By LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press Writer
TIRANA, Albania July 22, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press
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In this picture taken on June 28, 2009, a newly-built restaurant operates beside former military...
In this picture taken on June 28, 2009, a newly-built restaurant operates beside former military bunkers on Golem beach on the Adriatic Sea, 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of the capital Tirana. Officials in Albania say Thursday, July 22, 2009, Cold War-era bunkers are being dragged off a beach and destroyed at a popular coastal resort, with the help of an aging Chinese-built tank. Communist Communist dictator Enver Hoxha ordered the construction of the vast network of thick concrete bunkers that was designed to accommodate the entire armed forces personnel in this former Stalinist enclave to prepare for a potential invasion. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina)
(AP)
Concrete bunkers — an enduring symbol of Albania's harsh Cold War isolation — were dragged off a beach and destroyed Wednesday at a popular southern resort with the help of an aging Chinese-built tank.
Municipal workers dug around the bunkers and used steel ropes to help an army-loaned T-59 tank drag them out of the sand at Seman.
The bunkers had posed a hazard to tourists at the Adriatic beaches 75 miles (120 kilometers), south of the capital, Tirana, according to local administrator Sotir Zaka.
"People had drowned, were injured, or suffered due to their presence," he said.
About 30 bunkers have been removed so far, he said, with another 30 due to be destroyed in the next two weeks.
Yet the grand effort, hampered by rough seas and snapping ropes, tackled only a tiny fraction of the estimated 700,000 concrete bunkers that still scar Albania's landscape.
Defense Ministry officials have ruled out any widespread clearance of the bunkers — which are equally beloved and distained — saying the cost would be excessive.
Albania's massive fortification system was ordered by Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, whose xenophobic regime banned religious worship and foreign travel and used its powerful secret police to crush any sign of dissent.
Until Hoxha's death in 1985, Albania steadily withdrew into total isolation, falling out over the decades with Communist neighbor Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and eventually staunch ally China.
Albania's vast network of thick concrete bunkers — which pop up in endless rows across fields and beaches — was designed to accommodate the entire armed forces personnel in this former Stalinist enclave, which spent up to a quarter of its budget on the military.
Albania was never attacked, is now a new member of NATO and plans to end compulsory military service this year. But its Cold War scars will long outlast the Communist statues and street names that vanished across half of Europe 20 years ago.
