Behind the Frangajs and Lekajs are those who want to bury Albania “Free our comrades! Defend democracy in Albania! Terrible news... A call to national and international public opinion to rise up in defense of Albanian democracy,” cries out the history of those who imprisoned the Frangajs and the Lekajs. Rise up to defend the democracy of lost seats! The democracy of Alia and Nano, of Ceka, Çupi and Imami. The democracy of the newspapers “ZP” and “Koha Jonë”. Rise up, then, to defend their democracy. Because they brought this democracy to Albania. Remember Alia’s criminal contribution. Remember Ceka’s pathological craving for a presidential chair, remember Çupi’s delirium, Imami’s hysteria. Remember all of these things and... Free the victims. Dirty hands are behind them! Gentlemen of the noble seats! Albania has one presidential armchair and ten ministerial chairs. Where should it put you, where? “Free our comrades”—this hypocrites’ call, the call of people blinded by thirst for power, is not for the victims. Because they themselves imprisoned these victims. You are ready to bury and imprison this entire people, solely to gain power. “Fight for life or death,” Imami and his clan shout everywhere. Mr. Imami may die whenever he likes. Nobody would care about his death. Nobody would care, because this people has decided to live. Messrs. Nano, Imami, Ceka, Çupi & company! You will not win power with the Frangajs and Lekajs. You will not win power with newspapers and café tables alone. Do not turn people into victims! Do not put them in prison! Do not make yourselves the laughingstock of the world! It has been two years that Frrok Çupi has been fighting windmills, two years that he has placed himself at the center of the world, occupied with himself. For hundreds of nights he has dreamed strange dreams, as if Sali Berisha were following him at every step. Mr. Çupi has become so pathological that when he wakes up, his dreams seem real to him and he writes them in newspapers. He writes dreams, while he has the Frangajs and Lekajs write against Albania, against the nation. The Çupis are clever... They are always behind the scenes. Let the hands of the Frangajs appear black, let them appear dirty... Free the victims! The black hands are behind them... For some time now, the mythomaniacs Ceka and Imami have been dreaming of presidents’ offices. (Notice what lengths they go to in order to call themselves president.) Their blindness for power has stretched their hands as far as Belgrade. History has shown that all those who have sought power with the help of foreigners have been covered in shame. This tradition cannot be concealed by putting victims like Frangaj and Lekaj on the front line. Free the victims! They are innocent. The black hands are behind them... The hands that want to bury Albania. “Zëri i Popullit” supports the journalists of the newspaper “Koha Jonë,” cries the 50-year-old newspaper. The cry is not for the victims. The cry is for its own offspring, “Koha Jonë”. Free the victims! They are innocent; because they are not the ones who founded the newspaper “Koha Jonë”. They are not the ones who run it. The black hands of the founders belong to other Albanians. And not only Albanians. Six of these hands reach beyond the border, too. “Fight for life or death,” two black hands, the dirty hands of those who have put Albania on the stage, declared recently... “For life or death...”?! This people has decided to live, gentlemen enemies. May death be with you, who summon it. P. SKENDERI

Was it the last one? This happened on 30 January 1994 in the meeting hall of the PS of the City Municipality, a few minutes before the meeting organized by the PR branch with Gjirokastër intellectuals and citizens on property issues was due to begin. The plaster bust, of standard size, of the kind used in the meeting rooms of PP committees, had been placed behind the hall’s desks. Maksi Aliko, the building’s administration chief, who was present and quite agitated by the incident, was asked about the bust and explained: “I am not the administration chief but the personnel chief; I know nothing about the bust.” He added: “This used to be the hall of the Labor Party Committee; now it belongs to the municipality and the PS, because the socialists won the municipality here.” A known fact. The first person to enter this room and smash the bust was the Gjirokastër citizen I. Braçe. A few weeks earlier, a report published in an Albanian newspaper had described the concern of some film producers over the lack of busts of the dictator and floated the idea of making some more for use in filming. Rajmond Tufina

The number of kiosks set up in the capital has exceeded 3,000. This is the conclusion drawn from a survey conducted by the Directorate of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the capital. The methods by which kiosks are set up and their locations in Tirana do not help one form a clear picture of the criteria for granting permits. The fact is that greenery—and not only greenery—is suffering from kiosk mania. [Text in the accompanying cartoon, partly legible:] BANANAS

From a Russia that is entirely in disarray, its only signal in Europe remains the discordant presence of Zhirinovski, who rants and screams in front of microphones and cameras far worse than Hitler did in his day. As a visitor to the former Yugoslavia and Yugoslavia, he was expelled somewhere as an undesirable, but in Belgrade he was welcomed as the bearer of a great message from Great Russia. Put as shamefully as it is yet again shameful, as tragically comic as it is tragic, this phantom-clown, this “modern” Rasputin, is being given such publicity alongside and on a par with the leading leaders and VIPs of this deranged world. In Bosnia, Zhirinovski held an eager and symbolic meeting with the Serb and war criminal Arkan (who is also, in a sense, a deputy of Kosovo), and the two of them, like Siamese twins, swore allegiance to Great Serbia and Great Russia. Meanwhile, the civilized world, while preserving and defending its sacred principles of individual freedom and freedom of speech and expression, considers it unlawful to silence or cut off the speech or “excursion” of the illustrious man, whom it does not hesitate to describe in very bitter terms. Zhirinovski is by no means insane. He is merely playing a role, merely carrying out its interpretation. Zhirinovski’s appearance in the Balkans coincides with Kozyrev’s visit to China and, quite incongruously, with the most important visit of this week, that of Helmut Kohl to the USA, because the world establishes or preserves its balance and imbalance through alliances and their breakup. The German Chancellor, after decorating former President George Bush for his major contribution to the fall of the Berlin Wall, asks America to play a leading and decisive role in this crazy Europe. interpretation. Should the World—the one written with a capital W, the civilized, the super-civilized world that includes America first and the others after it in order of importance—take action? Undoubtedly! An imperative action must be undertaken, as they say, similar to the Iraq blitz, to stop the war in BH, because its wretched prolongation resembles the time of Ilgarisarit for a time bomb.

