A VICTORY FOR THE MARTYRS OF DEMOCRACY Hundreds of thousands were the unfortunate Albanians who suffered severe sentences for their ideas against communism, and even for saying that in our market you could not find even beans, while in neighboring countries there was everything. Hundreds, if not thousands, were shot or died because they could not withstand the inhuman torture during interrogations or the harsh conditions of prisons such as Burrel. Nor are those whose graves are unknown, or known but undisclosed to their families, few in number. And all this was a macabre massacre of honest and courageous people, of democrats who wanted freedom of thought. But the democracy that had just been born among us said “Stop!” to the painful acts of killing and the groans of the Enverist dictatorship. It was the opposition that, from the very beginning of its existence, raised its voice in support of these innocent martyrs; it was democracy that persistently demanded the release of all political prisoners, as a fundamental requirement for respect for the Helsinki Conference and the Paris Charter. In these circumstances, as national consciousness and democracy awoke, Mr Ramiz Alia and his successors, contemporaries in the Party of Labour, now the Socialist Party, were forced to issue decree after decree and gradually release the political prisoners, always giving contradictory figures. But finally, they were defeated, and the former prisoners of conscience saw the light of freedom. Instead of this party and its authorities (because it holds power) showing concern for these people, worn down by suffering, they left them in those notorious internment camps, with the right to return to their towns but without homes or jobs. No, this neglect was a kind of revenge for the freedom they had been forced to grant them. Even in the People’s Assembly, the Labour Party deputies formed a bloc against declaring these people innocent, victims of the bloodthirsty Stalinist-Enverist period. But what the “renewed” Socialists did not do, the martyrs of the communist regime did themselves. They confined themselves in a hunger strike, ready to sacrifice themselves, because freedom also requires the most basic living conditions and compassion for the slave-like exploitation inflicted on them in the labour camps. Under pressure from the entire population, and fearing the unconditional support of the whole democratic opposition, the People’s Assembly urgently approved their exoneration. Thus, finally, through struggle, Ramiz Alia was forced to take another democratic step. This was a great victory for the opposition, because it was achieved through perseverance and by showing the people just how “renewed” the demagogic Socialists are: what they spat on two months ago, they are trumpeting today as a humanitarian act, as an issue for which apologies should be made to all the martyrs of communist red terror.

On Sunday, the First Congress of the Albanian Democratic Party successfully concluded. It carried out a detailed analysis of the work done from the party’s founding until today, emphasizing not only successes, as the Party of Labour traditionally did, but also, and more importantly, mistakes and shortcomings, so as not to repeat them in the future. At the same time, the major challenges that the Democratic Party will face in its determined and uninterrupted struggle were set out, and its leadership bodies were elected. Sali Berisha was elected chairman of the Democratic Party; the deputy chairmen are Neritan Ceka, Arben Imami and Azem Hajdari. Eduart Selami was elected secretary of the party. The party presidium consists of 19 members, while, in addition to the presidium, 55 members were elected to the Democratic Party’s National Council.

The Socialist Group in the European Parliament asked on Tuesday in Brussels that the TPE help former Albanian political prisoners integrate into Albanian society. The European Socialist parliamentarians, who arrived in Tirana in recent days as part of a delegation led by the labour lawyer Glin Ford and including the Italian Maria Manjani Njoja, have invited the European Commission to establish a “special fund” to build homes for former political prisoners of the Albanian Stalinist regime. In Tirana, the Socialist delegation met 91 former political prisoners who had gone on hunger strike to have their demands met by the new regime. According to Glin Ford, most of the former Albanian political prisoners released in recent months have no job, no home and no means of livelihood.

