Albania's former president, Alfred Moisiu, has spoken out about the legacy of massive fortifications during communism, calling them a strategy that had more political motives than a real need to protect against external attacks.
In an interview on "Off the Record" with Andrea Dangli on A2 CNN, Moisiu said that neither NATO nor the Soviet Union would have attacked Albania at that time.
"Neither NATO nor the Soviet Union would have ever attacked Albania despite the fortifications that time had made. It was both for political purposes that very massive fortification that was made under communism, and to cover the gaps of time."
He emphasized the high level of militarization of the country during the communist regime: "We were militarized to the peak. Within 48 hours, Albania had half a million soldiers under arms, and that's not a little. We took the model of Switzerland, of Israel, but the problem is that we had planes, but not of the time, we had tanks, however, for the region they were exactly the same. We didn't have a few, but the Albanian army had 1200 tanks, Yugoslavia had 1500, which had that entire border. We have now scrapped these. I don't want to go into these things because it makes my blood boil!"
Meanwhile, Moisiu issued another strong statement, saying that if the north had not been fortified during the Kosovo war, Serbia would have reached the Drin. "The fortification was excessive, but it was necessary. When the Kosovo war happened, if the north had not been fortified, the Serbs would have entered all the way to the Drin. The world would no longer be concerned with Kosovo," Moisiu said, adding that the army is now being deployed to clean up the beaches. (A2 Televizion)
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