Rilindja Demokratike: freedom of the press, or freedom to slander?
RD: “Gazeta Shqiptare represents the mafia”
Gazeta Shqiptare, which according to sources who wished to remain unidentified represents the mafia’s inner circle, has, over these three years, in fulfilling its mission, laid out several lines through which it seeks to achieve the aims of the Franco-Rosas in Albania. One of these lines strikes at the heart of the matter, and with the uncivilized and racist anti-Albanian Bollino, and those standing behind him, they have chosen the “way” of rejecting the Albanian language by tampering with its syntax, forms, tenses and cases of grammar. The Rosas’ ringleader and the Albanian speakers surrounding him, abusing freedom of the press, have taken it upon themselves to mutilate, distort and disfigure the capital letters of Albanian, so that this language will sound ugly in freedom, or be presented as a derivative of the KOZANOSTRA. A naive person might think that this foreigner, because he does not know Albanian, is innocent, but such an excuse is utterly absurd, because a group of Albanian speakers work around him who know not only Albanian but also the jargon of thugs and prostitutes. What Bollino and the Albanian speakers around him are doing to the Albanian language is an act that is both uncivilized and illegal. The choice to degrade the language as a key element in carrying out his racist strategy is deliberate. Language is an essential factor in the genocide of every nation.
For Albanians, their beautiful, ancient and rich Albanian language is their greatest spiritual wealth, the essence of their civilization, a monument to the national spirit.
The spokesman for Franco-Rosa or the mafia Piezë, and the Albanian speakers around him, know well that it is a language and, above all, an Albanian language. They know that in the history of Albanian letters, the poets, writers, musicologists, linguists, and most enlightened minds of the Albanian nation dedicated their finest and most inspired works to the mother tongue, to the mother and to the language. These are the people who made it so. Bollino and the Albanian speakers around him know well that Albanians have paid for every letter of their written language with more suffering than any other nation. Often inspired by racism toward this nation’s language, they themselves bring to mind Qubrilloviç, who had prescribed the destruction of the mother tongue in order to destroy the Albanian nation. He thought that poverty, the consequences of oppression and the many hardships would mean that his strategy could not be put into practice. In his activities, he found accomplices among a group of Albanians who, because of red ideals or green dealings, are ready to sell not only their mother tongue but to bargain away their very selves.
Mentor Shehu
(From “RD”, 3 August 1995)
[The article text is partially cut off at the top of the image.] ... the newspaper “RD”. 1) Gazeta Shqiptare is a daily newspaper with a history in Albania ... It was founded in 1927 to connect the peoples and shores of the Adriatic (Albania and Apulia), which at that time were developing their trade relations. In 1939, with the Fascist occupation, our newspaper was closed because Duce’s officials preferred their own newspaper in its place, “Tomori”, apparently considering “Gazeta Shqiptare” (then written “Shqipëtare”) far too free. Then the Fascists were driven out, and power fell into the hands of the Communists of Enver Hoxha’s state, who, not wanting free circulation, let alone foreign circulation, did not allow Gazeta Shqiptare to resume publication.
Gazeta Shqiptare is owned by a publishing company (EDISUD S.p.A.), one of the best-known in Italy and the second most important in southern Italy. EDISUD publishes another newspaper in Italy, “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”. This year the latter turns 108. It is read every day by more than 600,000 readers. We will not pause here to recall its history, particularly its record of democracy and freedom over a century of publication. We will mention only the fight that “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno” was the first to wage publicly against the Apulian mafia. It was a desperate struggle, which soon became [unclear] and led to appeals for protection from the institutions and police forces, from whom it requested protection for its editorial office. I personally have worked as a journalist for 15 years (ten of them devoted to the fight against the mafia) and have lived for more than six months under Italian police protection because I was threatened on every side by mafia bosses—the same bosses who, according to “RD”, are supposedly our friends and mine today.
While in Italy the police were obliged to protect Bollino from the mafia, in a paradoxical sequence of events (though we are sure it was entirely coincidental), on Tuesday afternoon two police officers appeared at the Tirana offices of Gazeta Shqiptare, [garbled text] Carlo Bollino, specifically asking for the “Editor-in-Chief”. I was (and am) in Italy for a short period and thought this was regrettable; therefore, in my absence, the statement of the editor, Fatos Baxhaku, was prepared. He was escorted to the offices of the Ministry of the Interior, after being “warned” by Deputy Minister Agim Shehu “to replace all the writers”. Among the reports circulating is one for which we are “reproached”: the publication on our newspaper’s pages, about a month ago, of a photograph of Hitler (?) which was, of course, connected to a news item about the Nazi dictator.
2) Franco Russo (whom “RD” apparently alludes to by calling him Franco Rosi) and I currently believe is on holiday by the sea, awaiting trial for mafia. The charges against him—which we have learned about from journalists, who are worth something even director of “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”. Nevertheless, no Italian prosecutor’s office has seen fit to accuse the newspaper—or EDISUD S.p.A.—of any crime: no one else has the right to start doing so today.
3) Gazeta Shqiptare resumed publication only on 23 April 1993—at last, in the age of democracy—seeking from its very first day to provide objective and serious information. Our investment (economic and cultural) has no political agenda whatsoever, and we believe our duty is to provide news objectively every day. Of course, we may make unintentional mistakes, and we criticize the mistakes of others (who doesn’t?). We are always ready to apologize, but no one can accuse us—even in the heat of anger—of pursuing “racist and anti-Albanian” aims. We ask ourselves and our readers: was it anti-Albanian to make our pages available to the Ministry of Health for the AIDS prevention campaign carried out in Albania, a campaign for which we are so far the only newspaper to have done so? Was our contribution to informing people by every means about the fight against cholera anti-Albanian? Is it anti-Albanian to bear the cost of distributing the newspaper in Italy too (and we are the only ones doing so), to help Albanian emigrants keep a newspaper from their homeland? Is it anti-Albanian to stand up—as Gazeta Shqiptare has done—for Albania’s image abroad, against degrading television reports or films misrepresenting Albania, including those made by Italian directors?
4) We cannot understand what “RD” means when it accuses us of “mangling the Albanian language”. Our journalists, all Albanians and educated, free people, know their language perfectly, having completed their studies with the best results in Albanian schools. It is no coincidence that most of our newspaper’s readers are intellectuals and students. What risks offending Albania and its society is the President, the Government, the parties and the People; above all, however, we do not believe it is our reporting, nor any possible spelling mistake. Some newspaper articles demonstrate responsibility: “an Albania in [unclear], one that has nothing to do with Albanian freedom” is how “Rilindja Demokratike” defined it—the first [unclear; sentence garbled] to denounce the order to [unclear] dictatorship and the condemned: for vulgarity and lies—which seem identical, at least in form, to the “Stalinist Albanians”—but this is simply a good example for everyone. For us too.