Yesterday’s round table also under the weight of the boycott Recently, following President Berisha’s announcement of the commission, the Socialists, together with several other parties, have once again embraced the path of boycott. Although the local elections are scheduled for October 20, it can be said that there is still a great deal to be done. Although many of the anomalies created in the May 26 elections should be attributed to the lack of sufficient time to prepare them, it seems that some parties have learned no lessons from this, since they continue to refuse to sit down with the others and instead demand special round tables. All the conditions are in place for major mistakes to be made again in haste, not only with regard to revising the electoral law, which needs the views of forces from across the political spectrum, but also in the organization of the elections themselves. It is widely known that these elections will serve as a test for Europe, which will assess the degree of democratization in our country and how much confidence in democracy has been restored here. However, by boycotting, one certainly cannot expect anything good. In this case, though, responsibility will fall more heavily not on the government, but on those who refuse not only to participate in the elections, but also to take part in the general boycott of the elections. From Europe’s point of view, it can be said that the blame is equal—both for those who manipulate the elections and for those who boycott dialogue on holding them in accordance with the standards required by Europe. Thus, those circles that see boycotting as the best way to achieve their goals are seriously risking their image and the support they receive from international circles. Boycotting does not always enjoy the support of others.

Mr. Sabri Godo, chairman of the PRSH, has left for the USA. First, Mr. Godo will meet senior officials of the State Department in Washington. After that, the chairman of the PRSH will go to Chicago to attend, as a guest, the National Convention of the American Democratic Party, where the Democrats’ candidate for the presidential election this November will be chosen. Mr. Sabri Godo is one of four Albanian politicians who will attend this political event. Mr. Godo is expected to meet representatives of the American administration and members of Congress, and to visit the State Department.

More than half of the accused are abroad Yesterday, at the Tirana Court of First Instance, the trial of the fourth group of former senior officials of the former dictatorship, accused of crimes against humanity committed in collaboration with one another, continued for four hours over two court sessions. As on July 29, 1996, when the trial began, the defendants Lenka Çuko, Idajet Beqiri, Sulejman Abazi and Agron Tafa were present in the courtroom. The other defendants, specifically Shkëlzen Bajraktari, Llambi Gegeprifti, Irakli Vero, Vejsi Haderi and Nazmi Domi, continue to be tried in absentia, since the prosecutor’s notification that they had left for an unknown destination to evade the trial remains in force. The judicial inquiry, presided over by Judge Medi Bicfili, began with the testimony of witnesses requested by the prosecution. The two prosecutors, Berim Tominaj and Shkëlqim Gani, who are presenting the case, had 16 people who had been interned under the former dictatorship ready to testify in the courtroom. All ten witnesses who yesterday described in court the full tragedy of their lives, from before they were even born, accused the nine defendants being tried of being responsible. One representative of the Gjoni family, a family from Tropoja interned for around 20 years in a village in Biza, Tirana, told the court how he, his mother and the other family members, most of them minors, had been interned solely because their brother had crossed the border. Without any warning, on the order of the former head of the Tropoja Internal Affairs Branch, Sulejman Abazi, they were loaded onto a truck as if they were goods, and after a night’s journey they found themselves interned in Malin me Gropa. Many other families from Durrës, Tirana, Shkodra and Kruja had suffered the same fate, being sent into internment for periods of up to eighteen months, until the parents reached adulthood, without any prior warning or court decision; [text unclear] long-term internment. The most notable moment in the courtroom was the direct accusation made by witness Ismail Daci, from the Kruja district, against the defendant Idajet Beqiri. “You were the presiding judge who tried my son Fatmir Daci for high treason against the homeland and an attempt to kill Enver Hoxha,” I. Daci said in court, “and you signed the order to intern my family in the coastal marsh near Continued on p. 3.

Adem Demaçi declares The chairman of the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina, Adem Demaci, called for a new form of state organization acceptable to the international community, which has declared that borders must not be changed, the KMDLNJ information service reports. He also referred to one of his projects concerning a Balkan confederation and said that this step is the only way to win over part of the weary Serbian intelligentsia and, at the same time, the best way for Kosovo to gain its political subjectivity without war, destruction or great loss of life. Responding to criticism of this project, Demaci said that the critics had forgotten the condition he had set: that any talks between Serbs and Albanians must begin with Kosovo’s independence. Until this condition is met, there can be no negotiations, Demaci stressed. Mr. Demaci made these statements on Saturday and said that the aim was to work in the municipalities of Vitia, Gjiljan, Kamenica and Ferizaj.

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