Ruçi: I agree with the PR’s Anti-Crime Platform P. 3

Kule: The republican idea, a fruitful idea Crime requires a firm hand Dhosi Kule P. 3

Bushati: The entire opposition should support the PR’s Platform P. 3

P. 2

By Faruk MYRTAJ In 1997, Albania learned to become even smaller than it had emerged from 1912: politicians, journalists, almost all the VIPs, not to forget Europe’s envoys too, shut themselves inside the “Rogner” hotel. Albania shrank within a hotel; the Nation and the State were transformed into a State-Hotel. Outside this kind of State, the great one had ruled since 1999; after this, one cannot say that the Alliance for the State has built the state; indeed, by now it seems to Albanians that a state in Albania will be difficult ever to establish; worse still, if a Man appears (the one Migjeni wished to be Born!) and preaches Justice and Order and Democracy in “Skënderbej” Square, hardly anyone would have the energy to be— Europe’s envoys shut themselves away in the “Rogner” hotel. Albania was reduced to the confines of a hotel; the Nation and the State were turned into a Hotel-State. It was a kind of State, ruled by Anarchy and Crime. And those same politicians are still preaching to this day! Two and a half years later, the situation appears to have changed, while remaining just the same: ordinary citizens feel abandoned and just as unprotected. There are no longer “stray bullets,” but there are “stray victims.” Back then, you were not supposed to go out in the evening, and even today it is advisable not to. A day has come when Albanians hurry so that night does not catch them on the roads of their own country; better to be on other people’s roads, better to be somewhere else than out on the streets of Albania at night! Who knows what might happen to you! A Kosovar Albanian living in Germany had his German passport held at the Port of Durrës, on the insane pretext that “it was suspected of being fake”! The man tried everything to reassure and explain things to the Albanian security guards? He was a well-known person, and the smugglers might have been implicated! But even after that, the customs officers did their job: They forcibly gave the Kosovar a refugee’s travel document (he lived in Switzerland!) and then, after he paid a few br…ibes, returned his German passport, which was no longer suspicious! It cannot be said that 1997 is very different from today; what is still true is that if a Man appears (the one Migjeni called for to be Born!) and preaches Justice, Order and Democracy in “Skënderbej” Square, few would have the energy to believe him. Politics has exhausted itself in every respect; it has no moral right even to hold itself, or its various parts, to account; after it surrendered power and took it back just as it did in 1997, the governing camp is now begging the opposition to govern together! Both sides accuse each other of crimes, and Justice, yesterday and today, cannot—or is not allowed to, for reasons that are never stated—establish the facts behind these accusations against politicians. An excellent programme such as “The Marathon of Crime” remained a major attention-grabber, but one in which the impotence of politics was deafening: Politics wanted to turn it into politics, too, but was not predisposed to uncover the roots of crime. Almost no one mentioned that the first reason for crime is that Albanian democracy became impossible; that individuals did not acquire property; that social order became impossible; that political leadership is absent; that justice became completely inaccessible; that politics cannot enforce the law; and that the rewards, salaries and pensions of MPs, and the salaries of those in power, should be linked… to their actual contribution, rather than being a derivative of the painful cause-and-effect chain of 1997.

P. 8

P. 9

Interview P. 3

P. 13

P. 9 Starova: "You go in to Berisha with your own thoughts and come out with his" Interview P. 9