In the forthcoming elections for commune mayor On 29 May 1994, elections for commune mayor will be held in several communes across the country. The Republican Party, mindful of the situation, has assessed the mission it has set itself: to remind its electorate, PR members and supporters in these areas of the responsibility attached to their vote. The Republican Party reiterates its unwavering anti-communist position and disagrees with any tendency to regard the SP as a more tolerable force now that its chairman has been punished by the judicial authorities. Nostalgia for the past, encouraged without any real reason by the victories of the ex-communists in Eastern Europe, cannot so quickly make people forget what the communist central and local governments inflicted on this people. Uncompromising toward the SP, the Republicans intend to stand in these elections by putting forward people who not only confront the shortcomings of the present, but also present their own alternative. The PR does not promise what it cannot currently deliver. It does not offer voters in these communes any roads or unexpected schemes involving aid. Aid offered precisely on the eve of elections would cast doubt on the sincerity of the PR and its candidates. Elections are not held for parties to gain political capital, but so that the people of these areas can find more capable and dignified people to lead them. The PR has put forward candidates with respected names and a good personal reputation: people who will not use local power for their own privileges, people who will not foster corruption, which continues to be an open wound and a threat to the nature of democratic society. Unlike some other political force, the PR sends its people to the voters not when it has plenty of resources, but when “the opportunity” is demanded by the economic situation and people’s conception of democracy. In these elections for commune mayor, the PR is neither repeating coalitions nor forming prior coalitions, but is ready to enter into agreements and cooperate with political forces that support it in the main outlines of its policy. Thus, in the commune of Ngracan, Mallakastër, the PR is standing with the support of the National Front Party, and considers such arrangements beneficial to both sides. Joint formulas may be chosen where they are realistic, where they promise shared and genuinely democratic improvements, and not as a way of arranging things for the future through covert coalitions. The PR has long expressed its opposition to the Socialist opposition in Albania, which, in our opinion, is untimely and must provide much evidence before this people, martyred for half a century, can trust it. But the PR also cannot remain silent when old games are played in the name of the new democracy, when democratic power is identified with the name of a party that considers itself the only democratic one and democracy an attribute and guarantee belonging to it alone. We regard as unacceptable and wholly undemocratic the recent efforts in Ngracan and Zall Herr, including those by senior DP officials, to prevent PR candidates from being put forward where they had been planned, by pressuring other parties with positions, roads outside the DP’s victory, and so on (offering, in exchange for these threats, posts, roads, etc., as well as improper rewards and privileges). Party candidates are not athletes who can be bought and sold at market prices. One party or another may benefit from these schemes, but the people only lose. In the face of these behind-the-scenes maneuvers, the question naturally arises: Who would it be better for the DP to see win in these communes: the Socialist Party or the PR?! That is why the PR is entering these elections with the aim of winning with its candidates. We see this as an opportunity for the alternative of genuine democracy and those who realistically support it to prevail.

