TERROR IN LILLIPUT

...They are said to be the only soldiers in Albania who are permitted to look a square meal in the face once a day...

...t # * COINCIDENTAL with the purges, there were two manifestations of the popular will — an open rebellion in the north and a campaign of passive resistance in the south...

...Before this an attempt had even been made on Hoxha's life...

...Now, with Tito and Hoxha at loggerheads, Xoxe finds himself among the first major Albanian victims...

...His family comes from Albania, although they axe of Greek extraction...

...To hold these families while the husbands and fathers languish in Albania's miserably overcrowded prisons (said to house about 11.000 prisoners a few months ago) concentration camps were set up at Herat and Kruja...

...The ragged Albanian Army is being reorganized by Soviet officers estimated by some to be as many as 800...

...However, some of the women held are not wives of accused or sentenced Albanians, but wives and mothers of American citizens living in the United States...

...According to reliable reports, the battle lasted 10 hours and 120 of Hoxha's officers and men lost their lives...

...As head of the local version of Tito's OZNA, he held influence second only to Hoxha...

...OMER HIS1IANI, President of the Albanian People's Republic, April 12, 1940...

...When he...

...Nako occupied impoilaiu ir >t in the Ciiminimi t C-l.tial <"• on;, < and the Albanian Pi.iitbtuo...

...Tito's break with the Cominform makes Albania take a new strategic significance...

...Their penetration may be judged from the fact that about 2.000 gave battle to the troops of Enver Hoxha at a point as far south as Elbassan...

...The youthful 'Spiro Nako, a native of Durazzo, had so distinguished himself as a Fascist that, upon occupying the uountry, the Italians rewarded Nako by sending him to Torino to study...

...is a creature of circumstance rather than of training...

...Some, however, could not thus he disposed of...

...This, then, is Hoxha's paradise...

...s ry to organize and erca e so f di c pi ne by Relieving in the dogma <if Albanian f; s.-i m. . . "Lo-ig live our Ki -c-Fmi.eror Victor K nanuol III: l.oiif...

...Perhaps the fact that his General Stafr is headed by General Spiro Mici, ex-commanding officer of the quisling "Tomori Regiment" which fought the allies in 1939, that President Nishani used to praise Fascism and that Hoxha hlpisolf was not unfriendly toward Mussolini's empire not so long ago had something to do with his dislike of Anglo-Americans...

...The repressive measures then resorted to produced only a total of 02 percent of the crop...

...Fust i'.s icar »'.' >n...

...The largest purge trial thus far memorable was that held September 27, 1947, in which (>2 former FNC • leaders including Shcvket Beja, Selayclni Toto, Pertef Karagioz, Shcvket Kokalari and Shell Karbunari, among others, were sentenced to death <>i life imprisonment...

...On November 21, 1947, ftadio Timlin announced that Spiro Nako had mortally wounded himself aceidently while cleaning hLs gun...

...All of them take tremendous risks in escaping About one-half of the Albanian Army has been concentrated on the Greek border ih full war strength for two important reasons: to help the Greek guerrillas enter and leave their Albanian bases und to prevent anyone from leaving Hoxha's domain...

...our people, with its greatest determination, has put all its .strength into the antiimperialist and democratic front at the bead of which .stands the strong and invincible Great Soviet Union, unshakable fortress of true democratic peace and servant of true democracy and of the people's freedom...

...The mutual antipathy is not made weaker by the fact \hat American citizens have been refused permission to leave Albania and have had their ration cards confiscated if they refused to "volunteer" for forced labor on the construction of the Durazzo-Elbassan railway...

...Ruches is a freelance writer...

...The purge of former founders of Hoxha's National Liberation Front (FNC) began us soon as Hoxha assumed the Albanian premiership...

...Our people, with their great determination will light unto death against the obscene designs ol Anglo-American imperialism...

...News from Tirana has it that he was recently bounced from Ixith his party and his job for being too friendly to Tito...

...ALMOST, but not quite, forgotten in the mad carnival of head• lines, the microscopic "people's republu ut Albania connnues to terrorize its subjects and provide, for its Soviet masters, an ideal base for the execution of their designs upon the Mediterranean...

...AS IN RUSSIA, families are held responsible for the "crimes" of their members...

...I ALBANIA HAS UNITED her destiny to that of fascist Italy and the Albanians have found in the august person of Victor Emanuel a true sovereign in whose hands the crown of Sk<i*»derbeg has retained its historicvalue...

...Though Hoxha cannot got at them, neither can they risk a (banco for an open attack on Hoxha, Their means of subsistancc till now is a miracle which will have to await explanation in the future...

...In the south, resistance took the form of disregarding government orders for the immediate surrender of all corn crops in September, 1947...

...Ho returned to Albania in 1943 and joined Hoxha's FNC in 1944, taking part in the formation of Hoxha's first government...

