Former Albanian communists celebrate late Hoxha’s birth anniversary

TIRANA, Oct 14 – Small groups of former communist supporters of Albania’s late dictator Enver Hoxha started a week-long of celebrations for his 100th birth anniversary.
His family members were not allowed to welcome visitors inside his former house in southern Gjirokastra where he was born.
Now the house serves as an ethnographical museum.
His widow Nexhmije also opened her house to welcome people in capital Tirana.
On the other side Prime Minister Sali Berisha called him another Nazi Hitler and the celebration shameful as he “persecuted, interned, jailed and executed a quarter of the Albanians.”
Berisha said efforts of celebration were trying to legitimate the communist terror, barbarism, slavery and isolation the tiny Balkan country suffered under his reign until 1990. Hoxha died in 1985.
Most Albanians condemn Hoxha’s rule as a dark period.