In December '90, Edmond Budina was returning from Switzerland with the National Theater troupe, where they had gone to give a performance. At the border, he learned that word had spread in Tirana that he and Yllka Mujo had sought political asylum there. Upon arriving in the capital, someone told him that, "a revolt has broken out in Student City...". The next day he was among the students. From that moment on, Edmond Budina joined the student movement until the complete collapse of the long communist dictatorship.

Mr. Budina recounts for the newspaper "Panorama" the events of those days that made history, from the meeting at the Brigades Palace with President Ramiz Alia, to the preparation of the DP program at Gramoz Pashko's house. Edmond Budina shows that they took care to protect it from the police to the students. He also talks about the rivalry and debates within the protagonists for the leadership of the DP. The co-founder of the DP also sheds light on the meeting of Edi Rama at the Student City in March 1991.

Mr. Budina, what was the situation in Tirana and in Student City on the morning of December 8, 1990? When did you become part of the student movement?

I can't say what the atmosphere was like on December 8, 1990, because I was returning from Switzerland with the National Theater troupe, where we had gone to give a performance. I can say that the atmosphere of all those months, which prepared for December 8, was glorious throughout Albania. We had taken this atmosphere with us on our Swiss tour, where for the first time we visited a Western country, which for us was like a fairy tale. Word had spread in Tirana that Yllka Mujo and I had sought political asylum in Switzerland. The border officer, when he saw me return, openly expressed his surprise, telling me: "Thank you for coming, Mond Budina, because there have been words here that you have sought political asylum."

A friend of my brother, Robert, whom I had prepared to enter the Academy of Arts, tells me the same thing: “Why did you return, professor, because words have been spoken here…” For a moment, the famous church, the Duomo of Milan, came to mind, which we saw for the first time at 4 in the morning, after a tiring journey. A fine drizzle was falling and there was a thin layer of fog around. I went to the gate on the left side, rested my hands and I, who did not believe in God, prayed: “Oh God, help the Albanian people!”. I said that prayer in Italian and Albanian, as if God would not understand me. After the prayer and what I had experienced in the West, which had been anathema for decades and decades through the regime’s propaganda, my answer could only be: “I have returned to fight”. And he told me: “A revolt has broken out in the Student City”. The next day I was among the students.

Was this the moment you became an active participant in the December '90 Movement? How did you experience those days?

There are some events in a person's life, in which he is involved, either unintentionally or unintentionally, but which remain indelible in the memory and you become part of a story. Such were those days of that December of '90. I am perhaps the only one who has participated in the meetings with Ramiz Ali, whether in the one in August ninety with the country's well-known intellectuals, or in the one with the students. If in the first meeting the impressions were not what they were, because of the timid reaction of the intellectuals, including me; in the second, because of the atmosphere created, they were very impressive. I will never forget the moment when we got on the bus to go to the meeting and the light of hope in the eyes of the students and citizens who accompanied us and welcomed us after the meeting. There were those who cried, touched, kissed its windows as if it were something divine. Likewise, the atmosphere inside the bus was both honorable and beautiful. The meeting, where the students, unlike the intellectuals, showed themselves to be brave, determined to take their fight to the end.

Those days were loaded with so much emotion, events, and experiences that it is impossible to forget. I cannot forget, for example, the moment when the bus, instead of turning right after leaving the Student City to go to the Palace of Congresses, as we had been told beforehand, turned left. The laughter and enthusiasm momentarily faltered. We all thought of the Mountain of Holes, where the enemies of the regime were shot. After the explanation given by the Minister of Education at the time, Skënder Gjinushi, and the Secretary of the Central Youth Committee, Lisien Bashkurti, who told us that we were going to the Palace of Brigades, the joyful atmosphere somehow returned.

Also impressive was the arrival at the premises of the Brigades Palace, where the heads of the guards, some civilians and some military, emerged from the decorative bushes, looking at us with curiosity, or perhaps even anger. The following days were like the days when rivers flood, flowing so fast and loaded with unprecedented events and emotions. Pluralism was allowed, an opposition party was being created, something almost unimaginable, just a few days ago. The myth of the Party of Labor, the dictatorship of the proletariat, had been broken, and the people were full of hope and dreams.

How was the meeting that divided the eras, because the next day President Ramiz Alia immediately convened the Political Bureau and declared the right to political pluralism...?

The meeting with President Alia took place in a tense atmosphere, after all the events that are already known had taken place. In my opinion, the tension was also created by the curtain behind our backs that separated the hall. Even today, I do not know what was hidden behind it. However, it must be said that the students did not back down. Alia showed himself, always in my opinion, to be very cunning when he accepted almost from the beginning the formation of a student party or political pluralism, but in a somewhat vague, vague form. With such an affirmation, the meeting should have ended and we should have been grateful to the president, who was making us a "big" concession, forgiving us, giving us the opportunity to create a party, but the students were not satisfied with so little and did not fall prey to that trap.

