Strikes, the trap where the Government could get stuck
. Nano’s indifference delivers a scandalous blow to Berisha over the issue of those responsible. Strikes, especially hunger strikes, have acquired the status of agents of change and overthrow of Albanian governments during these seven years of democracy. The last communist president, Alia, even though he made concessions and then backtracked, was brought to his end by them—the strikes. The Nano 1+2 governments also capitulated in the face of strikes. It was not so with Berisha: strikes did not remove him from power, but the rev-revolution did. He, with a 20-year career in the Party of Ramiz and Fatos, dealt differently with the strikers; he used violence instead of dialogue, after Azemi’s mission failed—a mission that could surely have been carried out with the persecuted, by stepping over Berisha, whom he adored. Although it was the persecuted who brought him to power, Berisha’s hand did not tremble: he sent the ro-madhin into the air and drove the former villagers and political persecuted out of their places of confinement. Alone? Berisha split the persecuted by playing on the misfortune of some of them. He accused them of having informed on one another, separated them from each other, and even created two organizations, “privileging” one by giving it a few crumbs, while ignoring the other group, so much so that many of them, even at an advanced age, took the road into exile to make a living for themselves and their families. Now the persecuted have appeared on the scene again. They have begun hunger strikes in Tirana, Kavajë, Fier and Durrës, and yesterday there were signs that