The suffocated economy is seeking a way out. It is one step away from collapse, from catastrophe. It looks to privatization as its means of rescue. This will free the state from the unproductive payments for 80 percent [of the economy], from financing losses and, at the same time, provide revenue through the tax system on profits earned. These are the reasons that make it imperative to implement this element of economic reform as quickly and efficiently as possible. We say this because we cannot hope for success if foreign capital is not brought into it. These are the reasons that make us hope that the legislation to be adopted for this reform will be as favorable as possible, both to domestic investors and to foreigners. Having acquainted oneself with the law “On the Guarantee and Protection of Private Property, Free Enterprise, Independent Private Activities and Privatization,” adopted by the People’s Assembly, and with several Council of Ministers’ decisions implementing this law, one becomes convinced that this legislation is a major step forward in implementing the privatization process, creating favorable conditions for the entry of foreign capital, and developing and revitalizing imports and exports. This law protects private property, business activity and investments from the state; foreign persons may conduct private activities in many forms and have the right to transfer capital and their share of profits abroad. These persons are entitled to lease land and invest in the economic development of our country. All this speaks to concrete steps by the Government of Stability to set the privatization process on a path of development. However, when one reads the Council of Ministers’ Decision on “The Duties and Rights of the National Privatization Agency and the Preparatory Commission for the Privatization Process,” one understands that this government, too, has been unable to break free of certain legacies of the past. Specifically. From the very title of the decision, one encounters a new link added to the privatization process, one that was not included in the decision concerning the Preparatory Commission at the Ministry of Economy. To judge whether this Commission needs to be established, let us look at the duties it performs. In Chapter IV of this decision, we read: Point 1: It cooperates with the privatization subcommissions in the ministries..., and with local government bodies, to assess, select and determine the enterprises that will pass from state ownership into private ownership. Point 2: It coordinates work with the privatization subcommissions in the ministries and that will pass from state ownership into private ownership. As soon as one reads these two points, the question arises: Why should a new body be created to facilitate cooperation and coordination of work in the Ministry of Economy, when the ministries themselves can do this? How can this intermediary role be justified when the ministries, which know the problems of every enterprise in detail and have qualified personnel, are best placed to determine the order and deadlines for transferring enterprises from state ownership to private ownership? Why, then, this tutelage? Let us continue. Point 3: It submits to the National Privatization Agency the processed, consolidated material sent by the privatization subcommissions on the issues, sequence, form and timing of the transfer of enterprises and other state units from state ownership to private ownership. Once again, this is a new duty that any ministry could easily carry out. Why must the information pass through a second hand? Why is the necessary information not submitted directly by the bodies that have collected it, but instead routed through an intermediary? Let us look at points 4, 5 and 6, which can be summarized as follows: Point 4: It obtains technical, economic and financial data for analysis and studies... Points 5–6: It assists, monitors and guides the implementation of legal provisions and their application, and draws up methods and guidelines for privatization... These, too, are duties that should be performed by the ministries, as the bodies overseeing the activities of the enterprises to be privatized. The only assistance they may need is the establishment of criteria for how state property is to be transferred into private ownership. As for the other guidelines, the ministries are able to prepare them even better, since they know the relevant enterprises. As can be seen, implementation of the privatization process has been caught in a web of bureaucracy. To privatize even a very small industrial facility, for example a factory, one must begin a marathon that runs from the enterprise to the executive committee, to the ministry, then on to the Ministry of Economy, and ends at the National Privatization Agency, the only body entitled to approve the transfer to private ownership. Compared with the government’s previous decision, which left these powers with the ministry, and for foreign companies required only the consent of the Privatization Committee, the new decision is a step backward, indicative of unbridled centralism. We believe this will only slow down the privatization process. With the new provisions that have been approved, which should give a major impetus to privatization, at a time when we are promising an “invasion” of foreign companies and must respond to their demands immediately, we see that we have placed implementation of this process in the channel of bureaucracy, under a tutelage reminiscent of the centralized management of the economy. If we truly want to open the doors to foreign capital and the privatization of enterprises, the path to this goal must be shortened and simplified. There is every possibility for the Executive Committees, where capable specialists work, together with the local branches of the National Agency, to direct and successfully carry out the privatization process. The relevant ministries should give final approval. Only for facilities of national character, that is, of particular importance, should the National Agency have the right to transfer state property into private ownership. Only in this way will this process get underway and develop rapidly, making it possible to complete the privatization of the economy within a short time. FATMIR TURKESHI Economist

