King in Exile Awaits Chance to Reclaim Albania

From a rustic suburban house with a yard full of overgrown weeds, five dogs and a rusting pickup truck, the man who would be king of Albania plots a return to the homeland he scarcely knows.

King Leka I, an exile for all of his 50 years, believes the rapid political reforms in Eastern Europe will light a fire in long-isolated Albania, the last hard-line Stalinist state in the region.

If a revolution comes, Leka said in an interview, he would be proud to follow the footsteps of his father, the self-made monarch King Zog I.

If the people don’t want a king, he would settle for the chance to return to the country he left in 1939, when he was 3 days old, to escape invading Italian troops during World War II.

“My only home is Albania,” said Leka, who has lived in seven countries and speaks eight languages. “But I’ve learned to feel at home wherever I have my family and my dogs.”

He’s 6-feet-8-inches tall, with glasses and a full head of graying hair. For a meeting at his home, he wears a pistol and a combat knife in his holster, and his military-style shirt has an Albanian crest pinned on his collar.

Leka, in a statement issued in December, called on Albanians inside and outside the country to “rise up, acting in unity and cohesion against the tyrannical and atheist regime that has for so long misruled our beloved homeland.”

He said the message has been broadcast to Albania from radio stations in Yugoslavia’s adjacent Kosovo region, and also has been reported on Radio Moscow and the Voice of America.

Albania’s Communist Party chief, Ramiz Alia, says he will resist reforms in the rigidly controlled nation, the poorest and most rural in Europe. The country has been largely cut off from the outside world since the Communists came to power in 1946 under Enver Hoxha, who ruled until his death in 1985.

The Communist Party daily newspaper, Zeri I Populit, recently accused Albanian exiles of trying to foment an uprising that would bring Leka to power. Yugoslav newspapers have published reports of unrest in Albania, which have not been confirmed and which the Albanian government has denied.

Leka said that more than four decades of repressive rule will make it difficult to mobilize opposition forces. But he and his supporters have offices in France and elsewhere in Europe, and maintain clandestine contacts with government and military figures disgruntled with the Communist leadership, he said.

Because Albania is such a closed society, no accurate measure of Leka’s support within the country can be made. But he believes he could serve as a unifying force among Albanians opposed to Communist rule and is confident of his stature despite his family’s long absence.

But for now, Leka can do little more than wait.

Leka and his Australian-born wife, Susan, left Spain in 1979 when Communist states put pressure on the Madrid government. Leka claims that the Communist governments acted on behalf of Albania because he had been building strong support inside and outside his homeland.

A year later, the couple rented a ranch-style house at the end of a dirt road here in the far northern suburbs of Johannesburg, intending to stay only six months.

During his exile, Leka’s backers have included the late President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal and Belgium’s King Baudouin. He honored their support in naming his 8-year-old son, the crown prince, Leka Anwar Zog Reza Baudouin.

He has used his contacts to support himself as a businessman, exporting minerals and heavy machinery to the Middle and Far East. He also travels extensively to maintain contacts with the estimated 3 million ethnic Albanians who live outside the country’s borders, a number almost equal to those inside.

“It has been difficult to wear several different hats--to try to be a businessman and lead a normal family life and to head an opposition movement,” said Leka.

Leka’s father, the head of an Albanian clan, became Albania’s prime minister in 1922 when he was still in his 20s.

In 1928, the National Assembly gave him a title that translated into “prince,” according to Burke’s Royal Families of London. However, Zog proclaimed himself “His Majesty, King Zog I,” and the constitution called for his son to succeed him.

Zog died in France in 1961, and Leka was sworn in by the government-in-exile.

“I am the king in exile, and I believe one day I will return,” Leka said.