The Army’s leaders abandon their careers at a delicate moment for the country The Generals Leave the Army The top military officers join the exodus: Preference for the USA After Adem Çopani, former Chief of the General Staff, a rush to the embassies NDALOJNI Reze ar Xhaxhiu The Albanian Army has been hit again. This time the defense establishment is experiencing the phenomenon of its senior generals fleeing, as they rush to seek asylum in the USA or other European countries. The alarm has been raised in recent days by the Defense Ministry, particularly after the announcement of the sudden departure of Adem Çopani, but also amid attempts by other generals—who led the Albanian Army a year ago and issued orders to destroy bridges or bomb objects of particular importance—to leave en masse. Although this is an alarm and should be treated with particular seriousness when it comes from defense offices and headquarters, it nevertheless continues to fall on deaf ears and seems somewhat false in the face of the deafness coming from the state and its governing institutions. Years ago, Ramiz Alia’s state also enacted a law intended to prevent any humane departure—the surprise at the news of someone’s flight, the discussion of such a shameful departure, and then the forgetting of everything: the person who left, his violations, and also the secrets he had taken with him. It seems that the same is happening with the ranks of the senior generals of the Albanian Army. Why does the official media remain silent and forget to report the news or sound an alarm? Is this forgetfulness, an accommodation with the Albanian phenomenon of generals, SHIK chiefs, or police chiefs leaving, or is it an agreement made with friends across the sea regarding the service of senior military officers who attended NATO schools and received medals from American and Turkish chiefs of staff? A few months ago, a similar scenario was used with former Army chief Zhulali. The press remained silent, then reported, based on reliable information, that he had temporarily been stationed at one of the American bases in Poland. A few months ago ... The Army’s former Chief of the General Staff during the period of the state’s collapse has arrived across the Atlantic And silence takes hold Bezhan[i] exposes spies even in the Justice system On page 3 TIRANA - Adem Çopani has also fled. period of the state’s collapse is said to have arrived in far-off America. The Defense Ministry has also raised the alarm about other generals who are waiting for visas to Western the Ministry of Defense. Although unofficial, the announcement is said to have shaken other circles of the state, but not the top executive. “It is more a matter of indifference.” “Unacceptable.” That was how the man responsible for defense on the Legal Affairs Committee commented yesterday. For the Socialist jurist, the other strange fact concerns the continued payments enjoyed by senior generals: they continue to wear their gold ranks on their uniforms and, even today, sign the generals’ payrolls. According to Braho, the Prime Minister has been made aware of this fact, but silence and deafness continue to come from the government. On page 3 TODAY GAZETTE TV GAZETTE TV therefore in the structure that comes from the state and the institutions that govern it. Years ago, Ramiz Alia’s state also enacted a law that would prevent any unilateral departure by senior and middle-ranking military officers without first obtaining the approval of the department where they had worked. But, paradoxically, from Rinas and other border crossing points, the major fugitives left freely, taking with them secret mysteries, sins and crimes. Years ago, the Meksi government also went after these sinful fugitives of Alia’s regime, although it failed to bring back any of the VIP figures who, according to it, had committed crimes and kept Hoxha’s regime in power. Years later, the same calls were made by the state under the coalition government, although the alarm was raised for Bashkim Gazideda, Agim Shehu, Armando Vincani, and other VIP figures who had served in the departments and churches of Berisha’s state. And everyone, one after another, in the vicious circle of such a scenario was also used with us; the head of the army was Zhulali. The press then reported, on the basis of reliable information, that he had temporarily taken refuge months later, the army’s number two ended up in the USA, to be followed later by another senior defence official, who also arrived in America. Clinton’s state seems unwilling to leave out in the cold the people it has itself trained in NATO military doctrine and with lessons from the Pentagon. For senior generals with cases pending in the Albanian justice system and orders issued to open arms depots and carry out bombardments, the Albanian state has the right to demand their return—that is, the return of its citizens—just as some European countries are doing with those hundreds of refugees who, in any case, arrive on this continent without state secrets or past sins. At the very least, let the state begin to assert itself, if it really is a state.

