The False Apocalypse Read online

  I fear that they have already made their choice: stability at any price. Shane and I were not sent packing because the ambassador had studied this matter deeply, and wished to convey the message that it was not their task to force children to patch up their quarrels. More probably, the ambassador has decided to support for Berisha.

  Albanian television news has just reported at some length what happened at the Association’s headquarters after I had left. ‘This shows how strong we are,’ said one of the leaders of the protest in an interview. The cameras then showed the locked gates of the Association and a shot of me looking as if I were trying to gain entrance. ‘But the Association’s door is closed to these traitors to their fellow-prisoners,’ the announcer concluded.

  Chapter XVI

  The Newspaper Albania

  The next day, the newspaper Albania splashed on its front page a picture of Qorri, with his beret back to front, alongside Shane Muda in front of the inhospitable railings of the U.S. Embassy. The adjacent article was headed, ‘Former Victims of Persecution Expel Chairman from Building.’

  Qorri hesitated before buying the newspaper to read the report, imagining the usual cocktail of disinformation, insults and blackmail. He was a prominent target of this paper and its barbs no longer stung.

  ‘Take it, take it, this is a good one of you,’ the newsvendor said. So he had to buy it, as well as Koha Jonë.

  The newspaper Albania was launched at a time when Berisha’s rule was still undisturbed by protests, although his political opponents were becoming more numerous. Berisha was a dictator at heart, but a democrat in his rhetoric, because democracy was the spirit of the age. This new regime was a rough union between the soul of the dictatorship and a democratic project demanded both by the people, who were exhausted by dictatorship, and the West. Qorri, analysing this hybrid, found it difficult to tell if Berisha had devised it, or the regime produced Berisha. A part of Berisha certainly understood that he could no longer fight his opponents with the dictatorship’s weapons of prison, exile, and liquidation. This quasi-democracy preferred either to silence or to buy off its enemies rather than imprison or murder them. And so the newspaper Albania was born, itself a hybrid, half a newspaper and half a tool of the secret services. Bashkim Gazidede’s National Intelligence Service, known as the SHIK, had conceived it in order to give the secret services a hand in the political game. The SHIK itself was a hybrid creature, grafting an intelligence service under notional democratic control onto the old Sigurimi. At one time, the Sigurimi had put people under surveillance and arrested them. Now the hybrid SHIK eavesdropped and collected information, but could not arrest its opponents. It had to use other, softer means, such as blackmail. If blackmail didn’t work, the SHIK could ruin someone’s reputation. A newspaper was the ideal tool for this purpose. The SHIK was said to have inherited the files that listed the cover names of the former Sigurimi collaborators. In some cases, if someone raised a critical voice, the SHIK could reveal their activities during the communist regime, publish their Sigurimi pseudonyms, or the details of their dubious business dealings. They would soon toe the line. Who didn’t have a skeleton in the closet? But even if the SHIK had to invent one, how would they possibly clear their name? The editor-in-chief himself was said to be a former Sigurimi agent. As for the funding for the newspaper, that was easily found. With the information it possessed, the SHIK had only to knock on the doors of the pyramid bosses for them to open their wallets.

  Many people were intimidated by the very vocabulary of this newspaper: spy, paedophile, thief, scumbag, prostitute, drunk.

  Qorri had been long been a target in the paper’s sights. The paper defamed former political prisoners who opposed the regime as filthy queers who, due to the unavailability of women in prison, had buggered one another. But the vulgarity of these attacks tended rather to provoke laughter than to shock. When Qorri saw he had been photographed like a supplicant at the gate of the U.S. Embassy, he remembered Feniks, whose red beard looked so artificial that it seemed designed to illustrate the theory that beards are subconscious attempts to hide something.

  Something more interesting in Albania was a statement by a group of Englishmen who called themselves the British Helsinki Group, to which the paper had given the eye-catching headline, ‘British Helsinki Group: Opposition on Brink of Coup d’État.’

  This group was not a member of the Helsinki Federation, to which it was actually opposed. It was the creation of extreme rightwingers who claimed that Western leftists who had shown sympathy for communist dictatorships, as had some activists of the Helsinki Federation, were not in a position to defend human rights. This group saw violations of human rights principally in the crimes committed by the communists, and so it defended all the new anti-communist regimes in the East, even Lukashenko’s Belarus. But its critics claimed that the group was not ideological at all but composed of a few ordinary con men who had found patrons in the new dictators.

  Qorri sat down to read their statement. It supported the government’s accusations that common criminals were roaming the streets of Vlora, where the public offices and schools were closed, and that former communists were trying to destabilize the country and reclaim power.

  With Berisha and Meksi in power, there was some justice to the British group’s complaints about the return of the communists. Qorri threw the newspaper away. It fell with its front page upward, comically distorting the picture of him in front of the embassy railings.

  PART THREE

  Chapter XVII

  The Independent

  In mid-February, while the opposing parties were both courting international support, an event tilted the scales in the Forum’s favour. In Britain, The Independent published an article entitled ‘The Gangster Regime We Fund,’ written by its correspondent Andrew Gumbel after his visit to Albania.

