Communist leader Ramiz Alia agreed on Monday to meet with striking students, a day after police engaged in fist fights with student demonstrators. A diplomat in Tirana reached by telephone earlier in the day reported there some people were hurt and many were arrested in Sunday's rare show of public defiance against the Communist regime. ``The situation at Tirana University continues to be in disorder,'' the official ATA news agency said late Monday in reporting on what appeared a full-scale protest of university students in the Albanian capital. It said most students boycotted classes, gathering instead at dormitories to draw up a demand for a meeting with Alia ``to express to him their problems and troubles.'' Alia is both head of state and chief of the Communist Party. ATA said Sunday that the students were infuriated by a power outage that left dormitories without heat and light. It said demonstrators tried to exploit the situation for ``political ends.'' The brief dispatch appeared to be the first instance that official news media reported on a confrontation between police and demonstrators before foreign media. This was in line with recent moves to slowly open Albania to the outside world and ease controls on the country's 3.2 million citizens. Albanian leaders have rejected multiparty democracy of the kind that has replaced orthodox Marxist rule in other East European countries. ``It was learned that Comrade Ramiz Alia accepted ... (the students') request to meet and discuss with a students' representation, recommending the others to pursue regularly classes at the university,'' ATA said Monday. But it said that by Monday night no meeting with Alia had taken place - ``because the students have not yet chosen their representatives.'' ATA said Education Minister Skender Gjinushi transmitted Alia's message to striking students, a clear sign of how seriously the protest is being taken. The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sunday's demonstration started at 10 a.m. and lasted until police dispersed protesters at 1 p.m. He said ``a great many students'' took part but gave no estimates.
