A man is waiting to be exhumed this Sunday, having been executed by the dictatorship in the most tragic manner; this week he is waiting to be honored by people. By those who could not honor him when he was executed. The man who has taken responsibility for awakening him, his brother, is gathering people this week for the ceremony, delayed by half a century. And quite by chance I mentioned to him a name that has by now become familiar at such ceremonies in Albania. My friend fell silent, displeased. “No,” he told me, “because now he is no longer on the platform.” And so my friend, who was looking for people for his brother’s exhumation ceremony, left, surely having found someone else to hold the ceremony. I am ready to go on Sunday to honor the martyr’s tragic death. But his awakening unfortunately coincides with the death of the living, whom I find difficult to honor. I find it difficult to accept precisely that another person, who is my friend, but who has been so concerned with rehabilitating martyrs—so many of them posthumously, by the political opposition acting as exhumers—has finally been abandoned by the people to whom he devoted part of his life. My friend left, and on Sunday I may find myself facing another person giving a speech, someone who has, of course, emerged from the new platforms. Hoping that in this way he honors his brother more, my friend proclaims his own death. He was killed by the ideology and power pyramid of the past regime; in his awakening, he is resurrected through the ‘death’ of his living brother. Naturally, these things make the dead man turn in his grave even more than the fact that he is no longer on the platforms. The awakening of Albanians, perhaps more than anything else, will be remembered for the way it repeats the remnants of the past. This awakening, rebelling as it does against the pain of an unwanted sleep, seeks to imitate the only model left intact in the room: the model of the family hearth, beneath which the eldest always sits. As one of the greatest values of democracy, the awakening of Albanians represents the true beginnings of a society that has no new space. The columns of awakening, however boundless, pour in two directions, positive and negative. Space, democracy, lies in our hands; this is precisely where the opportunity lies. But my friend, who does not pray at the funeral ceremony, is one of the people of these ceremonies. And this is because a person has visibly lost his place on the platforms. Now I feel even more afraid of my friend, who wants a trusted person on the platform at the funeral ceremony. After fifty years, he has come here voluntarily. He must not [unclear] the freedom won without a protectorate of power, without knowledge that guarantees this freedom. He who endured the whole dictatorship can no longer endure someone making a spectacle of him. It is the one who has been deprived of everything by someone who is closer to the platform. The securities spent to guarantee freedom through these people, after this, I believe my friend no longer needs them. Nor should there be a certificate of good conduct. It resembles money caught up in inflation. And the inflation of freedom feels like a threat, especially to those who have been deprived of it.

City center

Secret document on Albanian-Yugoslav relations FO 371/27100 C 3139 For Mr Campbell Yugoslavia and Albania 1945-1946 (Agreement on …) It is believed that Hoxha (Enver—our addition) agreed to hand the province of Kosovo back to ‘Yugoslavia’ as early as 1945 (This predominantly Albanian-speaking province was located in …) The Albanian Government, a ‘puppet’ government, by the Great Powers at the time when Yugoslavia was divided by them in 1941) Hoxha apparently would undertake this (step—our addition) in order to … The text of this … July R 10903/1717/90 It is noted that in Mr Cutton’s view, the article has established ‘as a truth, in the face of Greece, that Yugoslavia will not allow any claims to Albanian territory, which is most important; “from beginning to end, the agreement sounds like a political and military union between these two countries.” 5. On 22 July 1946 our attaché in Belgrade managed to learn that the above-mentioned agreement, signed on 9 July, contained a secret clause that Yugoslavia would build a “railway line from the Province of Kosovo to an Albanian port”: R 107881/1777/90 6. On 11 October, His Majesty’s Embassy in Belgrade reported the establishment of a service of several maritime transport companies between Yugoslavia and Albania R 15877/1717/90 7. On 27 November 1946 an economic agreement between Yugoslavia and Albania was concluded. The main points (of this agreement—our addition) are summarized in the Weekly Political Intelligence Summary (secret—our addition) No. 374 (L 45/6405) on Yugoslavia. The text was read by Piade (Moša—our addition) at the Presidium of the Assembly (continued on page 4) The region of Kosovo once again to… “Yugoslav hands,” as in 1945. (This mainly Albanian-speaking region, which was handed over to the Albanian Government, then “quisling,” by the Axis Powers at the time Yugoslavia was partitioned in 1941.) Hoxha would hardly have taken this step (our addition) so unpopular had Tito not undertaken to provide him with fairly substantial compensation in return. Nothing was said publicly about this retrocession at the time, but it gradually became known. 2. On April 28, 1945, the Yugoslav Cabinet decided to recognize Hoxha’s administration as the Government of Albania and to establish diplomatic relations with that Government, as well as with Bulgaria (see Belgrade telegram 555 (dated April 30)). 3. On June 5, 1945, Mr. Stevenson was informed in a conversation with Dr. Subashiq that discussions were being held with the Albanian delegation “to settle minor matters concerning the administrative boundaries” between the two states. (Belgrade telegram 1066, June 5.) 4. On July 9, 1946 (one year later), an economic agreement was signed in Tirana; it was provided in triplicate by Mr. Clutton together with the Government of Albania (Belgrade telegrams 1050 and 1051 of the 11th…

In yesterday’s issue of Zëri i Popullit, a letter is published that Achille Occheto, secretary-general of the Italian Democratic Party of the Left (ex-communist), sent to Servet Pellumbi, deputy chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania. Judging by the way it is composed (or laid out, as they say), Zëri i Popullit seems proud of it, and rightly so. It seems that the communists can hardly become prime minister. And Achille Occheto knows better than anyone what a corrupt prime minister is like. GJERGJ PULLA

Hungarian Prime Minister Jozef Antal died on Sunday in Budapest, aged 61, as a result of an incurable illness. Antal, head of Hungary’s first post-communist government, had been hospitalized weeks earlier. Antal became leader of the Hungarian Democratic Forum in the summer of 1989, the forum that ousted the communists from power.

