Correspondents' Correspondence
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Hobbesian Albania Tirana—The Rogner Europark...
...Yet despite this promise, the state-owned subsidiary, Orinoco Bitumenes (BITOR), has faced endless obstacles in marketing the stuff...
...Orimulsion's real competitor appears to be coal, which now generates over half the electricity consumed in the U.S...
...A few days after the piano incident, nearly all the Greek reporters disappeared, feeding the conspiracy rumor mill...
...The two of them were not Berisha loyalists from the north and therefore hadn't been paid for months...
...You could feel it in the crowded hotel lobby—already the meeting place of opposition leaders and independent journalists harassed by the Berisha regime—people who felt safer camping out under the same roof with the international press corps...
...Now that the tarlike bitumen can be made to flow through pipelines, the world's largest reserves of this extra-heavy oil can finally be exploited...
...So they were now moonlighting, driving reporters around Albania...
...These and other cultural imports were largely introduced by the foreign oil companies that dominated the economy until the industry was nationalized in 1976...
...I acted instead on a rumor that an Italian helicopter was coming to the airport...
...Baseball, not soccer, is their number one sport...
...Yet BITOR's client list includes such ecologically conscious countries as Denmark, Canada and Japan...
...A few nights later, with the Muzak having gone surreal ("Jingle Bell Rock"), no one even bothered to get up from their tables when all hell broke loose outside...
...A colleague phoned from downstairs and said "They're coming to the third floor, looking for someone suspicious...
...It was from the vantage point of the hotel—just across from the office of President Sali Berisha—that we of the foreign media observed Albania's recent troubles, which can only be described as "the spirit of John Belushi meets the Balkan thrillers of Eric Ambler...
...Unlike oil, which is concentrated in a handful of countries, global coal reserves are immense and widely distributed...
...Back in Tirana, cabin fever set in early at the Rogner...
...In a country where conspiracy theories are the stuff of life, Albanians look on the Greeks with some suspicion: They are convinced the neighboring country has ancient territorial claims on southern Albania, known in Greece as Northern Epirus...
...We called the American Embassy, asking whether there were any helicopters we could hitch a ride on...
...These include the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' drive to have Orimulsion counted in Venezuela's oil-production quotas, as well as opposition by powerful British coal interests...
...For a foreign correspondent in a place like the Balkans, such a stamp is the equivalent of inclusion on the FBI's Most Wanted List...
...Yet the night passed without an attack, and we soon got used to what became the normal backdrop of random gunfire...
...Even the Justice Minister of the newly appointed government, Spartak Ngjela, never left the lobby...
...Nevertheless, at dinner time the media pack did break down along national lines—there was the Italian table, the British table, the German, the Spanish, and the Greek...
...While most Third World countries might take umbrage at Le Carre's literary license, Venezuelans would probably be unfazed...
...The portly Austrian manager was in a state of incoherent agitation...
...For the first few days it was carefree country-and-western ("There wouldn't be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks")—out of place, but certainly reassuring...
...Hobbesian Albania Tirana—The Rogner Europark Hotel was built by an Austrian chain just about a year ago...
...Moreover, prices of both crude and fuel oil have been unstable ever since they skyrocketed in the 1970s, in contrast to the steadiness of the coal market...
...There, citizens infuriated over the collapse of shady pyramid schemes that had left hundreds of thousands bankrupt were taking things into their own hands...
...The two men smiled, stretched out their hands for a shake, and replied, "We Mafiosi...
...We were told that if there were any U.S...
...One day, I hopped a cab forthe 15-mile (but one-hour) trip to the port of Durrës...
...The Rogner may have an extra distinction: In a state that has completely collapsed, it is virtually the only functioning institution...
...We continued our meal by candlelight, calmly speculating on which direction the shots might be coming from...
...Before long, the two young policemen thought to eliminate the middleman by taking payoffs directly from their "suspects" before letting them go...
...Scotch, not high-grade native rum, is their spirit of choice...
...Things did get a little testy one night when the Greek contingent took over the piano in the bar and gave vent to a medley of Greek music...
...With a 7:00 P.M...
...I heard running in the corridor, but they didn't come for me or for anyone else...
...Not only did he order all of us to turn off our lights, he actually got on a stepladder and started unscrewing light bulbs...
...Particularly heavy bursts of automatic weapons exploded just a few yards from the hotel and the waiters rushed to turn off the lights...
...Reporters were stuck together for so long in tight quarters that there was little chance for competition...
...The rough stuff was then happening in southern Albania...
...Once I saw him leave in a taxi, his arm stretched out the window waving his small flag, probably hoping this would guarantee him diplomatic immunity in the wild streets of the city...
...I learned a great deal from these young men, who both packed large guns under their jackets...
...curfew, there was nowhere else to go...
...Located along a 400-mile strip north of the Orinoco River, the deposits (estimated at around 270,000 million recoverable barrels) may one day constitute the most important supply of liquid fossil fuel...
