By Dashnor Kaloçi
Memorie.al / A full 35 years have passed, at the end of December 1991 and the beginning of January 1992, when Ramiz Alia’s communist regime was in its death throes, the small town of Laç (today the Municipality of Kurbin), along with its surroundings, was engulfed in several unprecedented riots. On a pre-announced day and hour, large warehouses, shops, offices, stables, and other premises of state enterprises and institutions were attacked, looted, destroyed, and set on fire. For several days in a row, flames and smoke filled the sky over that town, and there were also victims. The only place that escaped looting at that time in that town was the branch of the State Bank, whose money and a portion of its documentation were evacuated late that night to the city of Krujë.
Regarding those tragic events, which have not yet faded from the memory of that town’s residents, we are informed by the former director of that bank, Divin Abazaj (Xhevitaj), who managed to save the branch he had been running for 25 years.
Mr. Divin, did you have any information that the Laç Bank would be attacked?
During all those days in Laç, all sorts of rumors were circulating, saying that in our town and in Mamurras, the large warehouses of Trade, State Reserves, the Municipal Enterprise, the Railway, the Goods Park, the Chemical-Metallurgical Combine, and many other national enterprises that the Laç region had at the time would be attacked.
Along with these, it was said that the State Bank branch, where I was the director, would also be attacked. All those rumors were spoken openly everywhere and, initially seeming like mere gossip, they turned out to be true, because precisely on the day and hour that had been talked about for days, they were attacked and looted by huge crowds of people.
How do you recall the event when your bank branch was attacked?
That event, if I’m not mistaken, happened at the end of December 1991 or the beginning of January 1992, when the country was governed by the Stability Government led by Ylli Bufi. After the spread of rumors that our bank branch would also be attacked, I notified the Laç police region, telling them to take measures to protect it.
Alongside this, for two or three days, I evacuated the largest part of the money we had in the bank at the time, leaving there only 11 million new lek, which was the possible minimum for its operation. Considering those rumors as gossip, I did not notify the State Bank Directorate in Tirana, since no one could even imagine that such a thing could happen. Where had it ever happened up to that time that a bank would be attacked? It seemed like madness even to think about it.
But, as I said above, on the pre-announced day and hour, the attack on all the warehouses, offices, and shops began simultaneously. I remember that day as if it were now, as it was one of the coldest days the city of Laç had ever seen. Temperatures were several degrees below zero, and there was a frost unprecedented for years, which only added to the gloom of that day. The attack on the warehouses and shops began around 6:30 p.m.
As soon as I heard the noises coming from the Trade warehouses and those of the Machinery Spare Parts, which I had only a few meters from the building where I lived, I got dressed immediately and, before going out, I called the police by phone to take measures for the bank’s security. I hurried to the bank, and all my employees, whom I had notified by phone, arrived there immediately. In front of our bank branch and beside it, where the shops and premises of Trade and the Municipal Enterprise were lined up, there was a huge crowd of hundreds of people looting everything they found there.
Was there also any attempt by the crowd to get inside the Bank?
A large crowd had also gathered there, ready to attack it, but there was, so to speak, a hesitation because our branch was secured with iron bars, which required time and tools to destroy. Together with several police officers present there, I appealed to the crowd not to come near, telling them: “Who among you takes responsibility for getting in here and distributing the money that is inside?” But the crowd did not care about our appeals, and the pressure grew stronger and stronger.
A large crowd stood in front of the bank, throwing stones at its windows, and from behind the crowd, bursts of automatic gunfire was fired into the air, putting pressure on us to leave the area. After that, the crowd approached the bank door and tried several times to open it with crowbars, but they didn’t succeed and were repelled several times by police intervention.
How much money was in the Bank that night and what happened afterwards?
