CURRENT AFFAIRS COUP IN NIGERIA: PRESIDENT EXECUTED On page 6

FROM PARIS: THE WRITER’S PROPHECY AND AUTOPSY Kadare: Here is the Balkans of tomorrow “Why is this tragedy happening?” Ismail KADARE Prophecies and dreams have been made about the end of the millennium; nevertheless, what is happening these days in the Balkans, with all its fury, surpasses anything that can be imagined. In the heart of Europe, one people is being barbarously wiped out by its neighbor. And this extermination, reminiscent of the times of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Stalin, is being repeated in all the familiar ways: killings, massacres, expulsions. It is supported by an impure solidarity that is sometimes Orthodox, sometimes Slavic, sometimes communist, and sometimes all three at once. The whole world is witnessing the eruption of a new racism. Many peoples, who have themselves suffered from this evil, and who were unjustly called “Slavs”—in other words, “slaves”—by the Romans, are witnessing the development of a process of revenge on a scale never seen before. This cycle of crime, this wish of yesterday’s victim to take on the role of executioner, if not stopped resolutely, or at great cost, will inflict very deep wounds on present-day civilization. It is no coincidence that this display of the crime of genocide is taking place in the Balkans, on a narrow stage. And the question of whether the Balkans can be pacified—in other words, Europeanized—a question that may seem anachronistic today, is precisely what is essential and urgent at this moment. The very meaning of the war waged by the Atlantic Alliance, the armed wing of Western civilization, is bound up exactly with this question. The four peninsulas of Europe, three of which are southern—the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas, continues on page 7

THE THREAT Yeltsin frightens the world with World War III CIA uncovers Serbia’s chemical weapons Border provocation: 4 UÇK soldiers killed Arbën Xhaferi from Skopje: Why did we endure it? Meidani: We will not accept the partition of Kosovo Mystery surrounding the arrival of Apaches in Albania Anan “comes alive”; Milošević backs down Massacres kill a Kosovar over a car On pages 2-3-4-5-6-8-9-11-14

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