History. Children shatter RENEA’s myth: They steal dynamite. TIRANA - To skip school and then steal. Here is one of those sins that all children everywhere should avoid. But the “tales” that will later be told about the children of Albania in the late ’90s will certainly not be so daring. The Tirana police announced that the material stolen by three minors from Farka from the RENEA depots was dynamite. They had left school, which, although it has somewhat lost its meaning, is hard to call a place where knowledge and good moral conduct are acquired in the Larus-e. But strangely, the three youngsters went straight to the depots of the Zallmëri unit: A.S., 13, T.H., 12, and 14-year-old S.S. Why? Were they perhaps looking for something they did not know? Looking for some missing game? Or the thrill that, when you are a child, “somehow appeals to you.” They went to the armaments warehouses and, in a move just like in the films they may watch at night together with their parents, opened the doors. They calmly took 200 grams of dynamite and left, unaware that at the same time they were carrying their own destruction on their tender shoulders. The police have taken them in, and judicial proceedings are being conducted under parental responsibility, but what surprised adults most was why children had entered the Army’s supposedly super-guarded depots. Perhaps they would not have thought of doing this if they had not been children. Perhaps if they had not got the idea to pull this prank, they would still be playing. It does not matter whether they were sent by someone else, someone older. What is most painful is that, in the children’s consciences and in their way of thinking, the idea of living alongside danger has already become deeply and quite naturally ingrained. And while adults talk endlessly about peace and doves, about a better future for their children, the children themselves are already victims of weapons in their most injurious form. And the question that now deserves to be shouted is: After everything that has happened in Albania, what storms are coming? s.sh

TIRANA - The Tirana match, together with the referee from Shkodra, brought more tension than football. In an atmosphere of terrible hostility, even harsher than the match itself, were the behavior of the Shkodran fans. Perhaps irritated with themselves, they focused more on the match referee and FSHF official Sulejman Starova than on the match. The Vllaznia players in the Shkodran football match, particularly the team’s goalkeeper and captain, Grima. On pages 10–11

Today, parliamentary elections in bloodied Kosovo Rugova alone on the road to

Today, parliamentary elections in bloodied Kosovo PRISTINA - Rugova is once again left alone. The current President of Kosovo is the only candidate for whom Albanians will vote today. After the 1991 Referendum, this Sunday’s vote is the second for the Albanians. The LDK leader, as the sole candidate, has been endorsed by all the other parties, while 480 candidates are competing for the 100 members of parliament expected to be elected by direct vote. Another 30 seats in the Kosovo Parliament will be allocated under the proportional system to parties that win more than 3 percent of the total vote and to ethnic groups. On page 2 Ibrahim Rugova

WHILE THE BEKTASHIS CELEBRATE SULTAN NEVRUZ TIRANË - Spring arrives with... snow. The first day of the spring equinox in Tiranë dawned like a little winter. A series of surprises, old coincidences long since forgotten, became intertwined on this first day with the dusk; spring, which tries all sorts of ways to make itself as abstract as possible, also cast unexpected snow over the surface of the earth. Perhaps by chance, perhaps this has always happened, but the last time snow had fallen in Tiranë was more than five years ago. But this really was a very strange coincidence. It was March again, in 1993, when people in the streets of the capital began to see the “white wonder” falling. Snow in March, even though throughout the winter—which, at least according to the calendar, has ended—Tirana had been troubled at most by a few erratic rains that turned things to mud. The cold snap that has shut people indoors and blocked roads is, strangely, more delicate in Tiranë than elsewhere. There are no blocked roads, nor food being dropped by helicopter. In Tiranë, people were happily preparing for the eve of the Sultan Nevruz holiday yesterday when the first snowflakes appeared outside the windows. In fact, on these rare, fortunate occasions, nobody stops to wonder whether it is some meteorological anomaly or a phenomenon bringing tidings of disaster. Behind windowpanes, and also in the streets of Tiranë, thousands of people wished that the paradoxical snowfall would work its miracle and settle, at least for a few hours. The beggars sitting on the cold paving stones, battered by winter’s return, suddenly felt forgotten as people’s minds turned to the moment of snow. Nobody had time anymore to look down at their misfortunes. And it was the first day with snow after five years without it.