The False Apocalypse Read online

  ***

  The next day Koha Jonë published the Draft Platform. It contained several of the ideas that Qorri and the fifteen other intellectuals had outlined a few days before, but this time couched in straightforward political language and issued in the name of the parties and associations taking part in the Forum for Democracy.

  The most striking and at the same time most sensitive point of the Platform was the demand for a government of professionals to prepare new elections. In plain words, this meant Sali Berisha’s peaceful surrender of power was the very thing furthest from his mind.

  In fact this government of professionals was an ideal concept designed to carry out an ideal and impossible task: to clear up after the collapse of the pyramids, to find ways to repay the stolen money, to restore the trust of the international community and investors, to release the State television, the police, and the SHIK from political influence; to ensure the independence of the courts, and to pave the way for free and equal parliamentary elections before the end of 1997, under impartial international supervision. It was intended to be composed of people who were not implicated in the pyramids, were untainted by corruption, and enjoyed both the trust of the people and the support of all political parties. Where could you find such paragons? They did not exist.

  The requirement for international observers was sufficient to illustrate the impossibility of all the other demands, because any government that could carry out these other tasks would not need international backing. It was obvious that Berisha would not accept the Platform, because if he had been able to accept demands like this, the country would not have reached its present plight. Yet Qorri thought that an ideal document of this kind had to be written. The impossible wish to see things done properly cloaked the Forum’s desire to overthrow Berisha. That was vital for any progress. Meanwhile, nobody knew what was going to happen. Would the Forum function as a sum of its many parts, and what direction would it take?

  Chapter VII

  First Statements

  The headquarters of the Association and the ruling PD were no more than 100 metres apart as the crow flies. Between them lay a park crammed with kiosks and cafes. The former prisoners gathered at tables by kiosks in front of their building, while PD militants usually sat at café tables in front of theirs. There were some who frequented both sets of tables, although the bridges between the two had been broken since the government had forcibly evicted the hunger strikers.

  Nevertheless, on the same morning as the Forum’s meeting, the news that the Association had opened its doors to representatives of the former communist party and would put itself at the head of the Forum reached the PD office and from there went to the Presidency, the government, and the State television. Berisha only responded publicly the next day, after the Platform appeared in the newspaper. He announced with scorn that he didn’t recognize the Forum and he expressed ironic sympathy for the political parties who were reduced to seeking shelter under the umbrella of an association. It was the kind of response that expressed the contempt of the strong for the weak and disdain for a civil society that was only now taking root in the country As if to reinforce Berisha’s rejection of any kind of agreement, more and more gangs of armed civilians roamed at night, intimidating journalists, opposition leaders, and any opponents of the government. A band of masked men assaulted the young socialist deputy Ndre Legisi as he left his home and beat him with knuckledusters. Abused and humiliated, punched in the head and beaten all over his body, he ended up unconscious in hospital, in a worse state that Rama.

  Every day it grew clearer that for Berisha the use of force was the only way of solving the crisis. He strove to conceal this behind repeated optimistic statements to the national and Western press. ‘Everything is under control... repayment of the money has begun.’ The Albanian police have acted in a manner truly worthy of a democratic society.’ ‘Albanian democracy has made great progress.’

  In an interview with Le Monde at the beginning of February, Berisha was asked about the people demonstrating against the government. He separated them into two kinds, ‘Some are fanatical ex-communists, and others are people who made mistakes in investing their money and do not have the courage to shoulder the responsibility themselves...’ He even asserted without batting an eyelid that the bankrupt pyramids had been bitter opponents of the PD.

  The Forum met every day in Kurt’s office. Meidani chain-smoked and Gumeni sucked a pipe, and it seemed to Qorri that the cigarette smoke of Bar West had been wafted to this office and had settled there. These meetings felt almost clandestine. There was no heating and they sat in their overcoats, but their political nerve was strong. Every day they issued statements denouncing Berisha’s lies and protesting that they were up against organized violence, that the State was encouraging gangs to spread fear and panic and that the attacks on Edi Rama and Ndre Legisi were plain evidence of the State’s policy of terror because the State had made no effort either to condemn these acts or to find the culprits.