On 21 May 1994, the man who for 40 years escaped Enver Hoxha’s blows, the man who became his most important and closest collaborator, the man who gave Enver Hoxha’s crimes new scope and dimensions, will sit in the dock. This man is the dictator Ramiz Alia. During his years in power, Ramiz Alia added a new and original dimension to Enver Hoxha’s great crime: with his characteristic evasions and “gentleness” (the gentleness of dictators), he inspired hope in people and, at the same time, disappointed them. To preach hope to a people on the brink of death, a people deceived in the darkest ways by monsters, and then disappoint them is to bury them alive. This is Ramiz Alia’s greatest crime; he betrayed humanity... But where does the declaration of Ramiz Alia as a dictator begin? In December 1981, the dictatorship in Albania carried out the greatest and most unprecedented operation in its 50-year history: it eliminated the number two figure in communist power, one of its most brutal and merciless representatives, Mehmet Shehu. The so-called “suicide” finally cleared Ramiz Alia’s path to ascend the dictator’s throne. At that time Enver Hoxha was almost dead. His existence was purely biological. The killing of Shehu and of the other criminals around him brought Ramiz Alia to the head of the PPSH. From then on, together with the dictator’s wife, Nexhmije Hoxha, he ruled Albania for 10 years. Enver Hoxha’s biological death led to Alia’s man being appointed to his posts and duties, and to the team that had surrounded the deceased being placed at Alia’s disposal. It should be stressed that during his rule Enver Hoxha built the dictatorship surrounded by numerous criminal collaborators, while Alia continued it—and did so heroically alone, surrounded by a crowd of ignoramuses and [unclear], who neither saw nor heard anything. Declaring that “The name of Albania and Enver Hoxha are inseparable,” Ramiz Alia gave concrete form to these words by building monuments, busts and a museum to his great teacher throughout Albania. At a time when he blocked the popular movement at the centre and the [unclear] of evil, Ramiz Alia organized seminars and symposiums against perestroika. Ramiz Alia criminally closed the door on one of the greatest opportunities presented to the Albanian nation—the German opportunity (Strauss–Genscher). The great upheavals in Eastern Europe affected dictator Alia in an extremely negative way: the dictator’s hidden traits—mediocrity, fear, and the effort to conceal the crime and save himself—revealed his true face. Ramiz Alia tried to fabricate a formula of keeping things more or less as they were under communism, with clearly stated objectives: to conceal and forget the crime (through gradual transition), and to create the new power with people from his own ranks and class (with the ridiculous slogans “Neither opening up nor closing down. Neither East nor West”). And when he realized that events were moving rapidly and were difficult to control, dictator Alia planned and put into action a new crime, which at times surpassed even Enver Hoxha’s. Let us mention some of them: - Ramiz Alia opened the day with the cult [unclear] and at the same time ordered people to be killed, later going as far as the macabre act of dragging the bodies of the victims. - The first person Ramiz Alia sent to the Conference on the Protection of Human Rights was the arch-criminal Aranit Çela. This is how far this mediocre dictator mocked people’s freedom. - Dictator Alia organized the military coup at the United School and the criminal [unclear] of Enver’s volunteers. He is directly responsible for the coup d’état disguised as the “Presidential Council.” - Ramiz Alia was the number-one person who ordered the massacre of 2 April. It was a well-known rule under the dictatorship that the order to fire could be given by the first secretary of the PPSH, alias the commander of the Armed Forces. - Dictator Alia brought the Party of Labour to the present day. He is also chiefly responsible for economic freedom [as written] and anti-national policies. Photo: Sulo Gradeci

Pensioners victims of 1,000-lek notes At the counters of two banks in the city of Berat, thousands of counterfeit 1,000-lek notes were confiscated over a period of 15 days. The victims of this money were pensioners and women who had not checked the notes. The phenomenon has not affected money changers, although it is possible that they too have circulated counterfeit money. ATSH

Government promises to meet the demands After 9 days, the hunger strike by representatives of villages flooded by Lake Fierzë was called off. This was achieved following talks between the strike committee and the Association of Flood Victims and representatives of the Government in Tirana. Jahir Trota, chairman of the strike committee, told ATSH that the talks had been constructive and that the Government considered the strikers’ main demands justified; a Government Commission has been tasked with resolving them. After learning the results of the talks between the strike committee and government representatives, as well as the announcement by the [unclear] of the Council of Ministers concerning the meeting, the strikers agreed to end the strike. Ylli RAKIPI

From the 13th to the 15th, the Soros Media Center held a seminar in Tirana attended by press organizations and a large number of specialists. After the situation was presented by the head of Albanian management, the specialists familiarized themselves with and began work on what was needed to establish a private press distribution agency, which would also create in parallel an “express postal system,” absent in Albania. Stuart Anerbach, a 25-year editor at the “Washington Post” and now an employee of the Soros Foundation in Prague, described the problem of disorder as a problem of other systems in the world, where dependence begins with the state. It is also necessary to improve the advertising system, in order to balance distribution prices across the territory with the costs paid.