Whoever it may be? Without a doubt, they know better than today’s State, and better than the politicians who seek an absurd and murderous “national reconciliation”; they know those killers and criminals, they know who opened the wounds and the files, and who hurts them day after day. Those of us who did not experience prisons cannot freely judge political prisoners. Perhaps their tolerance stems from the fact that none of them has yet come out and slapped one of their leaders; perhaps the fact that none of the prisoners has ever had the chance to confront other criminals bears witness to this (the person who tortured him, bloodied him, and confronted him with the alternative: either report your comrade, or face the bullet, or testify against a woman, a girl…) We have exploited them and we suspect them (even though our conscience constantly torments us) those who spent 5, 10, 15, 30 years of their lives there, in the communist prison! Thus, their tolerance has been taken as a kind of proof of guilt. That is better for our judgment, better for our supposed knowledge as people who supposedly never lost their freedom! Inderan Garmoz, however unconditionally and without hesitation the former prisoners accused in court may be free, it seems to me that this is unavoidable. Our generosity toward former political prisoners is far too slight, even… … Since we have been neither in prison nor in the Bllok, we cannot fail to understand that the road to prison began at a basic party organization. The party secretaries issued the ticket for it, as did the supporters and title-holders who filled out the files on those to be imprisoned. If anyone were to say that communists were forbidden to be in court, they were at the same time obliged to report everything (that did not happen), as… The “files” of party organizations—but why was the “biography” of political prisoners glossed over and distorted?! Simply because the number of political prisoners was smaller than the number of Party members?! It seems as though a kind of yesterday’s morality continues, and aren’t we journalists also becoming somewhat guilty toward yesterday’s prisoners, who are barely escaping responsibility even to this day? An article is published (commissioned by former persecutors or their children), and it makes us begin to doubt, perhaps even against our own wishes. We all acknowledged Eduard Ypi’s words during the spectacular interpellation by the former communists and thought that, with that, they—the former communists—had bowed their heads. Meanwhile, they began another interpellation: Slander and more slander! The ordinary ones remained just that after the prisons, after the return of imprisoned freedoms, and even after society gave them the opportunity to rise in dignity. Such people can always be found, and they will continue this way as long as tolerance is considered weakness, or a right not to deliver justice. As long as persecutors are free to slander, the persecuted cannot enjoy freedom. Respectfully, PELLUMB LUSHAKU Through the article “Freedom Is Dividing Political Prisoners?!”, also published in “Republika”, I understand that the author, whom I did not… imprisonment by communist repression. I feel no respect or genuine feeling toward political prisoners, and throughout his article, insofar as it is not too much to emphasize, in the name of proper tolerance toward political prisoners? Are we not all of the opinion that many people from different social strata, even among former persecutors, are trying to… …

On 14 December, the Steering Committee of the Republican Party reviewed the work carried out to promote and popularize the Draft Law on Land and made decisions regarding developments in …

NATIONAL LIBRARY TIRANA

On December 14, carried out to publicize and promote the Draft Law on Land and adopted decisions on further action. During December 1993 and January 1994, intensive work will be undertaken at every level of the Party to make this Draft Law known to the public and secure the broadest possible support from public opinion. The work program adopted by the Steering Committee will also be sent to the district branches. PR Press Spokesperson

The madwoman N., strangely highly and loudly intoned and speaking unnaturally, asked to take the floor in the middle of a socialist meeting. Since she was not on the protocol, an attempt was made to deny her the floor; however, as is well known, the madwoman has an irrevocable carte blanche to judge the country’s political and social life. With a microphone battered by Kastriot Islami’s political battles, she said: “Next year, political parties in Albania will hold their first joint congress. This is a matter of work, just like that. Each party is in its own head. Don’t make me call a party a genuine Marxist-Leninist party with a diversity of communist, Trotskyist, and Stalinist-Enverist opinions. Only a party that contains all the alternatives can enrich all 3 million Albanians! It could even enrich the diaspora. I think money must be imposed beforehand, along with criteria for spending that money, to be determined in a forum that must have very precise knowledge of the files, because first of all wealth must go to those people who, in the years gone by, were different and worked differently. This way of working is healthier than what exists now, where you become part of this, so to speak. And one after the other, one with one party and I ended up with another, and I am receiving pressure from the meeting. Independent Albania no longer exists… Quite apart from Albania’s independence, it is directly connected to the independence of personal gains and interests. Experts must urgently be roused from the sleep of the world so that they can present ways out concerning independent people. This crowd is connected with many events, and history’s euphoria has not returned any of them. So, comrades, there should also have been something from the freedom of Prizren, lëz Pashe Dora P.sh, and if they had been independent, they were wrong to think about Albania’s independence; they should have thought about both. Fishta, too, was wrong not to stand as an independent at the Congress of Manastir. This new practice in Albanian political life is intended to mark political horizontalism in the USA, since there were no independent deputies there. In truth, although the truth is being told as if there were independent deputies, they are independent because they don’t need to be from the poor. By the way, this meeting of the elected representatives has been marked as important. But who has ever seen anything like this, meaningful and irreversible, for the people of the future? Power will be the root, because we can only get to this thing with it; it has not been lost without result. Such a national thing on this side, things certainly… THE CHRONICLER

1. … 2. … 3. … 4. … 5. … 6. …