Albanian parliament denounces former communist regime

TIRANA, Oct. 30 – The Albanian parliament passed Monday a resolution denouncing the crimes of the former communist regime. The parliament also asked that the secret police files on all public figures in the country be opened. The parliament approved a resolution denouncing the crimes of the regime headed by the late dictator Enver Hoxha, who held power in Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985. The resolution was approved by 76 lawmakers in the 140-seat assembly. “Albania’s People’s Assembly is convinced that making known and denouncing the crimes of the communist dictatorship serves to avoid repetition of similar crimes in the future,” the resolution said. “Punishment of the crimes and the real reconsideration of history play an important role in educating new generations.”
The opposition Socialists, whose party was founded in 1991 as a successor to the communist party, had boycotted the session, complaining that the governing Democrats had not included some key topics in the agenda. The resolution strongly denounced “the mass violation of human rights” and described Hoxha as “the initiator, inspirer, leader and executor of the wildest dictatorial communist system in Eastern Europe, which isolated Albania and took it to an extreme poverty.” The communists ran a vast network of prisons and labor camps, where thousands of Albanians, including small children and pregnant women, were sent for political, ideological and religious reasons. The parliament also asked for the opening of the files of the notorious secret police, or Sigurimi, to see if they identified collaborators among the ranks of current politicians and administrators or in the judiciary or media. All documents providing evidence of communist crimes should be made public, the parliament said. Parliament would have to pass legislation before the files could be opened. The resolution also said all symbols of the former communist regime and titles and national awards given to communist collaborators should be removed.
Hoxha led Albania into more than four decades of international isolation and dictatorship. During those years, the intelligence service was one of the strongest weapons of the communist regime, spying on people’s lives and buttressing the rule of those in power. The communist regime that followed Hoxha’s death in 1985 eased some of his most repressive measures, but real democracy only started in 1991, with the staging of free elections. Many officials of the regime faced trial after the Democrats took over in 1992, including Hoxha’s widow, Nexhmije, and the last communist president, Ramiz Alia, who both served jail terms for crimes against humanity.