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Revision as of 12:47, 31 March 2018
The Albanian Gendarmerie (Albanian: Xhandarmëria Shqiptare; Italian: Gendarmeria Albanese) is the Gendarmerie force of the Albanian Social Republic. Being an Albanian militarized police force, it has several entities which has to respond to: for police and security duties the Gendarmerie depends on the Albanian Ministry of Interior; for co-ordination purposes, it depends on the Directorate General of Public Security in Rome; finally, for military purposes it reports to the Army Higher Command Balkans head-quartered in Tirana. It is to be noted that the Albanian Gendarmerie is mainly a preventive force of public security, but it has also detective/repressive duties as a judicial police corps.
Officers and agents of the Gendarmerie depend on their superiors. For institutional services the Corps Commands depend on government authorities having jurisdiction over the area where they are located. Those authorities, except in extraordinary cases, only turn to commanders who then give nocessarie provisions.
History
The Gendarmerie traces its origins back to 1915, when the Gendarmerie School was established by the Carabinieri. The Mission drafted, adapted from the Italian regulations, Regulations and General Staff as well as borrowed from the Italian model were the type of recruitment (voluntary and selective) and weaponry. During the late 1920s, the Royal Albanian Gendarmerie was re-organized and staffed by British officers as part of the Royal Albanian Army. In 1939, when Albania was annexed to Italy, it was merged with the Carabinieri, constituting the "Carabinieri Higher Command for Albania" (It.: "Comando Superiore Carabinieri per l'Albania"); after the proclamation of the Republic, the Higher Command was transformed in an autonomous Gendarmerie force. The first Commandant General of Albanian descent was Brigadier General Gajur Deralla, who held office from 1957 to 1960. The current Commandant General is Major General Gjon Ulbasoni, who took office in 2012.
Organization
The Gendarmerie has a mainly territorial focus. The General Command, held by a Major General, assisted a General Staff, provides overall guidance. Under the General Command, there are a Schools Command, 2 Legions (Gjirokastër and Tirana), 12 battalions (1 per Province), with 48 companies (1 per sub-prefecture) and 102 Territorial Stations. The Gendarmerie has 236 officers, 1,440 subofficers and 8,434 corporals and gendarmes. The Gendarmerie also has a Central Operational Unit (Al: Njësia Operative Qendrore; It: Unità Operativa Centrale) which handles most serious crimes, while for public order duties the Gendarmerie is often supported by the Fascist Militia. The Gendarmerie Schools Command is organized according to military patterns; the Gendarmerie Academy in Valona deals with officer training, while the two Cadet Gendarmes Schools, in Gjirokastër and Tirana, deal with troops training. The Subofficers training is carried out by the Gendarmerie Academy in Valona, which operates the Subofficers School. As for the Italian P.S. organization, Schools and Academy are strategically placed across the Country in order to provide and additional manpower reserve, in case of rebellions or uprisings.
Ranks and insignia
The Albanian Gendarmerie is led by a Major General, and therefore there is no Lieutenant General; when the Italian Lieutenant General conducts his inspections and visits, he wears his Italian uniform. From a graphic point of view, the officer insignia pattern is closely modelled on the Italian one, with the Generals' insignia coming from a reform proposal for all the Generals' insignia, also in Italian Corps. All officer rank insignia feature the Star as basic component. Subofficers are the Albanian translation of Italian Marshals, and they are military subofficers like the Italian counterpart: their insignia have the horizontal stripes of the non-Italian subofficers. Finally, enlisted ranks do not have sleeve insignia but shoulder boards depicting their rank; the Albanian Gendarmerie is the only Corps which has such a rank system. Enlisted ranks are six, just as the Italian CPR.
As a whole, the Albanian Gendarmerie is a State military corps, like the Republican Police Corps, and is part of the Italian military system, although its State is the Autonomous Republic of Albania, and not the Italian Social Republic. In order to display this different affiliation, the Albanian Gendarmerie has an its own version of the Military Star. The Albanian Military Star actually is an Italian Military Star surmounted by an Helm of Skanderberg, the Albanian most important national hero. This symbol has been inherited by the Italian Kingdom of Albania, and it is considered by Albanian nationalists a proud distinction.