  Over and over again they appealed to members of the armed forces, the judiciary, the State-controlled media, and the civil service to dissociate themselves from the instigators and perpetrators of state violence before it was too late. They insisted on the release of the SHIK, the courts, and the police from political control. They asked the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the U.S. Government to send urgently a commission to verify the state of human rights.

  In their quest for allies and supporters they even drafted a letter addressed to three Albanians who lived abroad and were unconnected to one another: Leka Zogu, King Zog’s son and the pretender to the throne; the nationalist Abaz Ermenji, the representative of the National Front Party created during World War II, whose leaders were scattered throughout Europe; and Rexhep Qosja as a representative of Kosovo. The letter explained what the Forum stood for, and continued, ‘We invite you to join our discussion where your voice will be heard with special respect.’ Ultimately this letter was not sent because events moved too fast. The first major disturbances had begun in Vlora.

  PART TWO

  Chapter VIII

  Vlora

  At whatever time of year Qorri visited Vlora, he seemed to be seeing it for the first time. Human beings, he thought when he looked at the bay, are granted a sense of awe in the presence of beauty which makes up for their inability to account for such astounding caprices of nature. How could nature be so generous as to display all its beauties here in one place? What made possible such a delicate yet imposing juxtaposition of sea and mountains? The peninsula of Karaburun descended to the water like an extension of these mountains, and the island of Sazan was an outpost of them, protecting the bay so tenderly from the open sea and at the same time creating the magnificent harbour that emphasized the breadth of the sea and gave the bay something of both the energy of the open water and the smooth and hospitable tranquillity of a lake.

  With the calm beauty of Vlora in his mind, Qorri found it hard to imagine the kind of livelihood the bay had provided since the fall of communism. The whole country talked about it. The city of Vlora, which lay at Albania’s closest point to Italy, lived off the traffic of drugs and human beings.

  Under the dictatorship, one part of the city had expanded in the ugly functional style of communism, but the remaining part along the shore of the bay had survived virtually untouched. The Karaburun peninsula and the island of Sazan were military bases. Until the 1960s, the largest Soviet base in the Mediterranean had been situated there, but after relations were broken off the Soviet fleet had left - cruisers, submarines and all. Karburun and Sazan remained quiet backwaters as military areas, while the city had only the port and a few small fishing boats, and no tourism that might bring development. So in the first years after communism, the shores of the bay remained as unblemished as in classical times. The city’s sophisticated inhabitants began to imagine the bay, one of the most picturesque in the Mediterranean, filling with yachts and tourist boats with multicoloured s
ails. But before the sailing boats arrived, or perhaps as their harbingers, there appeared a kind of craft that the residents of the city had never seen before. These were speedboats with what resembled two torpedoes on each side and a powerful motor at the stern. During the day they roared back and forth, showing off their capacity along the shallow shores of the bay and racing each other, watched by the curious townspeople. But at night they had work to do, transporting human beings and drugs to Italy.

  Trafficking soon became the main business of the people of post-communist Vlora. They considered it totally above board, a job like any other, which required among other things, skill in duping the Italians. The owners of the boats were well known, as were their points of departure, schedules, and tariffs. Sheltered to the west by Sazan Island and to the south by the long Karaburun peninsula, the bay of Vlora was both protected from the winds and hidden from view. But it was less its sheltered position than its proximity to Italy that made Vlora not a magnet for tourists but a hub of what the West called the ‘black economy’. In Albania, this was considered merely a form of livelihood, one of the few opportunities to survive in the European market.