Or: Confusing the State with Politics It is a fact that the Albanian Left is proving more united than the Right. This is because of the mentality that communists cannot do without Unity. And because Parliament banned the existence of a Communist Party in Albania. The Left (in the traditional sense of the communists) is now accepted as existing only within the Socialist Party. It would be natural for the PD to support the PSD more, as the legitimate representative of the (European) Left in Albania. That would also be in keeping with its political struggle in the current context, where it needs to enter Europe as a moderate right-wing party, committed to stability and tolerance, so necessary for a post-dictatorial society. What makes things difficult is that the factions of the Right in Albania, which were formerly part of the PD or its lower ranks, go on to prejudge their position in relation to the Traditional Left (communist), the former PPSH! Being in opposition to the PD (or to the triumvirate PD, PR, PSD) is not the same as being in opposition to the PS. All the more so when you declare, for the sake of your own (communist) interests, “we did not leave the PD.” If, in relation to the PD, its current position matters (the effort not to lose its broad electorate, those who voted on March 22 for Anti-Communism), that is not the same as joining, even formally, with your pre-March 22 adversary! Reservations about the PD cannot be the same as those of the Opposition defeated by the anti-communist overthrow. Opinions diverge precisely here. How does the PD view its own current state position? From which angle is its practice judged? From the left or the right? Its former departments would prove themselves precisely by how they judge the theory and practice (especially the practice) of the former communists. How could one see it any other way when, until yesterday, you were speaking harshly, almost uncompromisingly, against the PPSH! ...in the near future, if no real steps are taken against the communist mentality of seizing power and holding on to it democratically. The tragedy of the various departments of the Albanian Right begins there: they link the beginning, continuation or conclusion of the struggle against communism to power. When that is precisely only the beginning. The State is the State. It has its own business, then and now. Things visible and invisible, clean or somewhat dubious. It has the law, but also its organs of force. None of these parts can ever be violated or diminished. It also has its own policies, usually determined by its respective institutions, such as Parliament. But the policies of the state should not be confused with the policies of a party, even when that party constitutes the majority, nor with the policies of an entire coalition, as this one does. It is perfectly natural to oppose a party or even a party coalition, but one cannot be against the state, against all its components. Above all, reservations about the policies of the day—and changing them—must proceed through the law, not through violating it and the rule of law. FARUK MYRTA

An assessment of the indicators of the future of Europe p. 2 The UN expects to be attacked by Serbia p. 4 Iljaz Pashë Dibra, chairman and leader of the Albanian League of Prizren p. 3 Did the XXX Brigade exist? p. 2

Greater care for the blind A Blind, addressed to the Government, Parliament and the President of the Republic, emphasizes meeting several key needs of blind people, such as: ensuring the minimum means of subsistence for all persons unable to provide for themselves through their own work because of vision loss; granting pensions, as special cases, to those blind people who lost their jobs as a result of the reform from 1991 onward; providing medical care for blind people through a special government-led program; and providing economic and financial support to the association so that it can function normally. The statement expresses confidence that the government will act in time to meet at least the minimum needs of this group of people. ATSH

The madwoman N was seen near Tirana Prison today. They say she asked to meet Mr. Fatos Nano. “I want to tell him that the European Community has granted free loans so that Albania can invest in the sophistication of its prisons,” she cried. The late Zhirinovski also declared this during his historic visit to Serbia. But whatever the case, Zhirinovski is not so mad as to agree to have his name written on the list of Socialist Party deputies prepared for their early elections. On this list, which has been distributed to volunteer activists for discussion among the people, the names of former PPSH deputies are familiar: Messrs. Hysen Fasko, Bardhyl Godole, Sotir Daullati, and Lufi Kikon. But the name of Dr. Tëroit Agolli has been removed, because he is the only PS deputy who voted for the restoration of property. All these things have been done so that the PS can become a European party and take the PSD’s place in the Socialist International. Not a single eurosocialist appears on these lists of deputies. Believe me, one day Namik Hoti met me in the street and squeezed my hand tightly, as if he were 20 years old. He made me a proposal. He proposed sending me to Belgrade, but I refused. Not because I am against talks with the Serbs, but he made it seem like a goat’s legs. There is reason to suspect that Serbia doubts the seriousness of the Albanian delegations! Fatos Nano, too, has begun to doubt his comrades on the PS Steering Committee. He told another inmate in confidence that Sabit Broka and Bashkim Zeneli pretend they want to get Fatos out of prison, but while swearing loyalty to him, they are keeping him inside! “They want to take my place,” Fatos Nano said. “Just wait: one day they’ll propose that I remain chairman only of the PS, with only those who have me in prison! And they’ll fill the list of future deputies with their own clan, too.” The acting (damaged) chairperson of the PS headquarters this week will be Fatmir Kumbaro... THE CHRONICLER