In Force Created by New Albanian Justice Chief, an Air of
Vigilantism
By JANE PERLEZ
IRANA, Albania -- Scraggly-looking men, with unkempt
faces and disheveled clothing,
jostled outside the gate of police station No. 2 here
Saturday morning, some wielding
automatic rifles, others waiting for their weapons to be
issued by the police chief inside.
They formed part of a police force that the new Albanian
justice minister, Spartak Ngjela, said
Saturday would help calm the chaotic capital and collect
weapons on behalf of the new coalition
government.
In fact the men looked like vigilantes. Some of them described
themselves as loyalists of President
Sali Berisha, the widely unpopular leader who, in an effort to
contain the violence in Albania was
forced to accept a broad-based government earlier this week.
Albania has been convulsed with violence in recent weeks.
Anger over failed investment schemes in
which many people lost their savings has spilled over into a
revolt against Berisha.
Berisha named new Cabinet members in hopes of deflecting the
popular fury. But it was clear from
the scene at the police precinct that the new Albanian
government -- which includes ministers like
Ngjela of the Monarchist Party, who has openly opposed Berisha
-- controls little and is fraught with
contradictory interests. The handout of weapons at the
precinct was authorized by a presidential
decree from Berisha's office. But the justice minister
declared it unconstitutional.
"All structures of the state have failed," Ngjela conceded.
"In this moment, we are a natural state, if
you know your Hobbes."
Ngjela, an urbane lawyer who was imprisoned for 17 years
during the Communist dictatorship that
collapsed in 1991, was referring to the English political
philosopher Thomas Hobbes' description of
a state of competing individual interests.
Western governments, reluctant to consider the Albanian
request for outside military help to restore
order, say they are relying on the fragile coalition of
squabbling parties to forge a political solution to
the collapse of authority. A member of Berisha's national
guard said Saturday morning that all
prisons in Albania were now empty, their inmates roaming the
country armed with weapons.
Washington has made clear that its chief concern is the
evacuation of U.S. citizens from Albania.
About 190 people were airlifted out by military helicopters
Saturday morning after the operation was
suspended Friday because of gunfire. About one-quarter of the
people evacuated Saturday were
Americans, the State Department said.
"I don't believe there is an outside force anywhere in the
world that could impose order on every
village," the State Department spokesman, Nicholas Burns,
said.
At an emergency meeting in Vienna, Austria, Saturday morning
of the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe, delegates from 20 countries were asked
to consider a recommendation for
intervention in Albania. The U.S. representative ruled out the
idea.
According to diplomats present at the meeting, the U.S.
representative read a policy statement in
which Washington said the best immediate solution to the
Albanian crisis would be for Berisha to
step down. Diplomats at the meeting said that the U.S.
representative argued that since Berisha was
the focus of much of the anger, his resignation would be for
the good of the nation.
The streets of Tirana showed some signs of normality Saturday
morning, with sidewalk vendors
selling apples and oranges from wooden crates and some kiosks
open for basic necessities.
"We've only seen war on the movies," said Isan Vejsiu, adding
that he was one of the few kiosk
owners to stay open during the turmoil of the last three days.
Indiscriminate gunfire from automatic weapons, which had
echoed around the city in the last two
days, had subsided Saturday morning. But there were plenty of
men milling around the streets and
manning impromptu roadblocks with automatic rifles at the
ready.
The armed men appeared either to be self-appointed or to have
responded to a televised appeal
from Interior Minister Belul Cela, a member of Berisha's
ruling Democratic Party. He had called for
police and soldiers to return to their posts.
How the Interior Ministry manages its efforts to collect
weapons, many of which were distributed in
Tirana in the last days by Democratic Party loyalists of
Berisha, is critical to cooling the capital and
other cities and villages that have become armed camps.
On the face of it, the collection in Tirana appeared to be
organized by the very people who had
helped create the chaos in the first place. And one man
outside the police precinct Saturday morning
said he believed many of the new "volunteers" had come forward
in order to get their hands on
weapons for themselves.
There was even confusion over how much the "volunteers" would
be paid to keep the peace.
Outside the police gate, the word was $400 a month, an
astronomical amount compared to the $2
monthly wage of a conscript. Ngjela mentioned $72 to $100 a
day. Where the impoverished
Albanian state would get the money to pay this was not
addressed.
Like some of the volunteers, Ngjela said he believed that the
Albanians themselves should try and
regain control of their society rather than invite foreigners
to do it for them. "At this moment, the
government is able to stabilize the situation," he said. "It
is the job of the government to do this. It is a
question of sovereignty."
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