STATEMENT BY THE CENTRAL COUNCIL OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY Relations with Radio Television are becoming a serious problem. The Albanian Republican Party, in accordance with its program, conducts extensive activities in the districts in support of privatization and private ownership. The Republican Party is convinced that free private initiative is the only driving force capable of moving a country’s economy forward. Social and collective property, which brought Albania to catastrophe, has definitively failed—not only here, but throughout the world. But free private initiative cannot develop without private property. In keeping with the wishes of the majority of the people, we demand that Parliament and the Government enact laws on privatization and ownership as soon as possible. The absence of these laws keeps us blocked and has caused many foreign investors to lose patience. The Republican Party aims to give popular support to Parliament, the President and the Government in order to speed up the enactment of the laws. But TV blatantly and persistently refuses to cover these activities. Footage of rallies in Elbasan, Pogradec and Dibër was sent to TV, but was not broadcast, without any justification. It is said that TV will cover only the national activities of the parties. Are we perhaps expected to gather the entire nation at one rally? When thousands of people gather in a city to express a demand, it is TV’s unavoidable duty to inform the public. If events and news are selected for TV according to party prejudices, democracy is violated, free thought and dialogue are hindered, and the development of the country as a whole is obstructed. It seems that someone at Radio Television wants to claim the right to censor public opinion, even when it concerns mass demands. This is of great importance for the fate of the country and democracy; therefore, we call on the Radio Television Council and the relevant parliamentary commission to examine carefully and with understanding what we have set out. If this statement, too, is not broadcast on TV, we will have to believe that tendentious censorship really does exist there.

TO MRS KATERINE LALYMIJER SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE The Albanian Republican Party has regarded the freedom of movement of citizens, within and outside their homeland, as one of the fundamental human rights. For Albania, this is vital today. Our traders and young entrepreneurs urgently need contacts with the world; our intellectuals cannot be agents of development without integrating into the currents of European science and intellectual thought. We regret to observe that Albanian citizens are unable to travel abroad according to their needs, because of the great difficulties in obtaining visas at the embassies accredited in Tirana. Meanwhile, our democratic state, from its very first days, removed restrictions on foreigners entering Albania, allowing them to obtain visas at the border without any formalities. STRASBOURG Dear Madam, To some extent, beleaguered Albania continues to remain outside Europe, as it did during the 50 years of the dark communist regime. In addition to impeding economic, technical and scientific development, this situation also creates serious social problems. Albanians are losing their lives because they cannot receive treatment abroad, even when they have the means to do so. We are addressing you in the conviction that, with your authority and the goodwill you have always shown toward the Albanian people, you will appeal to the governments of the countries of the European Community to take concrete steps to eliminate such discriminatory practices, so that Albanians, too, may feel themselves to be free citizens of a free Europe. Albanian Republican Party

At last... the Lushnja “mafia” finds itself in the dock. The former chairman of the district Party Committee and former PPSh (S) deputy, Dhimitër Çili, the chief Lushnja mafioso, and his close associate Vasil Nushi, former head of the self-financing Foreign Trade Chamber, the Lushnja octopus “Lushnjampex,” have been arrested. The charges: abuse of official position, and abuse and misappropriation of state property for personal, family and friends’ interests, involving thousands of dollars. For more than a year, the accusation—self-censorship? Justice, the rule of law, the legal state, was far beyond the Albanian horizon. Every road led to the “Burgjevojecën” of the Lushnja mafia, but the red web of the communist-socialists covered the “octopus” Çili and company, and they managed to resist justice through communist bunkers, also dressed in the garb of democracy, according to the saying “the money buys the stallion, money sells the father.” But the money was rotten. At last... but they are not the last! A few comments, instead of an appeal to the President, the Minister of Justice, the Prosecutor General and all deputies, for punishment—and for all those who hear whom the bells of justice toll for. Dhimitër Çili and Vasil Nushi were arrested in Lushnjë, but not (Continued on page 4)

A reminder for Ramiz Alia In September 1989, the military court in the village of Zogaj, Tropojë, sentenced former non-commissioned officer Jahë Sali Papaj to death by firing squad. In this article I do not want to discuss the justice of the verdict, because anyone who wants to know—and those of us who lived through that time—needs no arguments. I want to dwell only on the bestial manner in which Jahë was executed, which was nothing other than an unprecedented, half-century-old practice, going beyond even Stalinist limits. The 27-year-old Jahë Papaj was taken by State Security officers from the cells of the DPB in B. Curr on a night as dark as communism itself, and transported to Qafa e Kolçit. The communist thugs, who for years had abandoned Albanian customs, shot him in the back, and, not even bothering to dig a grave for him, threw his corpse into an old lime pit, covering it with stones and rubble. Two years later, following the insistence of his father, Sali Rama, the DPB of B. Curr was forced to reveal where his son had been buried. The family retrieved him and he was ceremonially buried in his village in Tropojë. His body had neither decomposed nor suffered any deformation. It seemed as though the spirit of the 27-year-old young man from Tropojë had waited in the pits of communism for a moment of triumph, so that he might be given the dignity due to him as a human being.

