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The Albanian government, the misfortune of an entire people P. 3

A moving letter to the editorial office of the newspaper “Republika” The Molla family, currently surviving in—as she calls it—a foreign address, are asking for help. Where? All they need is for someone to listen to them. The state does not exist for them. Hope seems to find life only abroad: “We will walk barefoot to the ends of the earth, because here we have been condemned forever to the road of death.” The sad words, carefully written, attract attention, but we do not know whose. Someone told them, “Write to Mr. Ahrens at the OSC.” That is what they did. They have only felt that they must make their extreme poverty public. “Deprived of every means of living, with children dying one after another, without a home, without work and without bread, as a family we are dying out.” It is Mrs. Nazmie who signed this letter, whose neat handwriting—which clearly insists on being understood—says a great deal. How many “Nazmies” are there in Albania? Nobody dies of hunger, people often say. Until you have experienced it yourself, it is easy to make pronouncements. Yet you come across words such as we are fading away, we are corpses, in agony for 5 years. My state, deaf and without ears, does not hear and does not answer. Our properties have been stolen; we are giving up the ghost. We have no place here; the state does not exist either. Mr. Ahrens! What are we to do, and who will take us in? of death...” Signed by Nazmije Molla, this account arrived yesterday at the editorial office of the newspaper “Republika.”

Handwritten note: p. 2 - 48-61, 63-74

Tirana is being destroyed by illegal construction, and this destruction bears the name “Construction Police.” This is the opinion of a senior official at the capital’s Municipality, who says he is outraged because he can cite several cases of irregular construction that were allowed by the heads of the Republic’s General Directorate of the Construction Police. According to him, “the very chiefs of this institution authorize illegal construction, telling builders: ‘As long as you get the construction two metres above ground, answer for it yourselves; after that, we will guarantee that the dispute is settled.’ Under these circumstances, pirate builders dig pits all night, remove the earth, and work during the day too, but behind metal-sheet enclosures; only after they have erected the columns for the first floor do they reveal their activity. After that, the offices in question say: ‘There’s nothing we can do; the construction has risen above ground and the law does not allow it to be demolished.’” At present, such construction is taking place in the “Ali Demi” neighborhood, in New Tirana and elsewhere. Dozens of additions are being built onto apartment blocks without a permit from the KRT, a geological study, approval from the seismic authority—they lack everything except the tacit approval of the Construction Police.

An unexpected letter arrives for “Republika”. The Molla family from Fushë-

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