They insisted on a true pluralism and exposed all the exploits and defects of the Labor Party, the government and the police. At that time, although things had begun to change, even in the international arena, it was not a field of flowers and easy to oppose the dictatorship of the proletariat. No one knew how it might react. 45 years of experience had shown that when necessary, it had not spared violence and repression. Now, after 34 years, when you hear some "heroes" and talkative people who flatter and say that everything was directed, organized by the Labor Party itself, or the students did not act properly for this or that event, you want to scream and tell them: "Well, the students and the December movement did not act as much and as they should, but you "brave after the pilaf", where were you when we were really facing the wrath and forces of the dictatorship?" Perhaps not everything was done perfectly and as it should have been, but for the first time students rose up against the dictatorship and political pluralism, good or bad, with values ​​or defects, was established. What had not happened since 1944, despite the occasional dissatisfaction and revolts, happened in 1990, thanks to the student revolt.

The leader of the movement was a 28-year-old student from Tropoja. His name was Azem Hajdari, he studied philosophy, he was older than his other friends. What was your first meeting with him and what did you see in that student, who took the lead of the movement, coming out publicly and allaying the fears of dozens of other students?

I didn't know Azem Hajdari, but coincidence brought me to know him in a special circumstance. As I said, I had just returned from Switzerland and the next day I was leaving for Student City. On the way, I met a drama student, Arben Derhemi, who told me to go to the building where the meeting of the student and faculty representatives was taking place, who would select the group that would go to the president. According to him, this was a message from Arben Imami, who was inside the building where the meeting was taking place. The glass-paneled door of the building was closed. Beyond her, I see a boy in a leather jacket, who approaches the door and says to me: "Respect for you, professor. We saw 'Moonlight' and you inspired us. ("Moonlight" was my dramatization of I. Kadare's work and a play put on by me on the stage of the National Theater, which caused a lot of commotion at the time, as for the first time something that was not socialist realism was dared to be shown.) Some intellectuals and professors have come here, but we have not accepted them. You will forgive me for asking the representation, which is inside."

He entered and returned a little later. Opening the door, he said: “Order! We are waiting for you!” This was Azem Hajdari. From the first moment I met him, I was impressed by his direct way of communication. He said what he thought without hesitation, without fear. He had no “hairs on his tongue”. I am talking about the time I knew him. He listened attentively to those who were older, respected them, but did not hesitate to contradict them when he saw fit. With his northern way of speaking, with an open nature that communicated with everyone, and perhaps with his courage or stubbornness, he inspired confidence in others. Perhaps because he was a little older, they had chosen him as their leader. Azem, I have the impression, was a kind of inspiration for his peers at that time. I think that fear in general at that time had begun to die down and students were brave, but of course Azem's example also influenced some of them.

I want to remember that the students of the Academy of Arts, and especially those of Dramatic Art and Directing, dared to react even before December 8 and were very active in the entire movement. One of the beautiful memories I have with him is when we sat in the student canteen in Student City and ate beans with yogurt or spinach, on the same aluminum plate, with those crooked spoons. I was impressed by his extraordinary enthusiasm. He was tireless when we went to rallies to create the Democratic Party and did not hesitate to fight with the police, as happened to us in Lushnja. He was one of the only ones, even when he became an MP, etc., after I had left political life, who would stop his car on the street and meet me. In August 1998, when I had come on vacation from Italy, on the main boulevard, by the busts of the Frashëri brothers, I saw Azem among a group of people accompanying him. He broke away from them and met me warmly. That was the last time I saw him. On September 12, they killed him.

What was Sali Berisha's role in those days?

As I said above, I became part of the student movement on December 11, the day we went to the meeting with President Alia, so I don’t know what Sali Berisha’s role was at that moment and whose idea it was for the meeting. As for Mr. Berisha, I met him sometime around 1986, when I was on vacation in Pogradec, from an unforgettable friend, the renowned neurosurgeon Arian Xhumari. Berisha was a renowned cardiologist at the time and, in addition, he had published articles in the newspaper “Zëri i Popullit”, had spoken in “Zëri e Amerika” and in the meeting with intellectuals he had the courage to say that the police forces had injured or killed someone on July 2, 1990, when the embassy raids took place, so he was known in the public as an opponent and demanded fundamental changes in Albanian society and politics. According to what I've read, his own testimonies, and the chronicles of the time, he had an active role in everything that was happening in those days.