  The trafficking and the corruption in the port’s customs offices, where goods entered from the West, led to an explosion of crime and also to the accumulation of big money in Vlora. After Tirana, it was Vlora that had the most powerful financial pyramids, the largest of which was Gjallica. Some said that this firm took its name from a river near Vlora, but others were sure that it was christened after Mount Gjallica near Kukës, the birthplace of one of its proprietors. The two proprietors were rumoured to be former Sigurimi officers who had nevertheless given strong financial backing to the PD in the last elections. A large proportion of the trafficking bosses and others engaged in this trade had invested their money in Gjallica. This business required large numbers of people. There were the middlemen who brought together customers and traffickers and struck deals between them, drivers who transported refugees and prostitutes to Vlora, keepers of hotels and motels who put them up for one or two nights, and the young men who worked the boats. There were also officials and the police who were bribed to turn a blind eye to these activities. Trafficking became an entire industry.

  Vlora, being so close to Italy and Greece, also had large numbers of migrant workers who had sent home large sums and invested them in Gjallica.

  The city by the Mediterranean seethed with activity. Bars and restaurants were under construction by the beach, and luxury villas and mansions invaded the hills behind the city. Foreign journalists came, stayed two or three days, and described Vlora as a miracle of the new Albanian capitalism.

  ***

  There had been rumours that Gjallica, the country’s largest finance house after VEFA, was in trouble. At the beginning of February 1997, it declared bankruptcy. The incredulous people of Vlora heard the report on the State television’s evening news and gathered the next morning in front of the shuttered offices where they had deposited their money.

  It seems probable that they became a collective entity at the moment when a messenger brought the news that one of the co-presidents of Gjallica had fled abroad. A single vivifying current seemed to pass through the amorphous mass of individuals who stood outside the Gjallica office preoccupied with their own affairs, and transformed them into a single creature with a head, a body, and a soul. They waited in vain for several hours. Within two days their numbers grew to thousands. This vast throng occupied Flag Square, which was dominated by the monument to Albania’s declaration of independence in this same city in 1912. ‘We want our money’ was the chant that united this swarm of people, proof that enormous sums had been poured into this pyramid. They demanded to speak to a representative of the government. In Tirana, Berisha’s police had crushed a demonstration of this kind as soon as it started. But Vlora did not have sufficient police to confront such a crowd.

  The people of Vlora protested freely for several days. Their numbers swelled. They grew angrier as their hopes of recovering their money faded and the government remained silent.

  On 5th February, the government at last decided to act. Large numbers of police were despatched from Tirana with orders to disperse the protesters. Yet the threatening crowds still grew and spread to two other nearby towns, Fier and Lushnja, where the anger of many ‘creditors’ of another pyramid boiled over after that firm closed its offices.

  That afternoon, an appalled mass of protesters found themselves facing innumerable ranks of policemen equipped with shields, helmets, and black rubber truncheons. Still the demonstrators’ front line advanced. The police even had orders to shoot without hesitation. A shiver ran through the crowd when the first gunshots were heard. The front line stood still in confusion, and after a brief resistance scattered. But the harm had been done. A bullet, from who knew what weapon, had struck the 30-year-old demonstrator, Artur Rustemi, in the spine and killed him on the spot.

  The news of the killing of Rustemi spread that evening throughout the country and even abroad. The police claimed that they had fired in the air. But meanwhile it was learned that several people had been wounded that day. That night Vlora dressed in mourning.

  Artur Rustemi’s funeral the next day turned into a frightening demonstration of strength. The entire city performed the funeral rites, as if transformed into a house of mourning. The coffin was placed on top of a black Mercedes with a large photograph of the victim in front. The route to the cemetery was designed to pass along the main boulevard and through Flag Square. Behind the Mercedes walked 40,000 people holding national flags, chanting rhythmic slogans that Karaburun seemed to echo back at twice the volume, ‘Berisha killed him,’ ‘Revenge is ours, ‘ ‘Down with dictatorship,’ ‘Berisha killed him,’ ‘Revenge is ours, ‘ ‘Down with dictatorship.’

