[ALBSA-Info] 14 Qershor - Bese e Pergjithshme ne Kuvendin e Pajtimit - Puke

[Agron Alibali]

Albanians break chains of blood
On June 14, in an unprecedented gathering in a remote town, thousands will seek to end generations of vengeance

By Stavros Tzimas 
Kathimerini 
On June 14, hundreds of Albanians will gather in a remote town to try to break the chains of blood feuds that have held thousands of people captives in their own homes for generations, prisoners of a murderous cycle of revenge. The representatives of 500 families, of a total of 2,500 who are involved in vendettas, will meet in Puka, about three hours north of Tirana, to "pardon the blood," in other words to state publicly that they will stop killing each other according to the kanun, the medieval judicial custom which demands revenge for murder through seven generations. 
All will be done in accordance with the kanun, which, apart from revenge, also determined other customs and matters in local communities. Representatives of every family involved in a vendetta will form, along with the leaders of every village involved, a kuvend burrash, or assembly of men, which will declare in public their word of honor, that the cycle of blood - which in some cases may have started decades ago - is ending once and for all. 
The signing of this "eternal besa" (using the largely untranslatable Albanian word for a vow, a truce, a code of honor) will be done in the town square at the end of the kuvend. At dawn the next day, the 3,000 self-imprisoned members of the 500 families will have the right to leave their houses without being killed by their rivals in revenge murders. 
This reconciliation was achieved by the hard work and persistence of the National Reconciliation Committee, which is made up of intellectuals and social workers and is aimed at making the people of Albania (mostly the northern parts) understand that, at the dawn of the 21st century, they cannot continue to resolve their differences with guns. 
This is an historical initiative, never before undertaken in Albania, said Gjin Marku, president of the reconciliation committee. "For the first time in the history of kanun is such a reconciliation taking place. Through this public besa we want to send a message to the other families who are divided by blood, that the slaughter has to stop at long last," he said. 
President Rexhep Mejdani, Prime Minister Ilir Meta, representatives of political parties, western diplomats, international humanitarian organizations, and others, have been invited to attend in an effort to mobilize all those who can contribute toward healing the terrible social wound that plagues Albania at a time that it is looking for a way to join Europe. 
The meeting between the world of the besa and the law in Puka is mostly symbolic, as the problem of the vendetta in Albania is not limited to the 500 families who have agreed to become reconciled. According to the National Reconciliation Committee's figures, a total of 2,500 families (including 1,000 children) are trapped in their homes in northern Albania, condemned to spend their whole lives inside in order to escape the dictates of the kanun. It is estimated that those in hiding at home or in the hills come to a total of about 20,000, while 4,000 have been killed in vendettas in the last decade, following the collapse of a totalitarian Communist system that ruled Albania since World War II and used violence to stifle such forms of behavior. The total absence of a state machinery, along with the age-old custom of carrying guns, created ideal conditions for the return to the vendetta after 1991, especially in the regions of Shkoder, Leka Dukagjini, Kukes and Puka. In the town of Shkoder, there is a neighborhood, Kirash, which is called the "neighborhood of blood." About 3,000 people are confined here, organizing their own defense, in order to escape revenge.



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