
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991                   TAG: 9103110281
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EXODUS

LIKE A Rip Van Winkle startled from long sleep, Albania is thrashing violently in its bed. There have been uprisings and other disorders. Masses of refugees are fleeing to neighboring Yugoslavia or across the Adriatic Sea to Italy.

This is a natural result of the tight lid clamped for generations on a terribly oppressed country. Under the late Enver Hoxha, Albania was more Stalinist than Stalin, determined to stamp out all deviations stemming from living standard, ethnic origin, religion or dress. Even the names given to newborns had to conform to party ideology. Hoxha herded tens of thousands into labor camps, torturing and executing countless numbers. Anything deemed an offense against the state was punishable by death.

In 1960, a Moscow emerging from Stalin's shadow severed relations with Tirana because Hoxha had found China more compatible. In 1972, Nixon's visit to Beijing enraged Hoxha, who soon afterward broke with China. For 17 years thereafter - even following Hoxha's death in 1985 - Albania refused contact with the outside world.

The country could not remain sealed forever, and the rumbles of revolution in Eastern Europe reached Albania a year or so ago. The communist leadership, acknowledging problems, changed the party's name to Labor. Opposition parties sprang up. Elections are scheduled March 31, but thousands of Albanians, unwilling to wait, are voting with their feet.

The hope for orderly change may be vain in a country where not only dissent but also individual differences were so long repressed. Taken on an empty stomach, the merest taste of freedom can lead to intoxication and license. Albania may be swapping decades of dreariness and dread for years of unrest and uncertainty.

by CNB