21 such citizens committees. In the southern half of the country, particularly in Vlora, the Front is functioning as an alternative government. In many municipalities the citizens' committees have replaced in practice mayors and city councils.

This formation, however, is very heterogeneous and has so far been unable to force the resignation of President Sali Berisha - now the rallying cry of most Albanians. The defense councils are comprised of people from different social layers who sometimes have clashing political outlooks. They include young working-class fighters who have stepped forward to lead the revolt, former military officers who held high positions in the armed forces under the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha and were dismissed by Berisha in the last five years, and officials of the Socialist Party that ruled until 1991.

In Tirana, the country's capital, the Socialist Party has joined Berisha's Democratic Party in a government of "national reconciliation" in an attempt to forestall the overthrow of the president through revolutionary means. Such a development would boost the self-confidence of working people and set a dangerous precedent for all the rival layers of the ruling caste, threatening their parasitic existence and bourgeois way of life.

The rebellion by the Albanian toilers has also posed a threat to the interests of the various imperialist powers and has shed more light on the intensifying competition among them over division of the world's markets.

Paris, Rome, and Athens, in particular, have been pushing for some form of military intervention in Albania to "secure distribution of humanitarian aid," "retrain" the country's police, and "reorganize" its army.

Washington, which backed Berisha's regime with economic and military aid for five years, has rejected requests for NATO intervention by the Albanian president. After the rebellion turned Berisha into a spent vessel, the U.S. rulers decided to let the Western European Union, led by the French government, attempt a military foray, much like Washington did at the beginning of the 1992-95 war in neighboring Yugoslavia.

The goal of all these imperialist powers, regardless of current tactical differences, is to overturn the workers state that was created through a worker and peasant revolution in the 1940s and reestablish the system of wage slavery in Albania. In this attempt, Paris, Rome and other capitalist regimes may have to confront militarily the armed workers and peasants of this tiny Balkan country.

Opposition to intervention runs deep
"We don't want Europe, Italy or Greece, or America to send their armed forces here," said Renato Tsanos, 25, in an interview on March 21. "If they do, they will face our bullets and will go home in coffins." Tsanos spoke to Militant reporters after a rally of 1,000 at the central square of Tepelene, a town of 4,000 people on a mountain slope of southern Albania. He recently came back from Greece, where he worked for two years on the island of Crete as an undocumented immigrant on construction jobs and as a waiter. "The governments in Europe are responsible for the situation we face today. They first said the elections last May were valid. They supported Berisha."

Of the three dozen people Militant reporters interviewed there, many of whom were young, most expressed similar opinions. These workers had in their great majority immigrated to Italy, Germany, or Greece for several years and had deposited their savings into the "pyramid schemes." The Berisha administration promoted these scams as an easy way to get rich quickly. These funds offered interests rates of up to 25 percent per month. Working people were lured en masse to put their money there, hoping for a better income than the average wage of $80 per month. The collapse of the pyramids in January brought economic calamity to most Albanian families - since 500,000 people put money in these fraudulent funds in a population of 3.2 million -and sparked the current rebellion.

Only one person among those interviewed in Tepelene, a student at the police academy, supported foreign intervention. "The solution is a foreign force from all of Europe to bring peace, take the rifles away from the people, and then organize the country," said Fatani Alushi, in his early 20s.

During a week-long trip from March 17 to March 23, Militant reporters visited Saranda, Gjirokastra, Tepelene, Ballshi, Fier, and Vlora - six of the rebel-held cities in southern Albania - the villages of Frashatane and Dervitsa in the same region, Durres and Tirana. In more than 150 interviews, it became apparent that opposition to imperialist intervention runs deep, especially among industrial and other workers, shepherds, and farmers.

"We don't want foreign troops or police. We can guard our own refinery," said Fatos Rapae, 24, who works at the state-owned refinery in the oil-producing area of Ballshi, 50 miles south of Tirana. Since working people in the town of Malakastra, adjacent to the oil refining facilities, took up arms in mid-March, the 1,500 oil workers have organized a volunteer 24-hour defense guard of the plant in collaboration with the policemen who did not flee their posts after the revolt. Workers said the same is true throughout the oil producing regions, which all lay in the rebel-held areas. So far, workers there said, they know of only one serious explosion in another refinery near Fier, which appeared to be sabotage. Workers and city residents managed to contain that fire, we were told.

