On 15 August 1991, the National Council of the Republican Party met. The Council discussed the report presented by Mr. Sabri Godo on the current state of the country and the paths that should be followed to emerge from the severe crisis. It was observed that, despite the efforts of the People’s Assembly and the Stability Government, the economy continues to deteriorate, unemployment and misery are increasing, while destructive acts and attacks on schools and social facilities are pushing the country toward anarchy. This situation is further aggravated by the Serbian aggression threatening the entire nation. The Council approved the report and adopted decisions to implement the political measures demanded by the moment.

At the invitation of the Albanian Republican Party, a delegation of the Republican Party of Kosovo, based in Pejë, came for working meetings. It consisted of its chairman, Reshat Nurboja; Ekrem Kallaba, a member of the party’s executive board; Jahja Uka, chairman of the association for the return of Albanians displaced from Kosovo; and Ramiz Kutleci, a member of this association. On Thursday afternoon, as soon as the Republican guests arrived in Tirana from Kosovo, they were received at the ARPA headquarters by deputy chairman Sabri Godo, ARPA Chairman, vice-chairmen Vangjush Gambeta and Zef Bushati, members of the Steering Committee: Çerçiz Mingomata, head of the foreign section; Petro Dhimitri, editor-in-chief of the newspaper «Republika»; Maksim Havajari, chairman of the Tirana branch of the Republican Party; Skënder Kuçue, Tamara Luarasi, and General Council member Xhevat Repishti, chairman of the Shkodër branch of the Republican Party. At this welcoming meeting, they discussed the situation in Kosovo, the situation in Albania, and ways of bilateral cooperation. The meeting was marked by a profound spirit of mutual understanding and readiness to exchange experience and cooperate. Meanwhile, the guests from Kosovo are also holding working meetings with several Republican Party branches in the districts. Correspondent of «Republika»

Will the olive groves be returned in the condition in which they remain in the memories of their former owners? Everyone remembers that marvel with nostalgia: olive groves maintained with extraordinary care, reflecting the value of the olive itself. I would not say the olive trees produced every year, but in a productive year each tree yielded 1–4 quintals. They produced because the farmer’s hand had turned the olive grove into a garden, where even in winter the air was fragrant with apples and quinces. We will not dwell here on the special care the former peasant owners gave this crop, from which they obtained oil and a substantial part of their livelihood. But we do want to say that olive production fell sharply. Everyone knows this, from the former farmer-owner to the specialist in the executive committee and all the way to the Ministry of Agriculture. And there are reasons for this, which social ownership carried with it for so many years. What the olive is and how great its value is are known both to those who have tasted its fruit and to those who have not. «In a difficult year, when we had produced little grain for bread, olive oil saved us from going hungry», a farmer told me. «Every day they made bread not with water, but with olive oil. The bread really was filling and you couldn’t eat much of it, but it kept you going.» Socialist collectivization, with the «superiority of collective property», devastated olive cultivation, even though «scholars» of the PP, Enver Hoxha and R. Alia, also took it up. Enver, especially, in countless speeches, conversations, and encounters with people, gave them «valuable instructions» on tending olives. He even gave them to the brigade workers, who were great masters of olive cultivation. Come on, father, I’ll show you the fields! A. Alia, some years ago, from the Kamza Agricultural Institute (today the Agricultural University), issued a call to double olive production. He assigned the youth this campaign. That same year, students of the Higher Agricultural Institute took an inventory of the olive trees and filled out data cards for a scientific study. But what has actually been done with olives throughout all these years of socialism, with this precious national asset? A great deal has been invested in new plantings and in tending olive trees in production, including pruning, terracing, and so on. But not everything was done on a scientific basis. Olives, too, were placed under Cuba’s orders. They knew what they were doing. The terracing of the olive groves of Vlora, an engineer from that district’s executive committee tells us, was introduced on the instructions of H. Kapo and also E. Hoxha, who watched the olive trees from the holiday villa. Uncompleted investments were entered in the records, even though money had in fact been taken for them. In the district of Vlora, there have been court cases in past years concerning this issue. Replanting was—and still is—done, but... BU also created very beautiful new olive groves with these investments. Meanwhile, however, tens of thousands of olive trees have been damaged. Entire olive groves have been destroyed. 13,000 olive trees have disappeared. In some places, woodland has grown back where they stood. The merciless axe falls throughout the olive groves. «If you climb up and look at the olive groves», a farmer from Vlora tells me, «it makes you sick. They’ve been cruelly mutilated, for God’s sake.» Not a few cases of this kind of damage have occurred in other districts of the country as well. This year the olive groves near the city of Vlora are seriously threatened, because of the 6,000 m³ of firewood planned, only 600 m³ have so far been produced. It is claimed that scientific work has been done on olives. But for years this crop was handled by incompetent specialists from other fields, who had produced neither stones nor corn. The Olive Institute has not justified its existence either. At the very least, someone there should have had the courage to openly acknowledge that olive production is cyclical and explain this scientifically. So, above all, not only was olive production not doubled, as was discussed and talked about on every newspaper page, but production was reduced to a sorry state. Can olive production be doubled or tripled, using the statistics of the past 10 years as a basis for comparison? I think it can. Returning the olive trees to their rightful owners is the greatest guarantee of this. The law on the privatization of lan- GANI LEKA (Continued on page 2)

