Azem, now you are free to ascend the President’s throne The move by yesterday’s “leader,” Azem Hajdari, continues to be interpreted amid speculation. Whatever the truth may be, the newspapers hasten to call it a game, even a clever game. But could it be a game? The “war” games begin on the eve of the general strike. Whose interest was served by shifting attention from the strike to the presidency of the Trade Union? Let us follow the trail of the facts: Azem sounds the alarm. I, the chairman of SHIK, am in danger; they want to kill me! Surely the foreign embassies that received the notice from the chairman of the Parliamentary Commission overseeing the National Intelligence Service were astonished by this SOS paradox. Azem’s party, which had put that bell around his neck, reassures him, dispels his fear—it dismisses him as head of SHIK on Thursday. The dismissal takes place two days before Azem’s Congress. For his part, the latter does not lose his cool. He receives this notice as if to say: “I am a loyal soldier of the Party. It appointed me, it can remove me.” Two days after Thursday, that is, after his dismissal, Azem feels at ease enough to insult those who dismissed him; but, in any case, he has become more credible to the trade unionists. Continued on p. 3

The other companies should keep quiet. Just yesterday they had their money with me Is Sudja getting the money ready, or the suitcases? She pays clients, but dollars are also being exchanged People close to Sudja have been seen at one of the currency-exchange offices in Tirana, exchanging 600 thousand dollars for lekë. Another source also reports that, on that receipt, someone had managed to get their money back together with the corresponding interest. “I raised the rate to 50% a month to show the others that I, too, know how to take their clientele with fantastic rates, but lower rates are more trustworthy to me.” In this way Sudja responds to that company which collapsed after “the three days of the miracle” brought Sudja to the brink of ruin. About one of them, she says that those who, until yesterday, had their money deposited in her account cannot speak. Page 4

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