...Ittookthe surge in oil prices in the 1970s to spur the newly nationalized Venezuelan oil industry to finda way to harness Orinoco's potential...
...Without moving, I watched the scene reflected in the glass pane of my open window...
...Using the Albanian word, they said "We gazetari...
...This is the margin BITOR says it is targeting—a far cry from Le Carre's talk of world domination.—Steve Ellner...
...But over a few short weeks this March, it joined the ranks of legendary establishments from which journalists have covered the world's wars and upheavals—Saigon's Continental, Beirut's Commodore, Sarajevo's Holiday Inn...
...Looniness was rampant...
...The Orinoco deposits were discovered in the 1920s, but 50 years later they were still untapped...
...The thugs of Berisha's dreaded secret police, the Shik, had stormed the arsenals and were terrorizing the capital...
...In fact, the revolutionary fossilfuel product—which consists of fine droplets of bitumen suspended in water —was invented by Venezuelan scientists with the help of British colleagues, and has been developed, they say, to complement rather than displace coal as a raw material for the generation of electricity...
...I soon found I could predict events from the elevator music...
...Most of the Albanian Navy took to sea and surrendered to Italy...
...It turned out to be a Hercules C-130 transport plane, and the 3 5-minute Tirana-Brindisi flight—free and stampless—felt like first class on Lufthansa.— Sylvia Poggioli Venezuela's Black Gold Puerto La Cruz—In his latest bestselling novel, 77ie Tailor of Panama, John Le Carré attributes the development of Orimulsion to the Japanese and suggests that it forms part of a plan for global domination...
...When the hotel management started playing Wagner's "Ride of the Walkyrie" in the elevator, I knew something was about to happen...
...But we were also told that our passports would be stamped "valid only for direct travel to the United States"—and that the stamp would not be voided until we paid $450 for the ride...
...I did not feel reassured...
...Indeed, on March 13 Tirana erupted with random bursts of gunfire...
...A Western ambassador who had lost his driver and car walked through the lobby holding his country's flag...
...But, they told me, each time they had brought someone up for trial, the suspect would pay off the judge and be released...
...So safe, in fact, that one small opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, held a two-hour strategy session at poolside...
...Word spread that the hotel had received a direct threat—it was going to be attacked as a hotbed of the foreign media "working for President Berisha's downfall...
...The latter wanted to levy a special European Community oil tax on the product in a bid to hinder marketing efforts there...
...This is called justice in Berisha's Albania...
...Traditionally they are the least nationalistic of all Latin Americans...
...The American table stuck out—we were nearly all women...
...Before long, I learned both men had been members of the erstwhile police force, a body that, like the Army, had simply disintegrated over a period of a few days...
...With this in mind, BITOR has cleverly targeted those utilities with plans to switch over from fuel oil...
...His hopes for profit rest on the disproportionate effect world economic growth has on the demand for electricity: A 1 per cent expansion produces a corresponding 1.5 or 2 per cent jump in demand...
...If Orimulsion is not a conspicuous source of pride here, its potential should not be underestimated...
...One night even the Rogner no longer felt safe...
...A goon—in de rigueur black leather jacket and black sunglasses—was aimingaP-32 at our rooms, while two others with Kalashnikovs stormed the restaurant...
...As Chinese-made tanks dating from the 1950s patrolled the potholed streets, and helicopters evacuated foreign nationals from the nearby soccer field, diplomats also sought refuge at the hotel...
...citizens who wanted to get out, a chopper would be sent to pick us up...
...As I was working in my thirdfloor room, I heard angry shouts in the garden below...
...British critics have gone so far as to label Orimulsion "the filthiest fuel in the world...
...For reasons unknown, I was treated to an escort in addition to the driver...
...He solicited interviews and made world headlines by declaring, with a literary flourish, that "Albania is a natural state, if you know your Thomas Hobbes"—the English philosopher who described the state of nature as anarchic and warlike...
...The hotel staff was not amused...
...They had been part of the criminal police, in charge of arresting suspects...
...I killed the lights and waited...
...Everyone is shaken by rate hikes, but power companies are especially vulnerable because they cannot readily pass increases on to customers...
...Two American journalists who went to the port of Vlore—a notorious hub of organized crime—nervously introduced themselves as reporters to a pair of Kalashnikovwielding townsmen...
...The threat seemed plausible enough to the hotel guards—we found them huddling in the elevator, ashen-faced and clutching their rifles...
...The company is confident that future technological advances will lengthen the list of environmental advantages Orimulsion enjoys over coal, BITOR president Carlos Borregales says he is seeking mainly to find a "niche" for Orimulsion, not to dislodge coal in international markets...
...Then came that time when upheavals enter a lull, and the international press corps, acting as one, packs up to leave...
Vol. 80 • April 1997 • No. 6