In several cases, working people of older generations related their opposition to foreign intervention now to their experience during the Albanian revolution after World War II. "If anyone from another country comes here with a gun, they'll be shot at," said Spiros Koutsis, 74, a shepherd from the Greek-speaking village of Frashtane, near Gjirokastra. "Just like we did against the Germans and the Italians." Koutsis is a veteran of the successful partisan struggle that defeated Albania's occupation first by Italian and then Greek and German armies in the early 1940s.

The partisans then led a social revolution, putting in power a workers and peasants regime, nationalizing the means of production, distributing land to the poor peasants, and instituting a monopoly on foreign trade and economic planning - in short establishing a workers state. The noncapitalist social relations created by 1946 remain in place to this day to a large degree, despite the degeneration of the Albanian revolution that began in the late 1940s due to the Stalinist leadership of the Communist Party- the main political force among the partisans.

Koutsis recalled with fondness how the Albanian partisans collaborated with Greek guerrillas fighting for the same goals in the 1940s, just miles south of his village across the border with Greece.

This anti-imperialist sentiment and spirit of struggle was the most widespread in Vlora - a city of 170,000, if you count the surrounding villages, and the country's second largest port on the Adriatic after Durres.

"We want Berisha to go, along with his SHIK [secret police]," said Vladimir Sinane, a young doctor who immigrated to Greece for two years in the mid-1990s and worked in the fields there picking tomatoes, "We demand that Europe not support Berisha. They should not mess with our borders," he said, in reference to occasional territorial claims on parts of southern Albania put forward by rightist politicians in Greece. "If Italy or Greece send their army here there will be shooting. The people don't want them. They are armed and they will fight them."

Vlora: the hotbed of revolt
Sinane spoke to Militant reporters on the morning of March 23, after a rally of 4,000 in the town's central square. Albert Shyti, 27, who was a laborer in Greece for five years, is now the organizer of the Committee for the Salvation of Vlora. Shyti, who addressed the rally along with other members of the committee, said the National Front for the Salvation of the People has adopted a firm position against the introduction of EU or other police forces or troops.

"Look at what the European and American troops did in Yugoslavia and Somalia," said Lefteris Likos, 20, another worker who had returned to Vlora in January after four years in Greece. "Albania has plenty of decent sons and daughters, We don't need American, French, or German soldiers. If foreign troops come now they will only serve to prop up Berisha."

After many discussions, it became evident that tens of thousands of these workers returned to Albania between mid- 1996 and January 1997, partly because some of the pyramid schemes, like the Vlora-based Gjalica, set a February 6 deadline for withdrawals of large deposits. After years of involvement in the class struggle in the surrounding capitalist countries, many of these workers have found themselves leading the antigovernment rebellion.

Even those favoring intervention - including a few workers interviewed, as well as professionals and small businessmen -often rushed to point out that foreign troops would face resistance in Albania. "It's better to bring forces from abroad here, since there's no army to speak, of," said Rolando Bronari, an accountant for the privately owned R.I.A. Servis, a joint venture between three Italian and one Albanian businessman that runs two car repair shops and sells spare parts for automobiles in Tirana. "I'll feel safer for the business. But there will be fighting. And Europe knows this."

Bronari, who was interviewed by Militant reporters at the R.I.A. garage in central Tirana March 22, said he returned to Albania in 1989, after 15 years in exile with his family in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. He said his father was an army general who was purged by Hoxha's regime in the early 1960s. Bronari's return coincided with the first "market reforms" carried out by Ramiz Alia, who succeeded Hoxha after the latter's death in 1985. Bronari, a firm advocate of the return of capitalism in Albania, said Berisha's reforms failed. He said he voted for the Democratic Party in 1992 but now favors Berisha's departure, though, as he put it, "not through the demands of armed gangs but through the constitutional process."

`Market reforms' bring economic ruin
The Democratic Party was founded in 1990 by pro- capitalist professors, intellectuals, students, professionals, and others. Many of its central leaders were disgruntled government officials or former members of the ruling Communist Party, or Albanian Workers Party, which was renamed the Socialist Party in 1991. Berisha was a cardiologist and a member of the CP.

The SP and Democratic Party represent competing interests among the petty-bourgeois ruling caste and aspiring bourgeois layers in Albania. Both parties joined in a brief coalition cabinet in 1991. This bureaucratic caste - different than a class in capitalist society in that it does not have ownership of the means of production - is interested only in safeguarding its own privileges, diverting workers from acting in their own class interests, and continuing the fruitless attempt to be welcomed as equal partners into the world capitalist system.

