BRITAIN REFUSES ALBANIAN REQUEST

There has already been much talk of war criminals and collaborationists before the war ended. This started for the purpose of limiting the inhuman actions of Nazi-fascists in occupied countries and in order to prevent occupiers to find not easily people disposed to cooperate with them.

Killing, imprisoning, deportation and elimination of innocent people during the war had reached such alarming proportions that, on October 25, 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill each made a separate statement on the severe punishment to be met by all those who committed war crimes: meant as inhumane methods forbidden by The Hague Conference’s International Agreement.

If we were to consider that laws do not usually concern the past, President Roosevelt’s and Prime Minister Churchill’s statements contemplated crimes and criminals to come. Any free interpretation given by some so-called democratic governments on this matter can by no means alter this sound and fundamental, juridical principle.

At the Moscow Conference (October 1943), a special protocol was signed by President Roosevelt, Marshall Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill with regard to Nazi atrocities which were to be handed to the ‘free governments’ of those countries where the crimes had been committed.

The Moscow protocol seems clear; it deals with Germans and concerns the punishment for crimes committed abroad.

Hoxha’s government, not a ‘free government’ at all, has requested Britain, with reference to the Moscow Protocol (1943), the surrender of a number of Albanians considered by him either as war criminal or as collaborators. Not a single person referred to could be included in the kind whom Moscow’s Protocol attention had been called upon. Britain also knows that Tirana’s present government is anything but a ‘free government’ and does not enjoy the Albanian peoples’ support. That is why Hoxha’s claim has been explicitly rejected, the British government pointing out that Hoxha’s government had not justified by any proof the charges against his so-called war criminals, but only accused them for being his political enemies.

The writer of this article has not even stepped in Albania during the foreign occupation; for this simple reason he cannot be accused as having committed any crimes or inhumane activity during that period. But being an Albanian who does not believe in the present government, the latter seems rather willing to punish him for his opinions and for his criticism to Hoxha. Hoxha’s government denies the right of free expression to his fellow countrymen whether within the borders of Albania or abroad. This only proves that Hoxha’s government is dictatorial just as those Fascist and Nazi governments for the overthrow of which the United Nations fought.

There exist many factors which show Hoxha’s government to be a dictatorial and tyrannical one: during the period of these three years of his bestial government, Hoxha has slaughtered about 20,000 Albanians; put in prison more than 50,000 of his wretched countrymen and interned in the castles of Berat and Burrel more than another 5,000 of them.

These records do not surprise perhaps my readers, who, in these last years, have heard so much about internees, prisoners and deported people. In order to give them an idea of the gravity of the situation in proportion with Albania’s population I will explain it by taking for instance the population of the United States of America. Supposing dictator Hoxha had his headquarters in Washington and had followed his systems and methods in Uncle Sam’s land. The Americans’ candidates to slaughter would have been no less than 3,000,000, the men and women thrown into jail 7,000,000 and the number interned in the Texas and Arizona deserts about 1,000,000. But as the percentage of the American citizens who participated in the political life of their country is four or five times higher than that of the Albanians, the number of shot, imprisoned and interned Americans would have been four or five time more than these mentioned above.

In order to impose his terrorist government Hoxha on the other hand has to keep 1/10 of the Albanian population armed. Under such terms the peculiar host of the White House, had that been Hoxha, would have promoted a regime in the USA requiring no less than 13,000,000 well armed men to support it. This is the picture of what a privileged ‘progressive democracy’ could present to the USA or to any other civilized community.

Hoxha’s crimes committed up to this date do not seem to have quite satisfied him. A month ago 17 deputies and a number of other Albanians of the opposition have been executed following a facsimile of a trial and several special courts are being established in Tirana, Korca, Saranda and Elbasan for other trials to come, and to be dealt with a similar procedure.

In spite of all this bloodshed in Albania, eager Enver Hoxha still expects the surrender of fresh victims, of those Albanians who having felt things in time fled from Albania and who are lucky enough to find themselves now protected by the laws of democratic nations.

Those Albanians whom he considers as criminals and collaborationists have made supreme sacrifices to save their land from undergoing all those sufferings which occupied countries had been acquainted with during the last war. The Albanians who have fought against foreign occupation and their country should now have been entitled to enjoy rights of free democracy. But these rights are absolutely denied to us by Enver Hoxha. This gentleman would like to punish every one of us, even those on whom lie the Albanian People’s best hopes, because he thinks that his own crimes until now are not sufficient to make him a worthy disciple of Himmler.