The False Apocalypse

by Fatos Lubonja

  As soon as he woke the next day he went out to see what had happened during the night. His instinct told him that it had not been a quiet one. The first news was that the editorial office of Koha Jonë had been burned. Armed civilians had beaten up the guard, terrorized the journalists they found there and smashed the computers and printers before setting fire to the building.

  Qorri wanted to see it with his own eyes. He found the building a blackened shell without doors and windows, leaving to the imagination the terrifying operation it had been subjected to. Inside, Qorri surveyed the wreckage of the computers, printers, and photocopiers, whose mangled shapes seemed conscious, striving to convey without success their own amazement at being broken in this way.

  Chapter XXVIII

  The Oath

  ‘I swear by my honour and before the flag to be loyal to the people and the homeland, to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and progress, and the independence and territorial inviolability of Albania.

  ‘I swear to respect the constitutional laws, develop and protect democracy and human rights and freedoms... I swear.’

  Berisha tried hard to look confident as he took his second presidential oath. The parliament, composed solely of his own party, had just voted for him with one hundred and thirteen votes in favour, one against, and four abstentions. His mandate was for five more years. Would it last five days?

  An intimate of this man had said that if Berisha were ever forced to give up power he would grip the iron railings round the presidency and have to be dragged away with the railings themselves. This prophecy was being proved true, but he was taking with him not just the railings, but the whole of Albania.

  Qorri had always been in two minds about Berisha. He did not agree with the widespread view that Albania deserved no better than Berisha, but he saw a certain truth in it. According to Qorri, Berisha could not have come to power if he did not represent a prevalent type in Albanian society, a man brought up in isolation and ignorance who combined a primitive cult of the tough guy with a lackey’s subservience, who trampled pitilessly on anyone beneath him but was unhesitatingly obsequious to anyone above. These conflicting impulses sometimes tore personalities apart, but in other cases increased their determination to stand out from the crowd, if without ever freeing them of their fear of someone stronger than themselves.

  These ‘tough guys’ represented a recognizable and frightening type. They came mainly from the Albanian countryside but were now experiencing a second wave of urbanization. They came down from the hills with the mind-sets of mercenaries, materially poor and short of ideals, but ready to do service and to plunder, and with all the aggressiveness an inferiority complex provides. Anyone who succeeded in manipulating these individuals’ aggression could become very powerful. Enver Hoxha’s Communist Party had done it after World War II. The dictatorship could not have been so fierce if this type had not existed, ruling over a thin stratum of confused and divided city people. But Hoxha did not complete the country’s urbanization. It seemed to Qorri that under Berisha Albania was experiencing a reprise of the narrative of the communists’ ascent to power, what might be called a ‘second urbanization’. The tough guys once again faced a weak stratum of urban citizens, persecuted or corrupted by the communists, of whom the best were hurrying to leave the country for a quieter and better life in the West. Communism had made him even more irresponsible. The only thing that they had not learned, living in a compulsory collective, was a sense of community and responsibility for others. They did not recognize responsibility because this had always belonged to the State. They were now individual intent on seizing what they could for themselves. These types might unite to form a mob of looters but not a community. And so the kind of people who rose to power had no compunction about getting their hands dirty. Politicians created ties with criminals and mafia gangs. The financial pyramids were a racket of this kind.

  Berisha’s speech to the parliament was a further step in the career of a man who had trampled on everything to arrive where he was. He had been a fanatical communist, and then had seen that the communists would have to leave power. As communism fell, he had unleashed the destructive power of the tough guys. Now came hatred of communism and a revanche against it.

  Chapter XXIX

  The Westerners Flee

  A cold wind blew in the Bay of Vlora, raising huge waves and darkening the sea and the western horizon. Weather forecasts warned of storms. But this same horizon still offered the hope of rescue.

  A large group of Italians, four Germans, a Dutchman, and several journalists waited anxiously on the runway of Vlora airport for the helicopters that were to evacuate them from the rebel city. In the distance they heard the noise of racing cars, the rattle of gunfire, and sometimes explosions. At the city’s little airport, which nobody guarded, armed men came and went, firing nonchalantly into the air.

  A group of inhabitants of Vlora who had worked alongside them escorted these people to the airport and begged them, ‘Don’t leave us alone. Who will tell people what is happening here?’

  But the foreigners in Vlora were in total panic. The Tirana government, not without an ulterior motive, had been warning foreigners for days to leave Vlora, telling them they were in danger. The Italian Foreign Ministry had appealed to Italian citizens not to travel to Albania except in cases of absolute necessity, and under no circumstances to go to Vlora or the south. France had also appealed to its citizens to leave, and asked anybody planning a journey not to go to Albania.

  The Westerners in Vlora had to be evacuated as fast as possible. How? It would be dangerous and time-consuming to transport them to Tirana airport. There was only one way: a quick intervention from across the sea. Italy was only forty miles from the Bay of Vlora, a short hop. But in Italy they feared that this jump might be fatal, because there were rebels with their guns at the ready on the opposite coast. So the Italian staff counted on surprise and speed. Every second had to be precisely calculated, and the least slip could be disastrous.

