Albania, 1997

by Penny Munden

In January 1997 I headed out to Albania to start working with a Christian mission in the southern town of Gjirokastër, excited to be living amongst Albanians. I had been a frequent visitor to Albania whilst working in Greece between 1991-1996, but had not heard about the failed pyramid investment schemes and the unrest building up.

At the end of February, the men of Vlorë somehow managed to raid an arms depot. Shooting around the city spread later to Sarandë and Tepelenë. Meanwhile, in Gjirokastër some students joined others in Vlorë on hunger strike and townsfolk would join them at midday. On 2nd March buses and open lorries from Tepelenë and Memaliaj arrived in Gjirokastër. Some of those in the lorries threw grenades into the stadium. The police station was burned down and some men from Gjirokastër went off with the Tepelenë crowd and seem to have got hold of weapons as there was some shooting that evening. A state of emergency with a curfew was declared by the government.

Albanian TV channels didn’t dare come down to the south, so we learnt of movements of the Sarandë ‘rebels’, as those armed citizens were referred to, from Greek television. We saw them marching to Delvinë, from whence they intended to cross the mountains to Gjirokastër on their way to Tirana to depose President Berisha, who they held responsible for the collapse of the pyramid schemes. Others had commandeered tanks, so army units from Gjirokastër headed to the Muzina Pass to stop them. Fearful townsfolk suggested that the curfew should be brought forward to three o’clock. 

Gjirokastër didn’t fall to the rebels until 8th March. That afternoon I happened to be looking down the main boulevard from my team leader’s house and saw a large group of men gathering outside the police station, which grew and grew until it dispersed. Twenty minutes later men and teenage boys returned in cars or on foot with arms and cases of ammunition which they had looted from the army base on the edge of town. Soon gunfire was heard around town as they went out into their courtyards or onto rooftops, trying out their newly acquired Kalashnikov rifles and firing them up in the air. 

That night my team gathered at Geoff’s home, the only one with a telephone, as we weren’t sure how things would unfold. The British Vice-Consul called to advise us to leave, but at the same time said that the Embassy would keep in touch if we wanted to stay. We opted to stay. That night the gunfire was incessant as townsmen vented their anger at President Berisha. A few days later, when the troubles had reached Tirana, the British Embassy arranged an evacuation, but we stayed put rather than travel through the dangerous region of Tepelenë. The Greek border was only 30 kilometres to the south.

Night-time shooting was to become a regular occurrence for the next six months. It was almost like a firework display with tracer bullets and smoke signals being fired in arcs across the town. At such times you couldn’t hear yourself talk indoors. Initially we stayed inside as you never knew where bullets could land and heavy gunfire could also erupt in the daytime, sometimes in celebration of events such as President Berisha announcing fresh elections. Even Easter Sunday was a cause for gunfire by some Orthodox Christians and the sound of our neighbour, Rapi, shooting in his yard that day was ear-splitting. Thankfully, none of our team were wounded, unlike a lady we knew who got a bullet in her leg when it ricocheted off a wall as neighbours argued over a piece of land.  Nevertheless, shooting was certainly not going on all the time as portrayed by Greek television.

I did, however, witness a sad event from my colleague’s upper window where a Mercedes was driving frantically up and down the road. The passenger started shooting out of the window, at which the onlookers fled inside. Eventually, the gunman got out and shot horizontally. He killed an innocent villager who was out of view and just happened to be in town. The murderer was from the neighbouring village of Lazarat and was taking revenge for his fellow villager who had been killed in Gjirokastër by the father of one of the young women he had trafficked to Greece.

Despite starting as a political uprising, things slid into anarchy and lawlessness. Many shops in the old bazaar were set on fire, as was the customs building, army barracks and the Adipetrol Motel on the main road out of town. There was also an attempt to blow up bridges on the main road north. A Dutch woman who ran a refuge for unmarried mums was tricked into moving her jeep out of a guarded car park. Armed men blocked her path with their car, claiming they needed her jeep for the Shtabi (the committee for the salvation of the town). One was firing a Kalashnikov in the air while the other pointed a pistol at my colleague Geoff’s heel. Marijan didn’t want to let go of the jeep, but Geoff convinced her that her life was worth more than that metal box. Geoff’s Albanian teacher, who was actually in the Shtabi, got them to return the jeep a few days later.

The town bank was also robbed over a couple of nights. On the second night a car was driving around town, claiming to be from the Shtabi, and warned us to stay indoors. That night I heard what turned out to be a tank grinding up the cobbled hill near my home on its way to the bank. A lad we knew, who lived above the bank, was traumatised by the heavy shooting that night that was designed to stop residents seeing the perpetrators. The safe was dragged out of town. 

Armed men held up cars and buses on main roads with some gunmen masked, so for a while deliveries of fruit and vegetables were interrupted. There was one week when the market just had potatoes, tomatoes, kiwis and a couple of pineapples!  The Greek border nearby, where Albanians arrived early in the morning having travelled overnight from Athens, was also a place for gangs from south-western towns to rob travellers when there was little or no police presence, especially in May. On one occasion I travelled back from Ioannina in a Greek Railways Athens-Tirana bus.  As we crossed into Albania, a man from Tepelenë boarded the bus to collect 1000 leks from each passenger. A teenage lad dressed Rambo-style was positioned in the aisle of the bus, supposedly to stop anyone else holding the bus up. 

In mid-summer I tended to travel to the border in the midday heat as with little traffic, there was little to keep the highwaymen out on the road. In June I travelled by bus to a meeting in Tirana and every time a Mercedes overtook us, there was a fearful sigh from the passengers who must have been expecting a masked gunman to jump out of the car. Our Tepelenë registered bus swapped passengers with a Tirana bus in Fier. Things had become very territorial, but at least we arrived safely in Tirana. 

Despite the problems, I was able to run children’s clubs in the neighbourhood giving the children some enjoyment and as summer wore on things became safer. In late June the socialists won the elections and by late July Sali Berisha resigned, both causes for gun celebrations. My diary notes that by the end of August there was hardly any shooting or letting off of bombs at night, bringing some relief after six tense months.