Following the assault on cultural heritage By now, even the most careful cataloguers of those responsible for Albanian culture can no longer keep track of all the acts of vandalism against it. The Glavinica epitaph, which seems to mark the tragic emigration of Albanian culture, is in fact being balanced every day by further potential thefts, as people are carrying out its uprooting before our very eyes. The disappearance of Mio, the vanishing of archaeological materials from Apollonia and Butrint—which recall the theft of the Dea at the beginning of this century—the damage to the holdings of the National Library, the thefts from several local museums, and other cases are now taking shape as an assault on Albanian culture. Today the aggressors are becoming the “generals” of this culture in their attack. They aim to destroy the fundamental records that prove its superiority or autochthonous character. In any case, if one looks closely at what is being deliberately erased, one sees that the attack is directed at the heritage of the Byzantine culture of the Albanians. This cannot simply be the work of ordinary thieves, just as the attacks on Albanian culture have never been ordinary. There has always been a constant predisposition to erase this heritage from the body of Albanian culture. This made political aggression against Albania easier; once again, the political assault on Albania has been drawn into religious and especially historical labyrinths. The only “general” with the power to stop this assault, for example, is now Minister Anagnosti. Until now, he has been “robbed” only by Greek newspapers; today, even newspapers that have nothing to do with the Greek governments have clearly understood the destruction of Byzantine culture in Albania: medieval culture is disappearing, manuscripts are disappearing, Polikarpë’s [unclear] are disappearing, Mio’s paintings are disappearing. Albanian culture in general is disappearing, while Minister Anagnosti is left undisturbed in his post. When it is inventoried, the task will be very easy. Very little will remain to be protected. Albanian culture is disappearing. In Albania, Mr Anagnosti remains, powerless in the face of the assault on Albanian culture. He is powerless against the disappearance of our museums, incapable of continuing to be the “general” of Albanian cultural heritage. The roots of this culture are now being forcibly trampled in order to be transported to another land, to a land of other “generals” who truly [unclear] another Albanian culture. Byzantine culture is leaving Albania, medieval culture is leaving, the manuscripts of Polikarpa are disappearing, Mio’s paintings are disappearing. Albanian culture in general is disappearing, while Minister Anagnosti is left undisturbed in his post. MERO BAZE (Reprinted from “Rilindja” dated 14 May 1994)

“Neritan Ceka and I think alike,” said crazy N., after reading his interview in “Albania”. Our foreign minister should pay for his plane ticket to Zurich out of his own pocket. He should pay in drachmas, not lekë, since he is staying in Greece. If the conflict in the South escalates, Neritan and I, as presidents, will demand changes to the Greek Armed Forces in order to save Albania. The killing in Thessaly was not carried out by Greece, but by NATO. This is also borne out by our archaeological discoveries. On Saturday I will appear at the bank’s [unclear]. I am requesting this meeting, she said, to clarify through the ambassador a deadline set by the professional organizations. The professional union was signed by the Greek Ministry of Justice, for Northern Epirus. After the head of Alexander the Great (of Greek Macedonia) was stolen too, Minister of Culture Mr Anagnosti is expected to be stolen as well. It is also expected that Luan Basha will take Nano’s photograph to keep Ramiz Alia company in the courtroom. Deputy Shaban Memia has gone missing for the second time. For another 6 months, the Albanian Parliament will be without a member of its upper chamber, Senator Ridvan Pëllumbi, who will go to take up the post of Metropolitan of Korçë and Janina. For Greece’s top diplomatic specialty, Azem Hajdari has been summoned by the American Congress to meet former President Bush. Next week Leon Hajdaraga will resign from the SP in order to [unclear]. The extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the Republic of Vorio Epir in Tirana is appointed: Kelm Hoxha, the author of the notorious crime of 2 April yesterday. THE CHRONICLER

Following a request made in the Albanian Parliament Someone, unexpectedly, rises in the Albanian Parliament as if waking from a lethargic stroll and calls for a parliamentary commission to be set up to examine May 5 as a date that has been made inseparable from, and imbued with, the status of a martyrs’ day, deserving to be commemorated by everyone with great solemnity and in a different way! As is well known, this day coincides with the hanging of 21-year-old Qemal Stafa, who was killed in Tirana on 5 May 1942. This proposal comes immediately after the official celebration of the day and a special TVSH program devoted to Qemal Stafa. Moreover, in the factual accounts, authentic evidence and testimonies, a portrait was drawn of the martyr Qemal Stafa, this boy whose patriotic father gave him the name of the great Ataturk as soon as he was born; this delicate, sensitive boy, this admirer of Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, ELUDA BUÇPAPAJ (continued on page 4)