After Hoxha's death, Alia began opening Albania's economy to capitalist investment. Alia's regime won the first bourgeois-type parliamentary ballot in March 1991. Later that year, hundreds of thousands of workers struck ,demanding wage raises, better economic conditions, democratic rights, and an end to their complete isolation from the rest of the world imposed by the Hoxha regime. Alia was then forced to call new elections, which swept the Democratic Party to power in March 1992.

While the SP adopted a social democratic posture, the Democratic Party favored a more rapid integration into the world capitalist market and espoused right-wing views. Since 1992, Berisha's group has been trying to purge its Socialist Party rivals from the state bureaucracy using the same brutal and corrupt methods employed by Hoxha's secret police. SP leader and former premier Fatos Nano, who was recently released from jail and pardoned by Berisha, was imprisoned in 1992 on charges of embezzling state funds. According to accounts by several former army officers interviewed by the Militant, Berisha dismissed thousands of officers who he considered loyal to the SP.

All opposition parties - including the SP; Democratic Alliance, which split from the Democratic Party; the Social Democratic Party; and the Human Rights Union that is mainly backed by some in the ethnic Greek minority in southern Albania - alleged widespread fraud in the May 1996 parliamentary ballot and organized protests demanding new elections. Berisha responded with a brutal police crackdown, beating and jailing many opposition leaders. At that time, Washington and other imperialist powers refused to raise even mild criticism. Now the U.S. government says there was fraud involved in those elections.

During its five years in office, the Berisha regime has implemented austerity measures prescribed by the International Monetary Fund in order to secure IMF loans for imports. These have included cutbacks in social services, selling off shares of state-owned companies to foreign investors, and reversing the nationalization of the land.

The ending of subsidies to state enterprises has resulted in massive closure of industries, throwing hundreds of thousands into the streets with virtually no income. The official unemployment rate of 10 percent does not account for the nearly half-million Albanians who have immigrated to neighboring capitalist countries in search of jobs, most without documents. Many of these workers, especially those who have immigrated to Greece and Italy, go back and forth quite frequently, since they are often deported en mass after police sweeps of factories and other worksites. Every day, however, minivans transporting mostly young men can be seen driving toward the Greek-Albanian border, where many of these young workers cross the mountainous border on foot, lacking proper documents.

Throughout the part of the country we traveled, the economic devastation from Berisha's reforms was obvious. Outside Memalia, a town north of Tepelene, a brick factory that used to employ 300 has been idle for years. A few miles further north, a coal mine where 2,000 worked has been shut down since 1992. Clothing factories, food processing plants, and steel mills can be seen abandoned throughout Albania. Ninety percent of industry is now shut down. Besides oil drilling and refining, Albania's hydroelectric and thermoelectric plants and chrome mines are among the few industries functioning.

`Promising money out of nothing'
"Berisha said he would bring investments and new technology from America in five years," said Albert Shyti in an interview in Vlora March 23. "Instead he brought the pyramids with no productive investments, promising to make money out of nothing."

Foreign direct investment in 1996 amounted to $140 million, mostly in retail outlets and food processing plants. Since the rebellion erupted, many businessmen from abroad have fled the country, at least for now. Construction of a mineral water bottling plant, started by an Italian firm north of Gjirokastra, for example, is now halted after the owner took off for Italy recently, our taxi driver Flamur Stroka said, as we passed by the site on the way to Tirana. "They are scared of the Kalashnikovs in our hands," Stroka commented, with a laugh. Most of the hotels in central Tirana, frequented by such harbingers of capitalism, were basically empty at the end of March, except for a few journalists, hotel workers told us.

Many of the country's basic necessities, like flour, are now imported and inflation since January exceeds 20 percent annually.

The Democratic Party-dominated parliament passed laws giving parcels of farm land to individual farmers, amounting to 3-5 stremas per family member [1 acre = 4 stremas]. Arable land, previously organized in collectives by the Hoxha regime, can now be bought and sold in the market. Several farmers said, however, that they did not receive land they used to till and their allotments are most times divided into several plots away from each other, making it hard to cultivate crops for commercial use. Favoritism was used in the land redistribution, with Berisha supporters getting better lands. Farm machinery was also sold off, making it less accessible to most farmers. With the ending of state aid for cheap credit to get fertilizers and seed, grain production in the south has virtually disappeared. Cultivation is still going on to some degree in the central plains by the Adriatic coast, where the land is more fertile. Mostly people in their late 40s and older are left in many southern villages, as virtually all younger people have immigrated abroad. Most of the country's majority rural population live below the poverty level.