...Leading the attempt to communize the Mohammedan clergy is the fanatic Bektashli, ex-monk Baba Mustafa Martaneshi, who holds the title of "Colonel," acquired as a member of Hoxha's FNC in 1944...

...These guerrillas, however, exist completely cut off from cither Hoxha or Yugoslavia...

...These last returns were subject to severe government censure, and mass arrests followed, especially in the districts of Santi Quaianta, Delvino, Prymeti and Libohovo...

...These 30,000 fugitives from "paradise" have, till now, constituted a heavy burden upon the Greek Government which is at present supporting most of these Northern Epirotc refugees...

...We find it neee...

...Five-Year Plan became an apparent failure, he was called to Belgrade and, upon his return, shot iii the back...

...Though wildly described as such by Albanian propagandists, it is a different "people's republic" which has been described by thousands of refugees from Albania who cross the Greek border on the average of ten daily...

...Hoxha himself, for many years a student in Naples University (from whence he was ejected for academic deficiencies) and the Montpelier in France (which he left after having involved himself in shady financial transactions), only assumed the role of n "resistance" leader in 1943 after having served as a faithful organ of Italian Propaganda...

...From "student" to coffeeshop and tobacco vendor to teacher of French to Italian propagandist, to 'people's hero" is the gamut of occupations filled by Envoi' Hoxha...

...As such, events in Al" bartia today cahnot but have an influence on our implementation of the Trunin" Doctrine in Greece and the Near East...

...Reflecting the tvpe of leadership in the Albanian saddle of government was Albania's llimmler, Lieutenant-General Koci Xoxe...

...9 * NOT TO BE outdone by the Soviet and Yugoslav press irl eulogizing their 1'tt'lirvrx, the government-owned Albanian press refers to its master as "our Great Leader ENVER, the best son of our people, the general of victory, today's guide in the work toward the happiness and well-being of our people...

...As head of a council composed of reactionary Moslem Bektashli bierarchs who formerly backed Mussolini, he is at the head of a vigorous persecution of all orthodox Sunnite Moslems by his * Bektashli followers...

...Our people, with the greatest determination, are gathered as one man around the Democratic Front and, with the bright leadership of the Communist Party, will go forward on the road of progress and happiness...

...The wouldbe assassins were killed immediately...

...He has executed the three highest Roman Catholic prelates in Albania, and he has attempted to harness by force the entire Moslem clergy to his chariot...

...Hoxha, of course, is no less anti-British and anti-American and pro-Soviet than the Big Boys in Warsaw and Moscow...

...Until I i, he headed the anti-Fascist Youth . 'io Ministry of Economics, lie sob.v "or ' v became Minister of Ci » .. • . i , < aher oi Albania...

...teachings...

...Albanian ports are being renovated for use as submarine and warship stations...

...he or great Due...

...had given rise to suspicion because of his alleged sympathies with Ihe purged clique headed by Bedli Spa | and Seltila Malcsova...

...Like llimmler ihe poultry farmer, Xoxe...

...Our nation and our indeponilcncs can 1 e prcsor...

...Though there were possible exceptions, the vast majority of the executed politieos were Hoxha's Fascist comrades-in-arms who, though willing enough to render lip-service unto the now Bolshevik Caesars, were yet unwilling to lose their identity in the new Communist .state...

...ed Only by moans ( I' perfe t organization and severe discipline inch as (iiiceiv.d by fastis...

...One such was Spiio Nako, Minister of Commerce and mastcr-nund behind Albania's Five-Year Plan...

...IN THE FIELD of religion, Hoxha has not been, amiss in his Bolshevik duty...

...Our people have faithful and strong friends and allies...

...Almost the first to suller this fate was Hoxha's own brother-in-law Oman, executed in 101...

...Before becoming a "General," Vice-Premier, . Minister of the Interior, head of the People's Security Police, lord high , executioner, etc., this worthy was a _ Koristan tinsmith...

...In bis declaration of December 1947 apropos of the 3rd anniversary of "liberation," he stated that "the Anglo-American imperialists do not like our people's democracy and at every moment try to fight, our people, to harm our people's work, to wreck the people's authority with their traitorous agents...

...Though seriously harnissed by government troops and reduced by November, 1947, to only 4,000 men, they succeeded in disrupting the entire northern part of Albania...

...Startling to say, Hoxha has not only been unable to suppress Markagion, but reports as late as October 1948 indicated that his numbers have been increasing daily, as more and more Ghegs find a way to flee to the mountains to join him...

...This was, of* course, before Tito's leadership was damned by the Coininform...

...When the returns were recorded by the district commissars it was found that only 43 percent had been surrendered...

...it has the Great Soviet Union with the Groat Staiin, it has brother and ally Yugoslavia with Marshal Tito...

...Their crime: suspicion of "western sympathies...

...In early summer of 1947, 10,000 Albanian Ghegs under the leadership of their "bajraktars" (tribal chiefs) led by Gion Markagion took to the hills north of Shkodra in the Mati region...