— Listen to the old man, you’ve «gone soft». — Don’t tell me you think we’ve won democracy? — No, father! We’re fighting to win it... — Here in Rehovë, at the foot of Kolonjë’s Gramoz, in the old days if an oak fell or lightning burned an apple tree, it was a calamity. The whole village would gather. Now Rehovë and Starjë are reddened with the blood of their sons. Those giants, each a meter across the chest, from Tirana, Shkodra, and Berat, fell like oaks above the village, on the border, in the snow. More than twenty. Pity the ones left behind! And everyone is silent. Oh God! — Do you think the President knows? — He ought to know. — What on earth is Ramiz doing?! — People have been killed and killed, the village needs bread, the country needs things, and so on. Do you know, Xanëmi, what’s going on?! — I know, Faik, I know, but he’s worried about his chair. It’s not easy to give up what you’ve held on to. It turns you into a beast. I don’t have an education, but I love the ox and the plough. I even make the yoke with care. I make it out of maple, light as a feather... — You’re right, but I think they’re making these things out of iron for us. — Rather than wrestle with the tractor and the land, I’d better go to Tirana. I’ll beg for work as a carpenter. What do I need that four-dynym plot for? I can’t manage it. It’s not worth staying here to buy tractors. My only son, Flamur, went off to Athens. I married off my four daughters. — But how much land did they give you, Nexhip? — Four dynym, and six bunkers. — Put the goats inside. — They’re no use for anything! — Ah! That’s that, then. What’s done is done. — I don’t need land or bunkers anyway. — They call it a village, you fool! You need a little milk to moisten the polenta. I need water close by, you poor devil, somewhere I can keep a cow, work the land, and look after my son. My sons have gone. The others are off to the city, away from the inte-rior. «Come on, you come too», they say, «let’s go», the cart, six goats and five sheep. — You did the right thing. — Yes, yes, but what am I supposed to do? No shepherd will work for us. All week with the livestock. One day with the cows, the next with the sheep, day after day, and the whole week rolls by like that. When am I supposed to work that lousy land?!... — You asked for it yourselves, so don’t complain now. — I’m not complaining, my friend, but the work has to be done. With what? We have no oxen, and getting a tractor is difficult. The only option is to wear out the old woman and the daughter-in-law—but how can they manage that? Their backs have been broken by the hoe, which the civilized world has put in a museum. They’re being tortured. — It’s worse where we are, in the other neighborhood. We’re half an hour away from water. — If only they’d laid the pipes, man... — What pipes, you poor devil, as if you didn’t know how they do things here! They dug some ditches four years ago, laid a few pipes, and then they were stolen. — It’s different where we are. We have plenty of water inside the yard. It was only with the livestock that we had some trouble. They came right away and caught us off guard. We didn’t even have a milk separator, and the cowshed was just as bad. — At first it’s difficult, until things get sorted out. Then it really will be good. We’ll also be short of agricultural machinery and credit. — What will happen to the agricultural specialists? — Ah, you fool, there’s no danger of privatization. The difficulties at the beginning are everywhere; we shouldn’t confuse them with the prospects. — Let’s work together, so we have as little pain as possible. — Yes, my friend. I have two children. One’s an agronomist, the other a veterinarian. You know, the latter is doing wonderfully. He doesn’t have time to breathe. He has a cartload of work. Now he goes to the cow in the lower neighborhood, then they call him from the upper neighborhood of the village. I have more trouble with the agronomist. — The trouble, you know, is that you’re used to the rigid forms of Stalinist-type cooperatives. — You’re not wrong. Our cooperatives were never really cooperatives, but barracks where they manufactured nothing but papers, orders, instructions, dispatch notes, and telephone calls from on high. — Say they didn’t work sensibly. How can you make progress with chairmen who had only finished Party school? — Were the economists any better? — What are you telling me about our economists, man? All they have more of are quotations from the «Albanian colloquium» and «articles» from New Albania. Has anyone gone abroad to study? They cut the learned people down—not just the tips of their pencils, but their heads too... — Who’s going abroad these days? — Us, who else? — You’re right about that side of things. When does our turn ever come? The sons of the Communists will go, who else? They control the economic power. A learned man who has been in Hungary for over twenty years told me: «In the countries of — What will happen to the agricultural specialists? — the prospects. — possible. — agronomist. — rigid forms of Stalinist-type cooperatives. — notes, and telephone calls from on high. — with chairmen who had only finished Party school? — Were the economists any better? — of their pencils, but their heads too... — Who’s going abroad these days? — Us, who else? — me: «In the countries of — In Lindje, the sons of the communists have become businessmen. They’ve been abroad, got specialized, learned languages, know the West, have money… What more do you want?!... — No, man! Why should things turn out this way here too? — But the sons of the big shots go abroad, damn it! Anyone can go, even someone who doesn’t know which end of a donkey to tie up. — Huh? Is that why the newspapers are talking about those business associations in Tirana? Surely they’ll be descendants of the families from the Block. — Man, I know how these things work. How a poor fellow manages to get by. — Why? — Well, look. Some Enverists, with plenty of credit and power, keep a portrait of Enver Hoxha in their offices. Some still keep his bust. As if it were their most precious possession. — They have every right to keep it. They did whatever they pleased. — But what about Hiquet Çuko, the former first secretary, that one from Qinam-Radovicka—did they give him a house? — Not yet. He came here to Ersekë from Lezha. Naturally, after he had “shone” there. He came into the guesthouse like the big man of the Kolonjë table. But how could these democrats let him stay? Bang—in the newspaper, and bump—in the street, the café, and meetings. They ceremoniously kicked him out of there. Now the poor man doesn’t know where to turn. He put half his belongings in his sister’s house, and damp ruined the other half. He became a director. — And would Lenka’s “darling” be the one to inspect him? — Man, that son of a gun. From committee chairman to head of the financial police. Now those who “spoke up” about him have come into his hands. — The Socialist Party leader won’t allow it, surely! — Don’t ask! I hope nothing bad happens to you, since he’s your friend too. But in Kolonjë he did absolutely nothing for democracy. VASIL DEDE