  At one point the entire cortege stopped and fell silent. The moment for the keening women had come. The lament of the women wailing over the coffin washed in waves over the limitless sea of silent people. The lament sowed hatred and the longing for revenge. It was an ill omen. After the women had finished, the throng set off again, howling even more loudly, ‘Berisha killed him,’ ‘Revenge is ours,‘ ‘Down with dictatorship.’

  ***

  The news of the demonstration, the murder, and the funeral reached Tirana in two totally different versions. Albanian television was very sparing with its images and relied on reports read by the announcer, who also read out a government statement blaming the demonstrators and calling for all those who had caused disturbances to be punished. But on Euronews and the Italian channels, people saw the endless crowds and the coffin on top of the Mercedes, and heard the terrifying keening of the women. They also heard the slogans. These scenes fuelled the anger of the humiliated demonstrators of Tirana and gave them courage.

  The Forum met the next day in the Association’s offices. With Rustemi’s murder the crisis had entered a new and more acute phase. The hope that the government would surrender without violence was giving way to a fear that the situation would slide out of control. But no one doubted that the Forum must support the demonstrators, especially as Berisha was exaggerating the danger of destabilization in order to claim the right to use force. The Forum’s statement drafted at this meeting described Rustemi’s murder as an act of state terror intended to scare the demonstrators. It demanded the release of the innocent people who had been arrested and appealed to the population to continue their civil resistance through peaceful protests, even if that meant calling a general strike. It also appealed to the police and army to keep order and protect public buildings and not to strike at their brothers and sisters who were demonstrating peacefully.

  In order to ease the tensions, Gumeni proposed appealing to demonstrators to hold flowers in their hands instead of stones. This might paralyse the police. The Forum sent an application to the police for a peaceful protest gathering in Scanderbeg Square and an invitation to Sali Berisha, which read, ‘The Forum for Democracy, representing eleven
opposition parties, insists that dialogue must begin as soon as possible and asks you to meet its representatives, as a sign of goodwill.’

  This invitation to dialogue, like the slogan ‘flowers instead of stones,’ encapsulated the contradictions of the situation. The Forum was sure that Berisha could not be toppled except by force, because he had already chosen violence to crush the movement against him, but still it appealed to people to confront the guns and rubber truncheons with flowers in their hands. Could any policy of peaceful resistance be successful in a country that had just emerged from 50 years of a cult of violence and the dictatorship of brute force? It was a tall order.

  Berisha sent no reply to the request for a meeting. The police refused permission for a peaceful demonstration in Scanderbeg Square.

  Chapter IX

  Arrest

  From Fatos Qorri’s Diary

  Saturday 8th February

  We decided this time to do all we could to occupy Scanderbeg Square. We set a meeting place at the Catholic church on Kavaja Street, a long way from my home on foot. From Kindergarten No. 19, I had first to take Qemal Stafa Street and then cross Scanderbeg Square before reaching Kavaja Street.

  At the junction at the end of Qemal Stafa Street leading to the square, I came up against police patrols that were stopping any groups of more than three people and turning them back. They let me pass, but I could not tell if this was because they recognized me or because I was alone. When I came out by the Tirana Hotel I saw that the square was unusually deserted. This emptiness at midday was frightening, as if the city’s life had stopped. I did not walk straight across, which would have drawn attention to myself as the only human being in this vast space. It looked as if the police were planning on guarding it and keeping it vacant all day. I skirted round the edge, passing in front of the Tirana Hotel, the National Museum, and the square separating Durrës Street from Kavaja Street, where Hoxha’s monument had once stood. Where Kavaja Street joined the square, several lines of policemen were preventing anyone entering the square. They did not stop me because I was coming out of the cordoned area. On the way to the church I saw that the alleys off Kavaja Street were crowded with people who were scared to come out on the main street because of the heavy police patrols. It seemed that the State had mustered all the forces at its command to prevent people reaching the main square. The cordon was like a tight band squeezing the city’s heart, depriving it of its lifeblood. The sight suggested a world without people: the ultimate dream of dictators.