BIRN: Albanian Parliament 'honors' figure of dictator Enver Hoxha, unprecedented act

In an unprecedented act, the Albanian Parliament produced an official document on Friday honoring, among national figures, dictator Enver Hoxha, who led the totalitarian communist regime for almost half a century, isolating Albanians, suppressing human rights, and causing thousands of victims.

In a document considered 'informative' for MPs entitled "National Figures (October) sent by the office of the Parliamentary Institute to the email of 140 MPs of the Parliament, Hoxha is described as "Hero of the People" and "Hero of Socialist Labor", while in the biography he is mentioned as the leader of the Albanian state, of the Communist Party and then of the Party of Labor.

His name is placed in a row with other personalities of Albanian history who were born or died in the month of October, such as Sulejman Delvina, prime minister of the government that emerged from the Congress of Lushnja, Franciscan priests with contributions to ethnology and literature, Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi, Father Gjergj Fishta, the Renaissance men Abdyl and Naim Frashëri, King Zog I, the writer Dritëro Agolli, etc.

The email brought immediate reaction from opposition MPs, historians, and civil society organizations, who described the action of the Parliament services as an unprecedented act that created division and insulted the victims of communism.

MP Erald Kapri of the Opportunity Party officially asked the Assembly to withdraw the documents and apologize, while describing the act as "scandalous" in a public reaction.

"How can the Albanian Parliament ask its members to respect the former dictator who is responsible for thousands of people killed, imprisoned, and exiled?" Kapri wrote in an email sent to the office responsible for producing the document.

Even Belind Këlliçi from the Democratic Party described the document as an attempt to 'revive' the dictator.

"Such tendencies of manipulating history point to a diabolical attempt to revive the myths of communist historiography, where criminals are considered heroes of the people and the totalitarian mindset poisons the minds of young people, making the monist regime not only acceptable but also desirable," Këlliçi writes, among other things, in a Facebook status.

The organization "Civic Center" also took a stand, calling it a "scandalous act" that "incites division and insults."

"Including Enver Hoxha's name in the list of personalities of October in the Assembly is like inserting Hitler's name into the halls of the Bundestag," the organization's response states.

The Albanian Parliament did not withdraw from the document nor did it apologize for the incident.

In a brief response to the media, the press office described the case as a "routine practice" of the work of the Parliament's library sector, "which periodically informs deputies with historical and archival data, with the aim of providing general information on events, dates or other elements of a historical nature."

Further, the Assembly justified that the material was based entirely on the data of the Albanian Encyclopedic Dictionary, published by the Academy of Sciences of Albania (2008).

 "The Assembly of Albania has not planned to develop any special activity regarding the figures mentioned in this material and has not expressed any evaluative stance, positive or negative, towards any of them," the reaction suggests.

Niko Peleshi, the speaker of the Assembly, did not respond to BIRN's question about how the institution he heads, which has condemned Hoxha's crimes with at least two previously adopted resolutions (2006; 2016), describes the dictator in glorifying terms.

Meanwhile, Pelesh's cabinet made available several pages of the Encyclopedia of the Academy of Sciences to justify what they called "a specialist's blunder."

The Encyclopedia contains two pages dedicated to Hoxha, where it is stated, among other things, that the system he led was of the 'Stalinist' model with harsh class struggle, which plunged the country into economic crisis through the disappearance of private property and total isolation. At the end of the description, the contributing author of the encyclopedia notes that Hoxha held the titles of "hero", but does not mention the fact that these titles were removed after the year "90" nor the resolution of the parliament (2006) that condemns the crimes committed by the communist state under his leadership.

For history researcher and lecturer Enriketa Papa, this act cannot be ignored.

"This is not only an insult to the victims, but an act that reopens wounds and undermines efforts for a democratic culture and social reconciliation," the Pope wrote in a Facebook reaction.

Albania was ruled by Enver Hoxha from 1944 until his death in 1985, during which time Albanians were deprived of basic human rights. In the prisons, internment camps, internment camps and forced labor camps set up by this regime, archival documents report thousands of deaths from starvation, torture, deportations, forced labor, physical and psychological terror. During the communist regime, the right to religious belief was banned and an unprecedented repression was undertaken against clergy, mainly Catholic ones, a repression for which the Albanian Parliament adopted a special resolution in 2016 that preceded the Beatification ceremony of several Albanian Catholic clergy unjustly killed by the communist regime./BIRN