On the right-hand side of “Selvia” in Tirana, there is a private café. A soft female voice says to us: “Come in!” We look at her attentively. She could have been around forty. With short hair, smiling but tired eyes, an oval face that spoke of a rare beauty in days gone by. She was very [unclear: urarë]. — I am the daughter of former Colonel Gaqo Mici, now retired. And, as if speaking more to herself, she added: — The daughter of that man..., the colonel... in the civil registry, in the documents. She did not answer me in words, but in song: — “Do you know that a woman never lies when she says: ‘I love you’? For now I am left without a heart, Because she took it from me...” This is Tatjana Mici. They call her “Tanja.” She was 17 then. One of Tirana’s loveliest flowers. One beautiful day in May, Tanja threw poison at the Party of Labour. A hailstorm fell on the lovely flower: the charge of agitation and propaganda. And the flower was locked away in the cell of “Kosova” prison, in the mud of Durrës, to wither forever. A full seven years. Years passed... And Tanja lives honestly in Tirana. — Make a film and title it: “The Warm Hand of the Partisan Mother,” Tanja pleads. And she begins to tell her story: — I was a young, healthy girl. And why lie to your face: AND YET IT MOVES! And again the song echoes in the “Kosova” cell: “Cell, you bury me alive, and I go. FREEDOM, dearest thing, I adore you...” — Is there any way you can get me out of this situation? — Why? — I don’t want to leave Albania, I don’t! To go to Italy and hold out my hands and say: “Give me something!” No, I don’t want that! And she sings: — “I don’t need to leave prison, I don’t know, my dear, where I’d go. This monk’s life has become my companion, With those bitter years...” Her daughter is now 21. She lives with her father. And yet Tatjana repeats: AND YET IT MOVES! — Boys! — says Tanja. — Would you like me to tell you a secret about the women’s prison? When I came out of my cell for the usual walk, I heard a voice behind me, like the clanking of the iron bolt that opened and shut every moment on my cell: “You will come with me... I’ll intervene to get you fewer years!...” I felt the smell of his breath and his hands near my ear. I froze. But Tanja made a mistake: she hit the Security officer with a wooden slipper, the only slipper in the cell, the strength for the blow coming from the soup, the morning [unclear: lëngu i gjesthenjës]. And yet... the people are optimistic, like the subject of this article, who has hope, a dream, a tomorrow. They endure, [unclear], watch TV even over a simple salad. It is a misfortune that the only prison for ordinary women and men bears the name “Kosova,” a name that is being mentioned so often by the President himself, the Prime Minister himself, and all the country’s political parties and organizations. And yet “Kosova” is ours. How much this name reminds us of prison! It reminds us of our brothers, who have loved us and whom we have loved for 46 years! In 28 thousand square kilometres (one of the smallest [unclear: përfaqëqe]) inside the great prison of hell, and dozens of prisons. There is no need to mention them, after that good [unclear] of the Albanian State Security, who, although they have supposedly been polished up for depoliticization, are still telling fortunes with [unclear: lit-] VASIL DEDA, FATMIR SELIMI (Continued on page 2)

A month ago, Mr William Shëhan, representative of the International Press Fund, came to Tirana and discussed a practical training seminar between journalists from the USA and their Albanian colleagues. Mr Eilbesh, director of the Albanian-language section of the “Voice of America” radio service, was also to take part in this activity. The seminar was held on Monday and Tuesday. The renowned American journalists Deivid Bainder of the “Nju Jork Tajms,” Uilliam Kovaç (of Albanian origin) from the “Nimën-Tarë” programming department of Hilbert, professor of journalism (Continued on page 3)