Albania Commemorates Communist Killing of MPs

Albania commemorated the 70th anniversary of the execution of 15 Albanian MPs on Tuesday. The group had dared to obstruct former dictator Enver Hoxha's plans to install a communist regime in Albania after WWII.

Commemorative activities were organised by the Authority for Information on Former Communist Police Secret Files, established in January, convened Albania's current political classes, diplomats, representatives of communism institutions and the families of those killed and prosecuted.

Political party leaders used the chance to speak about the initiatives each have been taking to condemn and encourage transparency over the communist past, while also accusing one another of maintaining ties to the communist legacy.

In a speech, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama emphasised that the painful past will continue to emerge in the present.

"The past tends to keep as hostages our present through ghosts and characters that have used democracy," he said.

The leader of opposition Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha said that he feels ashamed that the parliament today is being directed by somebody who was part of the old regime.

"This place [parliament], in a way, has [in it] people taught by Enver Hoxha," he said.

Indirectly Basha was referring to the chairman of parliament, socialist MP Gramoz Ruci who in 1990 - when the communist regime had not yet fallen - held the position of minister of the interior for a few months. 

The anticommunist institution's representatives shed more light on communist methods of killing and persecution, such as fabricated accusations being levvied against political opponents and their families. 

The MPs who were executed 70 years ago were not communists. They had been educated in Western...