'Albania’s Problems

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23186, 27 April 1945, Page 4

'Albania’s Problems

THE only liberated country in 1 Europe in which no constitutional crisis seems to have arisen so far is Albania. The country is being ruled by M. Enver Hoxha, a young Communist teacher, who at the head of the Albanian National Liberation Army marched into Tirana and Durazzo five months ago. King Ahmed Zogu, who left the country when the Italians invaded it in April, 1939, has apparently not expressed any desire to return to his kingdom. The Albanian throne, apparently, is not the most desirable. Even so, an Albanian crisis could come at any time. The old frontier feud between Greeks and Albanians has flared up. The Greeks want to annex the Northern Epirus—the districts of Argyrokastro and Koritza where they fought so valiantly against the Italians in 1940. These districts have a large Greek and Christian minority which has suffered persecution at the hands of the Albanians. A Northern Epirus Committee, headed by the former bishop of Argyrokastro, has been active in Athens, demanding the transfer of southern Albania to the Greeks; and since Mr Churchill’s latest visit to Athens, Greek sources have hinted that the claim has met with British approval. In reply, Radio Tirana has appealed to the “democratic conscience’" of the world; and from its appeals and protests it appears that the Atlantic Charter has its most

faithful European adherents in Enver Hoxha’s Army and Committee of Liberation.

Albania owed its independent existence—and its downfall—to Italy. Italian influence no longer counts. But nature and geopolitics know no vacuum; and the country is already being engulfed in something like a Greek-Yugoslav rivalry. The new ruler of Tirana looks with admiration to Marshal Tito; and he presumably dreams about federation with Yugoslavia. If southern Albania goes to the Greeks, northern Albania will certainly throw itself into Marshal Tito’s arms.