You are one of the co-founders of the Democratic Party of Albania, how did you achieve the creation of the first pluralist party after the long communist dictatorship?

After returning from the meeting with President Alia in Student City, the atmosphere was extraordinary. We were returning from the meeting with an extraordinary result, political pluralism. Although it was night, the participation was unpredictable and the enthusiasm indescribable. While we were waiting for the recorded tape of the meeting to arrive from the presidency, which would be heard in the square, we invited Sali Berisha and Gramoz Pashko, who had come to support us along with other intellectuals, to speak in front of the crowd. There we agreed to meet the next day at 8 am at Gramoz Pashko's house to draft a minimal program of the DP. Gramoz had a house relatively larger than our modest apartments, it was very close to Student City and he had a computer. I even remember that to enter Gramoz's house we had to use a slogan, like the ones we had used in the war films and the illegals of socialist realism.

The next day, at exactly eight o'clock, I knocked on the door, but damn it, I had forgotten the slogan. It took a few minutes until Shpendi (as far as I remember, that was the name of a Gramoz student who had been posted as a guard) opened the door for me. There, in addition to Gramoz, for the first time I also met Aleksandër Meksi and Genc Ruli, who were close to him and invited by him. Then, as we had left, Sali Berisha, Arben Imami, Azem Hajdari also came. In the library of the house there was also the "Charter of Human Rights", which we read and we were formulating the minimum program of the party, which from there we thought of calling the "Democratic Party". I remember how we discussed and each of us gave our own opinions. At one point, the need arose to keep some kind of record and none of us felt capable of doing it, so we called Eduart Selami, who was staying on the ground floor with Gramoz's wife, Moza, and Dashamir Shehi. I also remember that at one point Agim Buxheli also came, who made some recordings with his camera. Late at night, a friend of Gramoz's came, who, as far as I remember, was called Sokol, who worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and saw the material from the legal side.

We agreed that the next day the program would be read at the rally organized in the student city, by Arben Imami and that Azem Hajdari would greet on behalf of the students. The program was printed in several copies and I personally gave it to some trusted students at the Academy of Arts at that time, to bring to the Student City. The fear that someone might be prevented by the police made us think of this option. The students would enter the Student City from different directions and would hand over the program to Beni or me. These students, whom I considered trusted, were Robert Budina, Kastriot Çipi, Arben Derhemi, Hervin Çuli and Altin Basha. In fact, we had no obstacles from the police and Arben Imami read the program in front of an unprecedented crowd of people, who rejoiced and even cried with enthusiasm and hope.

How was the DP created, where debates among the protagonists themselves were not few... until the final decision?

At Gramoz's house, we had also agreed that we would expand the circle of intellectuals, that an initiative committee would be created, which would deal with the organization of the future party. I must admit that all of us lacked the experience of creating and leading a party and everything was done in a kind of improvised sense "by seeing and doing". Many things were clarified and understood along the way. There were also in those moments misunderstandings, intrigues, the influx of elements that supported x or y. There were those who sought to introduce supporters of themselves, groups that wanted to take advantage in relation to others. There were those who were servile to those who thought they would become leaders, so in a kind of sense, there was inertia, desire, passion, ambition, but above all one thing in common, the change of Albania and its rapprochement with Europe. A meeting was held at the "Student" club where the initiating committee for the formation and legalization of the Democratic Party would be selected.

An extraordinary influx of people, who tried to enter the hall even by pushing each other. Some of the participants were known, while some were completely unknown and the proposals were among the most surprising. I remember someone who stood up and said. "I propose the lady, who is combative, capable..." and added a series of qualities that left you speechless. At the end, he closed the lecture with the words: "She definitely deserves to be elected, I know her very well because she is my sister". I will not forget the words of the late Gramoz who said more or less that, "it was like a cooperative meeting with distinguished women". The debates, while I was a participant, were frequent and sometimes even strong. I remember that the meetings lasted until late at night, but undoubtedly this was one of the best things, because it was bringing a new mentality. There was no "One" who decided everything.

Decisions, even with debates, were made collegially. When someone, for example, wanted to remove one or several members of the leadership, the rest stood up and strongly opposed it. I remember a case when Arben Lika, Tef Malshyti, Shinasi Rama, Ritvan Peshkëpia and some others threatened to leave and form another party. One of them even wrote a letter saying that the aspirations of the students were being betrayed. So it was an unknown path, not an easy one, but it still yielded its result, the creation of an opposition party, the Democratic Party, which for better or worse (but mostly for better) is a value and asset of Albanian society.

Was Sali Berisha the right person to lead the DP?