  For the Albanians escorting the foreigners, the appearance of the huge Chinook transport helicopters something out of the movies. The whole operation lasted eight minutes, from the moment when the Italian marines disembarked in combat readiness to their take-off. Not a shot was fired. By 16.20 hours, ‘Operation Vlora’ was complete.

  The Italian media boasted of the successful rescue mission of the two helicopters sent from the frigate, but nobody pointed out that their swift operation caught nobody by surprise, because the armed rebels in Vlora were preparing to ward off an attack not from the Adriatic but from Tirana.

  ***

  The declaration of the State of Emergency brought tensions in the South to a new pitch. In the hearts of the people of Vlora, fear of reprisals from Berisha fought with their resolution not to surrender. Could they confront an attack by the army? The answer to this question hovered like a trembling needle on a dial.

  Again groups stormed the army depots that were packed with weapons and ammunition. Twelve people died, killed not by resisting soldiers, but in accidents caused by others in the crowd who seized guns without knowing how to use them.

  The more the danger of armed conflict increased, the more powerful those who were not frightened to fire them became. They were joined by many escaped prisoners from the gaols of the South, who had no intention of going back inside. What the government called ‘rebels’ were not a uniform category, but an alliance of the broad-based movement of the people, representatives of political parties led by the Forum, and groups of strong-men said to include even former officers pensioned by Berisha, but with links to the Socialist Party. Now the atmosphere of blood and war affected everybody. Some people acted out of savagery. Others were determined not to sell themselves cheap.

  ***

  On 4th March, the chief of the Crime Squad in Vlora and a police officer received orders from the headquarters of the Emergency Staff in Tirana to set off for Saranda and re-establish order there, by which was mean
t reopening the police station. They were joined by a criminal inspector from Vlora and another policeman, and the four set off in a green Mercedes 2400 without police license plates. They were armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs. The outward journey passed without incident. They stopped for a coffee at Llogara. Now and then they passed cars whose passengers casually pointed guns out of the windows and fired into the air, but did not molest them.

  The streets of Saranda were full of armed men. There was not a policeman to be seen. The police station was a burned-out shell. In the port, ships were also full of armed men. Somebody took the team to the Salvation Committee, which had been set up in the town’s high school. They introduced themselves and explained the purpose of their trip.

  ‘Berisha’s police are not welcome in this town,’ was the curt reply. ‘And there’s no question of surrendering weapons. The police tried to convince them otherwise, but were told to go back where they came from. Otherwise there would be consequences. The crime chief contacted headquarters in Tirana and reported the situation as the team had found it, saying they had decided to return because there was nothing they could do in Saranda.

  During the return journey their attention was caught by a dark green Mercedes that came out of a turning in front of them, and neither sped ahead nor allowed them to overtake. At first they put this down to the poor road surface and the many bends, but later, on a straight part of the road where it would be natural to overtake, the dark green Mercedes obstinately blocked their path, and they realized that it meant business. The police team cocked their weapons and went on the alert. The Mercedes stopped. Two young men armed with Kalashnikovs got out of it and signalled to the driver to halt. Clearly these were the tough guys who had taken control of the Saranda-Gjirokastra road. The young men boldly approached, evidently unaware they were dealing with the police. ‘One of them bent down to the window to speak to them, and found an automatic rifle pointing at his throat. The other officer got out of the car, disarmed both men and bundled them onto the back seat. But meanwhile the green Mercedes had shot ahead.

  ‘Follow it and don’t lose it,’ said the crime chief to the driver, firing his Kalashnikov at the car. But it was too late. The green Mercedes was faster than their car, now laden with six people.

  ‘What are your names,’ the police officer asked them.

  ‘If you want our names, mine’s Bubeq, but you’d better release us or you’ll regret it,’ replied the one who seemed to be the boss. The other kept silent.

  ‘You’re a brave lad.’ said the crime chief, ‘but we’ll show you who’s brave. What’s your name? Bubeq is a nickname.’

  ‘It’s Bubeq. Don’t you like it?’ Silence fell in the car. The road surface worsened.

  A few hundred yards later, at the place known as Qafë Gjashtë, their car was forced to stop in front of a truck placed askew across the road. Beside the road was a petrol station that looked abandoned. Some shots fired in the air signalled that they had been ambushed. The driver of the Mercedes had been quick to inform the members of the gang who were patrolling another stretch of the road. The two policemen exchanged glances with their prisoners in the car.

  ‘I told you. Now let us go and keep driving,’ Bubeq suggested.

  They didn’t hesitate. They thought that releasing the men would be enough to let them continue their journey unhindered. They opened the door, and let them get out.

  Bubeq, as soon as he was far enough from the police car, talked to his mates in a language the police could not understand.

  ‘Tufjani,’ was the word they heard.

  There was a volley of bullets and the explosion of a grenade. In bandits’ slang, this word evidently meant futjani, -- zap them.

  The crime chief jumped out of the other side of the car and ran into the hills, while the crime inspector tried to shoot. But his Kalashnikov stalled. He darted behind a wall and hid. A bullet caught the police officer, and he could not move. The policeman in the car also remained in a state of shock, with his hands still raised.

