Pro-Democracy Party Is Focus of Albania Protest

Anti-democracy protesters demanded Sunday that Albania’s government ban the opposition Democratic Party and hang its leaders, according to reports monitored in Vienna.

The rally came just hours after the government, seeking to prevent more bloodshed, denied it had asked provincial authorities to organize supporters of the late dictator Enver Hoxha to march on the capital, Tirana.

Many conservative and older Albanians revere Hoxha, Communist Albania’s Stalinist founder.

But pro-democracy crowds, who blame Hoxha for four decades of poverty and repression, last week toppled a giant statue of him as well as other monuments.

Democratic Party spokesman Genc Pollo said about 2,000 Hoxha supporters rallied Sunday in the dictator’s birthplace of Girocastra.

He said former Premier Adil Carcani, in a taped message played at the rally, vowed that the Hoxha monument would be re-erected in Tirana’s Skanderbeg square.

President Ramiz Alia replaced Carcani and his government Wednesday in an attempt to placate the crowds.

State television reported several other pro-Hoxha gatherings outside the capital.

Three days of strife over Hoxha led to bloodshed Friday. Three people were killed and scores injured when crowds marched on Tirana’s military academy.

Pollo said dozens of Democratic Party members were arrested Sunday, apparently in connection with Friday’s clash.

Authorities reported that shots were fired and explosives lobbed at the military academy Sunday. One officer inside the building was wounded by one of several bullets apparently fired from a neighboring apartment, state television said.