(from Operai contro April 1997)
About 600 Italian firms have opened up branches in Albania
over the past six years, 400 of which are based in Puglia.
The turnover is not disclosed, but is estimated to be hundreds of billions of lire.
Investment sectors for Italian capitalism are multiple: packaging, textiles
and clothing, woodcarving, footwear, building, quarrying, hotels, the
food and services industry, a network for the sale of petroleum products,
chains of shops, especially for food and detergents, import-export
companies, bottling of Coca Cola and mineral water, the biggest private
bank (Banco Italo-Shiptare, with the participation of the Banco di
Roma), the reconstruction of the aqueduct of Tirana and Durazzo, the
reconstruction of some of the electric and telephone lines, etc...
Why is there so much interest in investing in Albania? One
bosses' answer says it all, that of Adelchi Sergio, shoe manufacturer in
Tricase (Lecce) with sales proceeds of 250 billion lire. He has 1,500
employees in Puglia and 5,000 spread throughout Albania, Bulgaria,
Rumania and India: "One worker in Italy costs me 28 million lire a
year, in Albania, 140,000 lire a month, in Rumania 100,000, in India
50,000. I am willing to shut down everything abroad right away.
But in Italy, especially in the south, things need to change. I am thinking
of tax savings, and labour costs cut by 30-35 per cent. Yes, the world
is changing, and it is absurd that you can divorce your wife when you
want to, but are obliged to keep a worker all your life". (Gazzetta del
Mezzogiorno, February 11, 1997).
It is interesting to see how Italian investors in Albania have seen
the popular revolt in that country. First with optimism, then, as the risks
increased, they are afraid of losing the capital invested.
The Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, a Pugliese daily which had
invested in Albania by founding the second most widely distributed
daily, Gazeta Shqiptare, reported on February 1, 1997 "the voices of
those who in a country on the verge of a state of siege are showing their
great optimism". return to the seats they had to abandon.
At the international level the gendarmes’ boss, the US, has
decided it will be the nations most directly interested in the future
economic development of Albania to see to things this time: Italy, Greece
and Turkey. Italy, which has always played a role in Albania’s ignoble
past history, has accepted this task willingly, perhaps for no other reason
than to get an opportunity flex its muscles.
First, by sinking a ship full of people and drowning them without batting an eyelid;
then running the cruiser that was the pride of the navy aground and leaving it stranded
on the beach, crammed full of refugees who were trying to leave the
country.
These blunders aside, police operations are a routine for any
government, and that is what this has become.
Bosses of every kind, from the small proprietor of a hat factory who paid “his”
workers a fifth of what he would have done in Italy, to the great administrators of the
world economy (with the never sufficiently lauded Bank of Rome in the
lead), have shared the money rashly invested by the Albanians over the
two years between themselves.
But let’s take a closer look at this money that so much has been
said about. Through its international intermediaries, in the first place
American, the Bank of Rome had been entrusted with a huge sum of
money following promises of ridiculously high levels of interest. In
fact, the operation was perfect from a capitalist point of view. Some
newspapers likened it to “chain letters”, but the comparison does not fit.
The game depended on a far greater devaluation of Albanian money
than actually happened as a result of the brakes put on due to America’s
political concern. When the operation grew out of all proportion their
inability to pay interest moved things into the realm of common fraud.
The Albanian people, poverty-stricken as a consequence of the
country’s economic conditions, nevertheless had some small savings.
Some even had a fair amount from various dealings that recent changes
in the geo-political situation had made possible.
Everything poured into the coffers of the Bank of Rome and
their international accomplices. It was in response to this situation that
the first instances of rebellion broke out. I have heard the reprimands of
revolutionaries who cannot see what “tone” a revolt born from the desire
to get one’s money back can have.
They obviously do not understand words how life is changing, we do not know.
These councils could be
an attempt at autonomous organisation by the exploited, or they might
simply be a democratic disguise for Leninist ideology.
Up until now, the most important element has been the refusal to hand over arms in
spite of the new leadership’s attempts to have the guarantees offered
by the government accepted.
This refusal, as well as making effective
the freedom that laws (exactly like the finance company) only promise,
could give the insurgents the time to go beyond promises—absolutely
useless in the face of conditions of exploitation that no capitalism with a
human face could ever improve. What makes the difference is obviously
the social aspect (how the State is not just perceived to be the enemy,
but is also rendered ineffective; how relations between individuals escape
the economy), not the military one.
The generalised armed rebellion, the
massive participation of women and children, the dialogue in the streets
and the free decision to rebel that has been recognised by each and every
citizen are all very significant. None of the parties is in control of the
situation, and the people are well armed.
So, what will happen?
We are not prophets. We could say, in
order to justify our inertness, that everything will simply end up with a
change in the ruling class. But we do not have a waiting game to justify.
It should be noted that the geographical area of the clash is a
particularly explosive one. In Bulgaria only a short time has passed since
contestation ended up in an assault on parliament (there too demanding
new elections).
There are many Greeks in Albania (concentrated in the area
controlled by the insurgents) and illegal Albanian immigrants in Greece
(continually threatened with expulsion and so submitted to ferocious
exploitation). The same could be said for Kosovo and Macedonia, not to
mention the historical tensions between Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.
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