The Bank had only 11 million new lek, but that was nothing compared to the credit documentation, which amounted to hundreds of millions of new lek. If that documentation with the state and private loans given by our branch had been damaged, that bank could no longer function. I was ready to give up that 11 million lek we had there, just to save the documentation. Around 11:00 p.m., I called the head of Crimes for the Laç Police, Arben Dashi, on the phone and told him to help us evacuate the money from Laç, so that we could tell the people that there was no money there.
Beni, (as he was called by the fans in Laç, since he was also a footballer with the “Industriali” team, a model man and officer, honored and respected by the entire city), proved very willing, and at 12:00 a.m., he arrived there with seven police officers and a small off-road type vehicle. At that hour, calm had somewhat returned, but there were still people on the streets and a patrol car was wandering near our bank. With one cashier, I opened the safes and, together with Arben Dashi, we started filling the sacks with money, without counting them at all. Along with the money, I also took with me the documents showing the bank’s cash balance.
As soon as we tied the mouths of the 11 sacks, we set off for the Laç Police region, and there we waited to find another vehicle because that old car could not make it all the way to Krujë. While we were waiting, Arben Dashi performed an act of a professional police officer. He sent an empty car to Fushë-Krujë to test the road to see if it would be ambushed by looting gangs.
Meanwhile, we arranged the money sacks in a fire truck and set off for Krujë, as soon as the other car that had been sent empty returned, which told us that the road didn’t have many problems. Before departure, Arben Dashi instructed the police officers to stay on top of the money sacks and that they could only let them go if they were dead. So, together with the cashier and 10 police officers, we traveled to Krujë, sitting on the money sacks, and at the Internal Affairs Department of that city, we arrived around 1:30 a.m.
There, they freed up a room for us to secure the money, and around 6:00 a.m., the chief accountant of the Krujë Bank, Fatmir Seseri, arrived to take the money into custody. We counted it, and the money turned out to be exactly as recorded in the bank’s documentation for the last day. After that, that money was sent to the Krujë Bank without any problem, since, unlike Laç and Mamurras, where flames were reaching the sky, that city was completely calm.
Did you notify your Directorate at the State Bank in Tirana about that action you took?
As soon as I returned to Laç with a passing vehicle, I called my superiors in Tirana by phone, informing them that I would not open the bank for an indefinite period. They were surprised and thought I was joking and did not want to believe what I was telling them had happened. Even though, surprisingly, I was under pressure from Tirana to open the bank, I only opened it after 15 days, when that extremely serious situation, from which only we had escaped unscathed, had calmed down somewhat.
Abazaj: “A sector manager from the Mamurras Farm, at the Committee meeting, accused: ‘You, the authorities, organized the attacks on the warehouses and shops yourselves'”
The serious situation that the city of Laç and its surroundings went through in December ’91, when all the warehouses and shops in the region were looted, was analyzed in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Krujë district, upon which that not-so-unproblematic town depended at the time. The director of the Laç Bank branch, Divin Abazaj, also participated in that meeting, and he recalls: “In that analysis held in Krujë, a report was also given on the amount of damage caused by the riots in Laç, which amounted to about 200 million new lek.
During the debates on how and why those events had happened, a very angry young man, a veterinarian by profession, who was the head of the livestock sector at the Mamurras Farm, stood up. He addressed the high officials of the Executive Committee and the District Party with these words: ‘What more do you want to know? I am telling you that on that night, these individuals came to the calf stables in Mamurras (he mentioned them by name and surname), armed, personnel from the Rapid Intervention Forces in Ndrojë, and threatened me, telling me to leave there urgently, because that complex was going to be attacked that night to be looted, and according to them, I had to leave to avoid risking my head.
So, I am telling you the names; you tell us who caused those riots. For the attacks and looting of warehouses, stables, and shops, it had been spoken about for days, and you took no measures to protect them. You of the authorities organized all of this yourselves, and don’t go looking for anyone else.’ After his words, that formal meeting was closed, and the real instigators of those riots were never found, nor were they ever punished.” / Memorie.al
