Albania Vows To Restore Resistance Fighters' Cemeteries

Albania has decided to restore its long abandoned 22 national cemeteries, which contain the bodies of thousands of people who lost their lives fighting Italian and German occupation forces during World War II.

The project led by the Ministry of Defence in collaboration with local governments aims to make all the so-called martyrs' cemeteries presentable once again by November 29, which is the date when the country commemorates the 73rd anniversary of the country's liberation.

The army is currently taking care of clearing away bushes from graves, restoring and painting marble surfaces that have become cracked and broken, and relaying tiles in the surrounding area.

"There are many people who wrote our history with their blood and we are doing this to respect and honour those who did so," Defence Minister Olta Xhacka said on Sunday, while visiting the cemetery for the Dibra region.

During the almost half-century of Communist rule, the World War II fighters' cemeteries were well cared for, and were visited by school pupils to top officials several times a year. But after the system collapsed, they were almost abandoned in the 1990s.

This was partly because anti-communists resented the way the national liberation war had been manipulated and co-opted by the Communists who took power immediately after the war ended.

They noted that, besides the Communist-led Partisans, many other people also took part in the war against foreign rule.

They also question the liberation date of 29 November, saying it was staged by the Communists. As a result, they have never commemorated national martyrs on that day.

On May 1992, after the centre-right Democratic Party took power for the first time, the body of former Communist dictator Enver...