[Saranda-L] The burnt library

[silke.blumbach at t-online.de]

"You are wrong about what happened here in 1997", said Agim. "Those 
people are not heros fighting for freedom, they just destroyed everything 
they found in their way."
     In fact, although I can understand the rage of the betrayed 
people, who had lost all their savings in fraudulent, collapsed pyramide 
schemes and who accused the government of being responsible, nothing 
justifies the destruction of public, cultural goods.
     The library of the Southern Albanian town of Saranda, the pearl of 
the Ionian Sea, was situated at a corner in the centre of the town. Now 
it has been a ruin for three years. The buiding stared at me with 
blackened window openings. There was nothing behind except stones and 
rubbish. All books were gone or burnt.
     This burnt and then abandoned house stands for the events of 1997. 
They are a landmark in the history of the country. Several times I was 
told: "They had opened a business" or " there had been foreign 
investments - but then came 1997 and its wave of destruction." During that 
spring, many people turned their back forever to the small contry on the 
Balkans.
     Yet there are encouraging signs that show that the cultural life 
of Saranda is on the way back. My host, the poet Agim Mato, lives with 
his family in a very poor, even primitive appartment: he sold his house in 
order to buy a typesetting machine. Now he runs the only publishing 
house of Saranda. The books he prints range from poetry to the history of 
the local football team. 
    And there are Shkelqim Hajno, Arben Vogli and their staff of 
enthusiastic volunteers, the pioneers of Radio Saranda. This local radio 
station has been broadcasting since March 1st a programme of astonishing 
quality under more than modest conditions.
    Last not least there is Auron Tare or Ani, whom I failed to meet 
during this holiday, the director of the Butrint Foundation, whose efforts 
in the restauration of the arcaeological UNESCO World Heritage site are 
exemplary.