When the pyramid schemes collapsed, and the government blatantly lied by promising some compensation for the losses that never came, working people revolted.

How defense councils came into being
"Initially people began demonstrating peacefully to demand their money back," said Alberty Shyti. Over 15,000 people turned out in Vlora in the initial demonstrations in early February. "But after blood was shed, working people shifted to fighting for the resignation of Berisha, to minimize the bloodshed." Shyti was referring to the confrontation between 10,000 soldiers with tanks deployed by the government to quell the growing protests in Vlora on February 9. After one worker was shot dead by the troops, virtually the entire population of the city stormed the stunned soldiers with stones, disarming them within half an hour. While dozens were injured, no one else was killed that day.

Shyti, who returned from Greece January 30 to try to withdraw his savings from Gjalica, was in the front lines of the daily protests. After the routing of Berisha's troops, he stepped forward and asked for volunteers to serve on a citizens' council to organize defense of the insurgent city at a rally of several thousand on February 14. The initial core of five volunteers was expanded to a 35-member council within a week, by including a few workers who led the revolt, representatives of all political parties and prominent figures who supported the demands of the rebels, and army officers who deserted allegiance to the government.

The committee, which has since been meeting daily, now organizes not only security but distribution of food, medicines, and information of developments around the country. Daily rallies are organized in Vlora's Square of the Flag, where committee members exchange information with thousands of citizens. The Committee for the Salvation of Vlora has since met with representatives of the European Union on an Italian warship near the city's port-but out of Albania's territorial waters-and has rejected all appeals to call for the return of the weapons, now in the hands of citizens, until Berisha resigns.

"Vlora has a tradition of resistance," said Idaet Bekeri, an SP leader in Vlora who addressed the March 23 rally in the city's central square. "Just like it was a center of resistance against the Italians and the Germans during the second World War, it is now a center of resistance against Berisha." Bekeri was imprisoned under Berisha and was freed when the jails broke open recently. "We took up guns because Berisha sent his SHIK against us. We don't have arms to kill one another but to defend ourselves. We should not give up our arms." He demanded that parliament be dissolved and said, "We want a government that will give us our money back and guarantee jobs for all."

(A more detailed account of the revolt in Vlora will appear in an upcoming issue, based on interviews with Shyti and other leaders of the rebellion in that city).

By the first week of March, similar councils were formed in seven other cities throughout the south, although they each came into being in different ways. In Saranda, a defense council of seven, made up of six former army officers and a truck driver was formed, after the frightened mayor of the city appealed to these people who took part in the rebellion to try to contain it. The mayor there is often invited to meetings of this committee, which uses the city hall.

In nearby Gjirokastra, the defense council of 15 is largely made up of "army officers and intellectuals," said Isuf Cepani, one of its members. The mayor and some politicians of opposition parties there, meet separately, trying to maintain their authority as the local government.

In Tepelene, north of Gjirokastra, elected local officials are included in the civilian arm of the defense council, while its military arm is organized separately solely by former army officers. Artillery and other heavy weapons from the nearby garrison have now been placed in strategic points in town, ready to defend it from possible attack by pro-Berisha forces.

In Fier, the citizens' committee is headed by local Socialist Party chairman Petro Koca.

The country's small navy and air force is to a large degree in the hands of rebels.

Even in Tirana, the army command has been largely dissolved, and most armories have been emptied by civilians. When one of the main prisons in the capital was attacked by relatives and associates of inmates in mid- March, the army did not respond to pleas for reinforcements by prison guards. The jail, like most other prisons in the country, was thrown open after an overnight battle.

Throughout the country, schools have been closed for the last month. Most banks have been shut down and have hired extra guards to watch them on a 24-hour basis. Many functions of the state, like payments of pensions, have ceased for a few weeks.