  The article began, ‘The Government of Albania, Europe’s poorest nation, which is now teetering on the brink of anarchy, has been drug-smuggling, gun-running, sanctions-busting and money-laundering.’ The article accused the governments of the West, including Britain, of continuing to support the government despite the warnings of their intelligence services that Albania had turned into a gangster state. The journalist claimed to possess detailed proof from reliable sources of the involvement of members of the ruling PD, including ministers, in extraordinary crimes ranging from drug trafficking and illegal arms trading to large-scale sanctions breaking during the Bosnian war. One of Gumbel’s sources in the Western intelligence services said, ‘I find it amazing that nobody has blown the lid on what is happening in Albania, because it is truly mind-boggling,’ and also told him that he had passed this information to Western governments, but nobody had wanted to know. Politicians in France, Germany, Italy and Britain continued to praise Berisha for his commitment to peace, the free market, and the democratic process. But Albania was now an oppressive one-party state. Corruption had spread at every level and a gangster economy operated under the control and patronage of the State. Drug barons from Kosovo operated in Albania without fear of punishment and the SHIK organized a large part of the traffic in heroin and other drugs passing through Albania from Macedonia and Greece en route to Italy. According to Gumbel, intelligence agents were convinced that that the criminal command-chain reached the highest levels. They had named names in their reports.

  During the war in Bosnia, the Shqiponja (‘Eagle’) company enjoyed a monopoly in the import and export of oil. It was under the direct management of the PD and its chairman Tritan Shehu, who was also deputy prime minister and foreign minister. The firm openly smuggled drugs, weapons, and cigarettes and had transported oil across Lake Shkodra, violating the embargo against Milošević›s Serbia.

  Agron Musaraj, interior minister until the elections of May 1996, had finally been sacked because the United States, the only country that had maintained a critical attitude towards Albania, had told the government he was suspected of controlling the entire drugs trade, while Safet Z
hulali, who was still defence minister, had used his office to facilitate the transport of weapons, oil, and cigarettes.

  Gumbel also dealt with the now failing financial pyramids. These pseudo-banks that had gobbled up money from almost every Albanian family, promising unimaginable interest rates, also bore the government’s dirty finger- marks. Two weeks previously, The Independent had reported that these schemes had kept their heads above water thanks to the influx of funds from organized crime, and were also used to launder dirty money. There were serious suspicions about VEFA, the largest pyramid, which was still operating. Its president Vehbi Alimuçaj, a former storekeeper in a munitions depot, had become rich, according to Gumbel, by trafficking weapons with the government’s connivance.

  Why had Europe closed its eyes to the corruption that had poisoned this country? The journalist replied that short-term political stability had been put before long-term interests. The United States had changed its position only after the serious manipulation of the elections, while many European countries had remained unruffled even by this. Indeed, Italy and Germany, Berisha’s closest allies, had actively lobbied for a special agreement between the European Community and Albania, to open new credit lines. This had extended the government’s credibility. The proposal failed only after some other European governments, shocked at the rigging of the elections, asked first for improvements in the country’s democratic standards. Yet only two weeks ago, Leni Fischer, the chair of the Assembly of the Council of Europe and a diehard fan of Berisha, had spoken out in support of the PD and echoed the Albanian government’s rhetoric about ‘Red terrorists’ destabilizing the country. Gumbel’s sources said that these politicians were so ‘dogged’ in their support of Berisha that they did not even bother to read the alarming reports their intelligence services sent to them. Gumbel also mentioned valuable objects that Berisha had taken from the National Museum to give to the Queen, the British Prime Minister, and other ministers.

  The international community, he concluded, had supported Berisha’s regime because their priorities in Albania were mistaken, because they had poorly interpreted the nature of President Berisha’s Government, and, claimed the secret service sources, out of pure stubbornness and ignorance.

  This article was very different from the sort of reports about Albania published in the West while Berisha ruled undisturbed. They had conveyed the impression that Albania was making fast progress. So the West was surprised at what was happening and believed that this really was a revanche of the former communists. Most of the previous articles had been written by journalists after they had spent a few days in Tirana, where they had taken a look at the boulevard between the Hotel Rogner Hotel and the Tirana Hotel, and left. The articles generally opened with a paragraph about the exotic nature of the country, on the lines of ‘The Albanian language is the sole survival of the Thraco-Phrygian linguistic family,’ or described the Canon of Lekë Dukagjin, the still surviving age-old code of revenge. They often mentioned the admirable religious tolerance between Muslims, and Orthodox and Catholic Christians before moving on to Enver Hoxha’s Stalinist dictatorship and concluding with an interview with the charismatic anti-communist president Sali Berisha or the successful businessman, Vehbi Alimuçaj.

  Finally The Independent had described the truth of what was happening under the noses of the internationals, what the so-called Albanian transition from communism to capitalism really meant, and why there were clashes in the streets.

  ***

  Qorri immediately thought of Charles Walsh. Who else could be the secret serviceman who had given Gumbel his information? Of all the foreigners that Qorri knew, only Charles had understood what was happening in Albania. A while back, he had expressed serious alarm to Qorri about the rise of the pyramids. ‘There will be a catastrophe,’ he had said, ‘can’t you understand? Can’t you tell the public? Can’t you write in the press?’

