Berisha is killing Vlorë again
Yesterday, the voice of the PD representative, Sali Berisha, continued the old routine of rhetoric accompanied by violence and threats known to all of us citizens, as criminals know them in the language of scratches. Sticking his nose into Uji i Ftohtë and Pashaliman, he spent the whole day yesterday, through the waves of his radio station, addressing the gathered crowds, inciting and encouraging drunken and blinded people to turn the city into terror, hell and a nightmare.
To destroy peace, Vlorë rose up in protest, betrayed together with its own people. People from outskirts lost in darkness and hopelessness on the part of the representatives of state power in Vlorë were gathering under the risk of gunshots and stones. “If you do not go into the city center, you will not pass,” the road police commander told the unruly “representatives” of the PD. Such a shudder was caused not only by Berisha’s voice, but also by what it conveyed and displayed, with a gun in his hand.
At the Mifol bridge, at the city exit, a checkpoint was set up. On the road out toward Uji i Ftohtë, hundreds of assailants in heavy vehicles, drunk and carrying party flags, were shouting and screaming. “We’ll burn Vlorë down.” Hungry and half-naked people were confronted by the security forces and soldiers. “Do not go any farther, Vlorë is closed.” People fled. Others brought vehicles, hundreds of them, and stones. On 28 November, the celebration for the 85th anniversary of independence was to begin and was expected to turn into a catastrophe. After Berisha ordered armed gunfire across the entire Flag Square and the port buildings to be burned, someone in the crowd was shouting: “Bring us rubber boats, we want to leave!”
Later, as soon as the gangs headed for the pier, they attacked passersby with rubber clubs, stones and iron bars. Cars were burning, shop cash boxes were empty. “See how peacefully the left-wing government has made Vlorë,” one of the gang leaders said in a cynical tone. The new terror drove people indoors. Then, as evening fell, the streets filled with policemen armed with submachine guns. Later, on the dark streets, unlicensed cars were circulating together with vans. People did not know where to run, who was chasing them, or whom they were looking for.
Through the passages, through the darkness, were beatings from police frightened by Berisha. In order to prevent people from going to the port of Vlorë, checkpoint after checkpoint was ordered, and it seemed as if a person were a captive in his own city. Some of the wounded left Vlorë, leaving the city amid blood and a storm of hatred. The people of Vlorë were asking: who brought these madmen here? Who allowed them to enter the city with vehicles and flags? Who ordered them to provoke? Why were these agitators not stopped? Why? Who is protecting them?
The citizens of Vlorë see it as the rise of a new civil war. Politicians are playing with people’s lives and the fate of a city. In order to avoid a repeat of this national tragedy, calm and prudence are required. Vlorë cannot remain a testing ground for Berisha’s mad power.