Police stations have been a particular target of vengeance by angry citizens, with dozens having been burned down across the southern half of the country. Even in Tirana, where a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew is enforced by cops using armored vehicles in the center of the city, everyone one interviewed said the police often abandon their posts at night out of fear of being attacked. The R.I.A. garage, for example, uses private security guards for its property. One of those guards, who identified himself only as Alekos, said he led many people in his neighborhood, overwhelmingly against Berisha, into a nearby armory where they took over the weapons. In Tirana and elsewhere, armed robberies and lootings have been on the rise. Some of these incidents are reportedly carried out by pro-Berisha gangs. In Vlora, where defense is organized tightly by the rebels, such actions have been minimized. In other rebel-held towns, this remains a big challenge for the defense councils. So far, about 150 people have been killed around the country since the rebellion began, including antigovernment protesters and pro-Berisha forces. Some have been killed by random fire.

Rebel initiatives cause frictions
On March 21, representatives of 21 defense councils met in Tepelene. It was the largest meeting of the National Front for the Salvation of the People, which was formed by eight such committees in Gjirokastra March 12.

Earlier, the Front had set a deadline of March 20 for Berisha to resign, the same deadline set by the Democratic Party-controlled parliament for providing amnesty to rebels who would turn in their weapons. Neither side budged, however. So at the Tepelene gathering the Front presented new demands that include the formation of a presidential commission to de-facto replace Berisha. The rebels proposed that the commission include representatives of the National Front, the government of national reconciliation, and all political parties willing to join. Such a commission would organize new elections and eventually make proposals on the reorganization of the armed forces and police. The Front also demanded that control of the state media and the secret police be transferred from the Berisha-controlled parliament to the new government.

On March 22, Shyti and other leaders of the Vlora committee traveled to Tirana and met with prime minister Bashkim Fino of the Socialist Party and other politicians to present these demands. Fino, who had earlier postponed indefinitely a visit to the south to meet with rebel leaders, did not commit to an agreement.

Fino expressed willingness to meet with individual local committees, but not with organizations claiming to represent broad regions, like the National Front. On March 21, Interior Minister Belul Celo said the government would not recognize the rebel councils.

The rebel initiatives have caused frictions within the current government in Tirana. On March 24, Fino threatened to resign if parliament refused to pass laws he has repeatedly submitted to transfer control of the media to the government. And Berisha attacked the Democratic Forum, the umbrella coalition of most opposition parties, for reiterating the demand for his resignation.

Berisha has also tried to wage a counteroffensive, using the degree of cooperation he has been able to secure from his Socialist Party rivals to stay his ground. He has repeatedly stated he will not resign unless his Democratic Party loses elections in the future and claims he still enjoys majority support in the country's north. Berisha's men still control the secret police, which the president has been using to build a core of armed units to defend the interests of the layer of the ruling caste he represents.

Recently, a group of pro-Berisha thugs calling itself the Committee of National Salvation - in a rather obvious attempt to sow confusion with and counter the creation of the National Front - announced its existence. The group warned that it would mobilize thousands of supporters to fight those who insist on the president's removal. On March 16 and 23, Berisha's supporters held two "peace rallies" in Tirana, where men and women with flowers demanded the turning in of weapons to state authorities. State media claimed 3,000 people turned out for these gatherings.

"A few weeks ago, these people carried guns around terrorizing workers," commented our taxi driver Flamur Stroka. "Now that everybody has a Kalashnikov they try to fool us with flowers."

Inside the Democratic Party headquarters, party chairman Tritan Shehu seemed eager to speak to the press March 22. He hasn't been getting many requests for interviews lately. Shehu was foreign minister and deputy prime minister in the previous government, which Berisha decided to dismiss March 11 to draw the SP into quelling the revolt. On January 25, Shehu was chased by angry demonstrators in Lushnje and had to lock himself in the changing rooms of the town's soccer stadium with his body guards and 10 riot policemen.

"A coup d'etat was organized against our government by extreme left forces, including sections of the army," he said in an interview. "It was organized by the extreme left and of the former Communist Party and its secret police. These are Marxist people who believe in coming to power through proletarian and revolutionary means, not through democratic elections," he stated. Shehu washed the Democratic Party's hands of responsibility for the pyramid fraud and said that this crisis was simply manipulated by "terrorists." His eyes lit up when asked about possible military intervention by the European Union or NATO. Acknowledging "some problems" with Washington, he said, "the presence of foreign troops is very much needed to organize the army and the police."

Debate on imperialist intervention
Fino has also called for an international police force. The prime minister said this is needed to make sure the EU humanitarian aid is distributed properly, warning that the country's food reserves could be exhausted in 10 days.