  When they saw that no reaction came from the car after the gunshots, except a call for help from the wounded police officer, a group of armed young men emerged from their ambush and went up to it. They saw the police officer lying on his stomach on the back seat, groaning. The policeman still sat with his hands up.

  ‘Move,’ said Bubeq to the wounded man.

  ‘I can’t,’ he replied.

  ‘You came to disarm us and put us in prison,’ said one of them, who seemed to be the leader of the gang.

  The police officer had no time to respond because a second man came up and without a word emptied the entire magazine of his pistol into his body. A third man came up and fired a volley from his Kalashnikov into the corpse.

  Was this the bloodlust of war, did they think they were acting out a movie, or were they looking for a human target for the guns they had just started to use? The policeman begged them not to kill him. They kicked him and beat him with the butts of their Kalashnikovs until he lay on the ground covered in blood. Someone suggested tying him up and taking him to Saranda as a prisoner. The crime chief and the inspector had managed to run away.

  Meanwhile one member of the gang at Bubeq’s orders brought a bucket of petrol from the pump. With this they hurried to douse the car where the police officer’s body lay and set it alight. They fled, uninterested in seeing the body reduced to charred bones and a handful of ash.

  In Saranda, they displayed the policeman in public, shoving him, spitting on him, accusing him of being a traitor, a provocateur, and a filthy spy. In front of the wild crowd, he confessed that he had come to plan reprisals against them.

  ***

  This news spread fast. Its message was that the South would not surrender.

  Barricades had now been erected on many streets of Vlora, with both light and heavy machine guns positioned on top ready to fire. There was also heavy artillery with barrels pointing north. Not a car passed through Tepelena without being checked by armed men.

  As preparations for resistance got under way, food stores were also looted. Small shopkeepers closed their stores in fear and took their stocks home, leaving the population without basic foodstuffs. In Vlora the VEFA supermarket was attacked and looted first. Then the State reserves on the outskirts of the city were attacked and thousands of tonnes of flour were stolen. A vocational training centre built by the Danes at a cost of $7 million was looted and set alight. Within a few hours it was burned to ashes.

  In Gjirokastra, at the entrance of the town, a depot that supplied the South with petrol was looted and burned. A huge mushroom of smoke rose above it for an entire day, a signal that the South was preparing for war.

  Chapter XXX

  From Fatos Qorri’s Diary

  4th March

  If the fear in the air of Tirana could be measured like its pollution, it would turn out so laden with particles of panic that ‘breathing’ it for a long period would be fatal. It is only inside the houses that this ‘air’ is less foul, and so people have shut themselves up indoors. The emptiness of the Tirana streets is scary, and seems to suggest that the worst is still to come.

  The way people react in Vlora and the South will decide a great deal. If they give in, we’re sunk. If they stand firm, Berisha will be finished in a few days. There are reports that the army is refusing to go to the South. For the moment, the State of Emergency operates only in Tirana and the North.

  Few people visited the Forum today, although movement during daylight is permitted. Some of the Forum’s leaders are not sleeping in their own homes and are not saying where they are bedding down. I am still at the Kindergarten, not just because leaving it would feel like an act of panic, but because I have Nusi here and I can’t leave her alone. There she is sitting on my desk by the computer, looking at me with her innocent eyes in a way that makes it impossible for me to leave her.

  5th March

  I had a strange meeting at the Forum’s offices today. I was sittin
g looking out at the sun when the door opened and an old friend from prison came in. I won’t mention his name, because who knows what might happen to me and this diary. I hadn’t met him for ages. But we spent no time catching up or remembering prison, and launched at once into current events. I don’t recall exactly what I was saying to him, but it was more or less what I think, that our situation is very dangerous, and that Berisha has gone too far by declaring the State of Emergency and deciding to send the army to the south. He interrupted me and said something that stopped me in my tracks:

  ‘Listen, I also think that this all this is only going to get worse. There’s only one solution. Berisha has to be killed.’

  I sat speechless and looked him in the eye.

  ‘And here I am. I’m ready to do it.’ Two quite different feelings ran through me. What he had said frightened me, because I thought this might be a provocation, and there was also the thought that here in front of me was a brave and honest man, who had come to me as a trusted friend from prison. Perhaps the fear of a provocation came first, and then this other thought, because the instinct of self-preservation comes before anything else. I don’t know how long the silence between us lasted. It can’t have been long because he was waiting for an answer. I said to him in a blunt but friendly tone, ‘We’re not here to kill people. We’re looking for a political solution. And we hope that Berisha will go after all this that’s happened.’

  He did not insist. He considered the conversation closed. He had finished what he had come to say.

  I am sure I wouldn’t have answered as I did, if I hadn’t been suspicious. To a trusted friend, I might have said that this might be done, or not. I might have analysed its pros and cons, the damage such an act would cause, and the difficulties it would involve. But my curt response seemed to convey my mistrust. We had not met for years, and he had come to me unexpectedly with his proposal. Perhaps he had seen me on television and for him I wasn’t simply an old friend from prison but the leader of a Forum that needed strong men. Perhaps he was looking for his place in history.