Read on page 3: INTERVIEW WITH MR PJETER ARBNORI If, 100 years from now, someone remembers to ask who was the announcer of Enver Hoxha’s death on TV, many will answer: “VIRGJILI”... Handsome Virgjil, then—the man who appeared on screen only for sensations and major events, the man whose good looks made the socialist spring more palatable—will not be forgotten by the generations to come either. There are voices saying that Virgjil Kule has lately been preparing to obtain a certificate as a dissident. It seems paradoxical, but the peak of his dissidence is precisely the fact that he mourned E. Hoxha. I believe no Albanian has forgotten those dark circles beneath Virgjil’s eyes at the moment he made the announcement. It is said that those circles, that bruising that pierced one’s soul, did not come from within Virgjil, but that he applied them himself from the outside, using the simple means women use for makeup—those little things careful women use at their dressing tables, like mascara or whatever it might have been... So Virgjil fabricated his grief for Comrade Enver, and his dissident sentiments were apparently proclaimed in the most conspicuous way. But what did Virgjil do during the great movement for democracy? Fearing that the great democratic “crowd” would not understand his dissidence, he hid away in a corner of TV, taking care only of ADVERTISING. The coming era, the world of commerce, appeals to Comrade Virgjil; the fact that the age of advertising has arrived, that he has been tucked away for days and months on end—1. Thus, April 1 makes one laugh; 1, the well-known Virgjil, appears in truth. Virgjil (now not so much on screens as in newspapers) makes it easier to understand that “democracy is not complete without a true public TV.” Well done, Comrade Virgjil! His work biography will now become richer: his rare contribution is the socialist realization of two correspondences before, the socialist realization of the great third correspondence, the call for democracy... A new TV, “thirds”? A new TV, “thirds”? [partly illegible] ... Virgjil, who forgets that he himself, by his own character, remains alive with... This, among other things, which he noted in ... to under... [partly illegible]

Behind the curtain of dictatorship The Faculty of Medicine may be the main thread in uncovering the bodies of the anti-communists who disappeared. According to an insider, a cadaver is worth 10,000 US dollars on the European market for study purposes. Will everything ever be proven one day? One of the most complicated problems, considered the most serious to uncover, is the fate of the missing corpses: those of political prisoners who were killed or died in the prisons and terrible camps of the communist system. This problem has been left hanging, affecting thousands of people and every citizen who has faith in democracy. The long lists that remain to be compiled create a tangle of enigmatic darkness, and seem, with their shadow, to smother the truth buried everywhere and nowhere. A person is gripped by the pain of an emptiness in the soul while waiting endlessly for the evidence that will establish the truth, which, even if late, will one day emerge clear at the altar of justice. Immersed in the mysticism of a Byzantine and heartless era, in which everything humane was utterly foreign, everyone considers the complete discovery of the truth almost impossible. But seeing that the connecting threads are nevertheless visible (as long as people are alive), one gets the idea that this connection, however tangled, will have its own way of being resolved. Should the Faculty of Medicine be the first step? Because of its particular specialization (Continued on page 4)

- THE TRUTH IS THAT THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THIS COMPANY IS HIS FORMER SUBORDINATE - “He appeared together with the communists’ Minister of the Interior in the Hall of the Palace of Congresses, after the tanks of blood and champagne had burst forth, which marked the inauguration of the tourist agency «Skënderbeg Travel». The short man with a sense of humor, Kastrjot Islami, together with Mr. Gramoz Ruçi and Luan Hadërgjonaj, were the only political representatives, alongside representatives of the press (the press that took part in the inauguration of the establishment) of this company at the Palace of Congresses. They had come here to ... [partially illegible] Kastrjot Islami at the time when the latter was Chairman of the People’s Assembly. After approaching the cocktail table at the entirely family-style evening event, he invited people to eat, even to choose an Italian drink, since the fact that the company was Albano-Italian should not be honored. After that, together with Gramoz Ruçi, he sat down with the flight attendants wearing Albanian national costumes, who seemed to have known each other for a long time; they exchanged a few jokes with the newspaper’s journalists, and ended up ... [partially illegible] (Continued on page 4)

PROTEST TO THE PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY We, the Orthodox believers of Durrës, gathered at the Orthodox Assembly for the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Through the anti-national actions of some leaders of its self-proclaimed Council, our Orthodox Church has lost its autocephaly. The Greek Janullatos was installed at the head of the Church in an entirely illegal manner, in flagrant violation of Article 16 of the 1929 statute of the A.O.O.C. They shamelessly deceive people by saying that our Church is Autocephalous. How can it be so when a foreigner is at its head? We protest energetically and demand that our 1929 statute be guaranteed and implemented by the Government; and if it does not do so, then you, honorable gentlemen, must compel it. This is first and foremost our national cause. His Eminence Janullatos must leave Albania. We do not recognize him as the head of our Church. The Assembly of believers unanimously elected the “Council of Elders of the Churches of the district of Durrës.” This Council of Elders, fully resolved, will use democratic means to carry out the task entrusted to it by thousands of patriotic Orthodox believers of Durrës: “Let us have an Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Janullatos and his followers, out of our Church, out of Albania.” DURRËS