Whether or not Sali Berisha was the right man to lead the DP, time will tell. However, at that moment a strong man was needed, with personality, because the mentality, as it continues today, is what we always need, we need a shepherd, who has the features of an invincible man, a hero, who resembles an almost divine being. The leader should be compared either to Skanderbeg, Zeus, or be declared a hero, who is worshipped by all of Albania. We forget that the leader, despite his strong personality, personal abilities, is nothing without the mass of supporters and the more common the leadership of the party or the country, the more successful the leader himself is.

Sali Berisha at that moment found himself in the right place, at the right time and with the right ambition. No one can judge whether in Sali Berisha's place there would have been someone else and things would have gone better than they did. They could have gone better, but they could have gone even worse, like a civil war. Here, all those who were in charge of affairs at that time have merit.

Who were those who showed ambition to lead the DP?

When we returned late at night from long meetings with a group of friends, we all said that since we were not politicians by profession, we would retire as soon as the right politicians came, but fortunately, or unfortunately, no one retired from politics, except me. In those beginnings, it is not that anyone had openly shown ambition to become the leader of the DP and we acted together. Of course, not having the ambition to deal with politics, I noticed how some of them tried to be in the center of attention, or even took some action to take the position of leader, but no one had openly expressed themselves. Later, when the elections began, the figures who presented themselves as candidates to lead the party emerged. At the first congress, which took place at the Opera Theater, where the vote for the party leader was also held, I know that there was a rivalry between Sali Berisha and Aleksandër Meksi, but in the end Sali Berisha was elected.

During that period, did Edi Rama oppose the system with art...?

To be honest, I don't know that I saw any of his works that opposed the system during that period. I do remember that sometime around the end of the 80s, he had created a mural at the entrance to the Drama and Figurative Arts branch, with activists planting trees and doves on their shoulders. A typical work of socialist realism. Maybe in the figurative arts, with his students, maybe he also created works that opposed the system, but I haven't seen it publicly. I haven't even heard, since the time when we were staging "Night with the Moon" and the entire Politburo came to see it and stop it, when they were sending us threatening letters that we were opposing the system, that he had created works of art against the system. If he had them hidden and kept them to bring them out when the system fell, that's another thing.

Was Mr. Rama in the trenches of the student protest that brought about the change of the communist system? Is it true that he spoke of a change of system and of democratic processes that should be oriented towards Western Europe and not Eastern Europe?

I want to prove that he was never in the trenches when it came to concrete actions. He was not a participant in the silent protest of the citizens of Tirana on January 28, 1990, at 18 p.m., where the whole of Tirana was uprooted, nor in the student revolt in December of that same year, nor in the meeting with Ramiz Alina, nor in the formation of the Democratic Party, nor in the student hunger strike for the removal of the name Enver Hoxha from the University, nor in the toppling of the dictator's statue.

"Accidentally or intentionally", he was most of the time abroad. Personally, I was never present when he spoke about changing the system, but to be honest, I heard from that time that he spoke about the needs of change. At that time, it was easy to say a word against it, when your parents were members of the Central Committee, or deputies, or when you were with children of the nomenklatura, who lived in the Bloc, but you had to have the guts to act concretely against it, without having any kind of support.

What is the truth about Edi Rama's arrival at the protest and his statement that "we should hang the communists"? Why did Rama leave and who didn't want him to be there at those moments...?

At that time, anyone who was against the system was welcome and the doors were open to everyone. We all wanted as many people as possible to approach us. We needed the widest possible support. There was no one who did not want his presence. But things must be seen in the circumstances in which they happened. Somewhere around March 1991, he appeared in the Student City, at a time when in Shkodra, according to reports from Shkodra students like Arben Broci etc., police reprisals had begun. He came, as far as I remember, invited by Gramoz Pashko. He entered the meeting we were organizing and with unparalleled arrogance and arrogance, demanded that we do everything he said. Until then, he had not appeared anywhere, had not taken any initiative and now he came to dictate his orders or opinions to us.

Of course, everyone opposed him, because no one wanted revenge, violence or bloodshed, and when he saw that there was no possibility of his proposals being implemented, or of having a chair for him, he left. His position was extreme right-wing and demanded the hanging of communists, including his father. He expressed this publicly at the March rally in front of the "Qemal Stafa" stadium. It was precisely this extreme right-winger who one morning became left-wing and at the head of the Socialist Party. Fortunately, the communists were not hanged, but it is unfortunate that the communists continue to vote for such a fascist even today. Perhaps they do not say in vain that he who beats you loves you, imagine how much Rama loves the communists, how much he wants to hang them.../Panorama Newspaper/ 

(BalkanWeb)