  He also remembered how Charles was on poor terms with Ambassador Lino, evidently one of the ‘dogged’ politicians who refused to see reality. What would she say after Gumbel’s article?

  The article acted as a catalyst, accelerating all the reactions taking place in Albania and exacerbating the conflict. The government responded with a long-winded statement that suggested that the article had struck home. It expressed regret that a prestigious newspaper had fallen victim to communist slanders. According to the government, what Gumbel claimed to have learned from the secret services was only what the press of the ex-communists had been writing for the past year.

  The next day, Rilindja Demokratike lambasted the British newspaper. Gumbel’s article was ‘intentionally insulting and defamatory.’ Albania, in its inimitable fashion, called it a ‘tale of paedophiles.’ The defence minister announced that he was suing the journalist. The director of the National Museum denied that the antiques that Berisha had given to the Queen and the British politicians had been taken from the Museum. He too claimed he would be turning to the courts.

  Meanwhile, the article echoed throughout Europe. Leading articles entitled ‘Gangster Regime’ raised the question of money laundering. In Britain, eleven members of parliament called for investigations against Berisha. He was losing international support.

  Chapter XVIII

  The President’s Speech

  Koha Jonë published a translation of the article from The Independent and a leader entitled ‘The Eagle Losing Its Feathers’. To show that the eagle still had feathers and even claws, Berisha held a meeting with intellectuals, business people, young people, workers, farmers, and investors, which was broadcast with great fanfare on television.

  ‘Today, when hundreds of thousands of families are in despair over the loss of their money in the financial pyramids, a minority of extremists, many of whom have not lost a penny, are trying for their own perverse and totally undemocratic purposes to turn this serious but not irrecoverable financial loss into a true national tragedy... At a time when we need wisdom, self-control and decisiveness, this small group has found the support of a few thousand followers, and is exploiting the silence of hundreds of thousands of others whose pain should not allow them to tolerate what is happening.’

  Next, Berisha tried to explain how the crisis with the pyramid schemes has some about: ‘Capitalist society has always involved money lending. In Albania, this was unknown until 1991. Until 1996, no political force, neither the ruling party nor the opposition, and not a single individual or institution publicly condemned what was happening or foresaw the consequences. This silence of political parties, and of experts, financiers, economists, intellectuals, and academics, and indeed of foreigners, is being explained in different ways today. I am deeply convinced that it was ignorance of capitalism and the market economy that was the reason for this long silence. But in Albania, in contrast to the other ex-communist countries, the state institutions are not implicated.’

  Perhaps aware that this ‘silence’ was a lie, he later conceded that in the second half of 1996 the IMF had expressed serious concern over this informal market and had demanded that the dangers of these high interest rates should be made known. According to him, this was not the institution’s responsibility. ‘A few weeks ago, I apologized to all our citizens who would not have invested their money in these pyramids if this had been made clear to them. Why did I not warn them of the danger? The only reason was that I could not prejudge them as pyramid schemes.

  Berisha claimed that the tolerance shown towards the schemes for so long was part of the government’s general tolerance of independent initiatives. In Albania, money lending was considered a legal and entirely private activity, unlicensed by the State and without legal regulation, but guaranteed by the Civil Code. These pyramids had no boards of directors. He said in an interview with the BBC that Albania was building ‘capitalism with a human face.’ These companies also had investment subsidiaries in different fields, and the government had maintained a tolerant attitude to all investors. ‘We have made every effort to be as ame
nable as possible. We wanted them to develop the market economy in Albania. We have never heard business people complaining about taxes.’

  Some time ago he had stated that ‘The money of Albanians is clean.’ He claimed that this had been a warning to the fraudsters not to trifle with people’s sacrifices and toil. But evidently it had been insufficient.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion I appeal to all citizens, men and women, intellectuals, business people, workers, and farmers not to allow the strength of their reaction to these crooks to turn into a psychosis of despair and destruction.

  ‘I want to send a particular appeal to the citizens of Vlora. I express my condolences to the Rustemi and Zani families.’

  ‘I call on the media not to exploit people’s misfortunes, pain, and despair.

  ‘I appeal to pseudo-analysts who are exploiting events and mindless individuals to refrain from slandering Albanian culture. We are a people with an ancient civilization.

  ‘I call on political parties not to lay down conditions but to condemn violence and establish the dialogue for which I remain ready as always.

  ‘Finally I appeal to all Albanians who believe in God, in themselves, their freedom and their future, their property, and their country and flag, to remain true to their moral principles and common sense, to their traditions and culture, and not to turn this transient set-back into an irreparable tragedy, as I trust will not happen ever. Long live Albania.’

  Clearly, Berisha’s speech failed to provide honest replies to several basic questions. Had his state, his police force, and his SHIK, which watched even the private lives of his political opponents, done anything to control the activities of these firms? What more important duty could the State have but to protect its own citizens from thieves and crooks? Why had the PD accepted such huge sums of money from these firms for its election campaigns?