ABSTRACT
There were huge purges of the public administration in the aftermath of the victory of the anti-communist Democratic Party in March 1992 and there were again huge purges of the public sector after the Socialist Party (former communists) won elections in 1997. This cannot be considered lustration as it is entirely consistent with Albania’s twentieth century political culture, which has always left open the door to be a hero one day and a traitor the next. The process was heavily influenced by political vengeance. At different times between 1991 and 1997, the banner of lustration was held aloft by both left and right wing parties in order to justify political purges carried out purely to weaken their opponents. This “out with the old – in with the new” mentality had it roots in Albania in 1920 and it was certainly intensified during the period of so-called class struggle under communist rule. What we have seen take place in Albania is primarily politically-inspired vengeance rather than an attempt to deal with the past in a constructive and objective way. This has had disastrous implications for Albania’s overall transition from communism to democracy. As Kathleen Imholz noted, “No doubt, more Albanians
were tried and many more lost their jobs in the name of de-communization than in other countries. But the facts on the ground nevertheless diverge from the legend. Rather than being ways of punishing the crimes of the former regime, trials and dismissals were used to demobilize lawful opposition to the present regime [the then governing Democratic Party] or, quite simply, as a method to exact personal revenge.”2 At the grassroots level, de-communization never really made it into the public debate as, to some extent, forgive and forget attitudes prevailed in a country where economic problems were considered to be paramount. Remzi Lani, of the Albanian Media Institute, probably best summarized the Albanian experience when he said that there was “lots of blackmail, but no public debate.”3