European Union ministers, meeting in Brussels March 24, could not agree to send such a military force supposedly to ensure delivery of aid. The EU meeting gave a cautious blessing to such an intervention force if it proves necessary to "create a secure environment for the safe provision of international assistance." That is to be determined through another "fact-finding mission," that is, further testing of the waters in search for possible cracks among those opposing imperialist intervention.

The government of Italy has offered to provide the bulk of some 3,000 troops with possible contingents from France, Greece, Spain, Austria, and Denmark. "France is ready to support such a security mission to Albania," French foreign minister Herve de Charette declared. Paris has spearheaded this proposal, arguing that such a force should be under the command of the Western European Union, the EU's military arm that the French rulers are pushing as an alternative to NATO hegemony in Europe.

Bonn and London said they would not participate. "Albania has to create the conditions for an humanitarian aid mission and for the security of advisers," said German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel. "No-one is talking any longer about military intervention in the Albanian political situation," said British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind. "I accept that there may be the need for a force to protect aid organizations, although the International Red Cross has said it does not want military protection."

Rome, Albania's colonial master prior to the revolution of the 1940s, has become the most aggressive militarily so far. An Italian warship escorted an Albanian warship with over 400 refugees back to the Albanian coast north of Durres on March 21. Since then, the Italian navy has been patrolling Albanian territorial waters to prevent an exodus of refugees, with orders to turn back boats by force if necessary. Up to 12,000 Albanians have arrived in Italy in March. Rome, which originally said it would offer refugees temporary permission to stay for up to three months, has reversed its position.

Greek imperialism has also aggressively been seeking to take advantage of the situation to increase its influence in the Balkans. The Greek minister of defense, Akis Tsohantzopoulos, announced March 21 that his government had received a formal request from the Fino administration to help reorganize the shattered Albanian army. Tsohantzopoulos said that Athens has already responded positively, describing the request as a "golden opportunity," and plans to send military advisors to Tirana to start planning the structure of the Albanian army.

Greek government officials have carried out numerous visits to Albania over the last month, especially in the south where there is a substantial Greek-speaking minority. They have attempted to sow divisions among rebel forces and gain acceptance for some form of imperialist intervention.

In an interview in the March 20 Greek-language weekly Economicos Tahidromos (Financial Review), Tsohantzopoulos said that the "experiment of transition from totalitarian regimes to a market economy and parliamentary democracy in some Balkan countries has failed. For this reason, the active intervention of the European Union is a necessity," he stated. "A new Marshall plan is now needed to reestablish market economies throughout the Balkans." A setback of the rebellion in Albania would open such opportunities for Athens, and Greek capitalists are working overtime to make the most of the possibility.

Revolt inspires Albanians in Macedonia
The Albanian revolt has given impetus to the struggle for national rights of the Albanian minority in the neighboring Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Albanians there, comprising 23 percent of the republic's population of 2.2 million, are concentrated in western Macedonia, near the Albanian border. They have recently stepped up demands for autonomy.

"The situation is deteriorating because the problems are not being resolved," said Aladin Demiri of the Party for the Democratic Well Being of Albanians, the recently elected mayor Tetovo, a Macedonian city 35 miles west of the capital city of Skopje. Some 75 percent of the population there are of Albanian origin. "Our language is not recognized and the government in Skopje is doing its utmost to deny our basic rights. We want recognition of a university we founded in 1994 but the government adamantly rejects it," Demiri said.

The government of Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov recently shut its border with Albania. The border has been totally unguarded on the Albanian side since the revolt began. Gligorov has also promoted student demonstrations in Skopje against Albanian "separatism."

Smack in the middle of this are 500 U.S. troops, part of a 1,100 United Nations force deployed there since 1992. Some of these troops were recently moved from the border with Serbia to the one with Albania. Washington issued a statement opposing any division of Macedonia.

On March 19, Greek foreign minister Thodros Pagalos visited Skopje and lent the Macedonian government support in its treatment of the Albanian minority. This was a first for a high government official from Athens, since diplomatic relations between the two regimes barely exist. Pagalos then visited Belgrade and assured the regime of Slobodan Milosevic of his government's support in denying autonomy for Kosovo.

The efforts of the imperialist powers intervening in the region, notwithstanding, the rebels in Albania continue to take initiatives to press their demands. A nationwide rally has been called in Vlora on March 28, where insurgents expect to bring representatives of Albanian cities in the north, which Berisha claims as his stronghold.  
 
 
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