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING The trial over the Shkodër massacre was suspended. There was a great deal of commotion, but nothing was achieved. The judicial investigation was unable to establish the desired results, but there were reasons for this: the investigative file was flawed, very flawed. A popular saying goes: «You can’t make wheat bread out of bad flour, even if the baker is highly skilled.» I have written about this incident once before, because I was obliged to clarify for the whole public the scenes and behind-the-scenes events that took place during the three weeks when I led the investigation. I had informed the Council of Ministers about this some time ago, but apparently that information fell on deaf ears. Even today, I have received no answer. Perhaps the issues I raised did not interest them, because the responsibility of those at fault would have had to emerge. I may be mistaken, but I have the impression that after I was admitted to hospital, the pace of the investigations slowed. While I was leading the investigative team, the focus of the work was rightly on the city of Shkodër and not on Tirana, as happened later. The evidence was in Shkodër and had to be found there. In Tirana, only a few scientific examinations were carried out, which needed to be followed up; any member of the investigative team could easily have done so. The greatest difficulties the investigative team faced in working normally in Shkodër were during the first weeks, not later, as has been claimed. The conclusion of the two experts, reported by the press, that little work was initially done on this case seems to me tendentious and unfounded, just as the other claim—that the investigative team worked more to uncover the instigators of the illegal gatherings than those responsible for the massacre—was also mistaken. The work done by the investigative team is reflected in the file. Referring to this record, it is clear that during the first weeks, despite the difficulties, work was carried out intensively and for extended hours. Later, I am convinced, the pace of work declined. This is a documented truth and cannot be denied. The forensic medical experts’ group, as well as the ballistics group, had shortcomings; the forensic medical experts were chiefly at fault. The conclusion concerning the killing of Bujar Bishanaku (because the bullet was not found) is not well-founded. I am convinced that, despite the shortcomings and weaknesses of the investigation, the ballistic examinations in this case were delayed. In a case such as the Shkodër incident, it might have been better to mobilize more resources by bringing in more experts. But the police body responsible for guarding detainees and arrested people also depended on the Ministry of Public Order, as did many other sectors, such as border protection and the enforcement of criminal judgments, etc. Investigators—or the judge—are not accustomed to, and will never become accustomed to, this structural arrangement, under which the people who deal with the detainee or arrested person are determined in this way. Can investigative secrecy be ensured under such an arrangement? Years of practice have shown the opposite. There are police officers who have made mistakes and been convicted when cases of this kind have been proven. These highly troubling issues— FERRI SULA (Continued on page 2)

On Friday afternoon, the President of the Republic of Albania, Ramiz Alia, received at his headquarters the delegation of the Republican Party of Kosovo, headed by Reshat Nurboja. * * * Another delegation of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, headed by Iliaz Ramajli, is also visiting Albania. The delegation was received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muhamet Kapllani. At that meeting, as ATSH reports, they discussed intensifying the necessary measures by the Serbo- Correspondent of «Republika»