Some Albanian Rebels Agree To Peace Deal; Others Fight On

Rebels in this city agreed Monday to lay down their arms in return for the speedy fulfillment of a peace deal worked out between President Sali Berisha and his political opponents. But anti-government forces elsewhere in southern Albania vowed to continue their fight.

Rebel representatives from Vlore, an Adriatic coastal city that has been at the center of the near 2-week-old revolt, signed the declaration on an Italian warship at a meeting with Italy’s ambassador to Albania.

The ambassador, Paolo Foresti, intervened after the Albanian government asked Italy to help establish a dialogue with the rebels, Reuters reported.

“The committee … undertook to favor the immediate handing back of weapons in the hands of the citizens of Vlore and to ensure public order and progressively restore normal administration to the town,” said the statement, which was read on state television in Albania and published by the Italian Foreign Ministry.

It was not clear how the undertaking would be carried out in Vlore, or whether it had any validity in other areas of southern Albania where rebels have been extending their grip.

In Sarande, another rebel-held town 100 miles to the south of Vlore, opponents of Berisha insisted Monday they want Berisha removed from office and their money recovered from corrupt investment schemes.

The divided rebel response indicated that hard negotiating lies ahead before the revolt ends and government control returns to southern Albania, where rebellion has replaced work, and where food and other supplies are dwindling.