DIPLOMATIC RIVALRY On page 5

AFOR/ UNEXPECTED STATEMENT NATO leaves Albania [Illegible handwritten notes]

Çerçiz LOLOÇI Just a few minutes of rainfall are enough for our capital, Tirana, as always, to be flooded, muddied, and mucked up on all sides. At a moment of rain, the capital’s citizen reflects on how, since the nineties, four generations of MPs, three presidents, four parliamentary speakers, four or five ministers... including those for Roads, two mayors—in short, a whole host of statesmen (with all the infrastructure at their service) have strutted around on his taxes, while the situation has changed very little. Without getting into the long-running disputes (it’s the Municipality’s responsibility, it’s the Ministry’s, the opposition is to blame, the government bears responsibility, the Reds wrote it and the Whites did it), typical of an Anatolian-bureaucratic mindset, Tirana has had plenty of funds earmarked for its roads and revival, but they have continually gone down other inaccessible routes, beyond the reach of the responsible bodies—though, of course, not beyond the reach of the Supreme State Audit. The most flagrant case, involving the former Minister of Transport and, at the same time, a secretary and deputy chairman of the Social Democrats, denounced by Prime Minister Majko (the file may have mysteriously disappeared), makes the point better: here, in this patriotic and stooped country, you can steal as often as you like and never be punished. It was Prime Minister Majko who dropped the corruption bomb in the justice system, but his alarm—sincere, too—was softened into the political departure of several MPs (there is still not a single judge convicted of embezzling large sums) and did not trouble anyone in the political will that, through political data, concerns this important branch of power.

Written by Ilir Meta Ilir Meta Fatos Nano’s speech and accusations in Vlora confirmed once again the latest shamelessness of the former Albanian prime minister. With his absurd accusations against the current Albanian government, he implied that we had been collaborators of Sali Berisha. Today, I want to respond and explain to all Albanian public opinion, as well as to the electorate of the PS, everything that Fatos Nano is trying in vain to distort. We met Berisha openly and publicly in Tiranë, not in Trieste or somewhere else to sell the outcome of the March 1992 elections. Today I want to recall that it was Fatos Nano who begged Sali Berisha to go together to the Donors’ Conference in July 1997, when the wounds of the Albanians massacred during that year’s crisis, provoked by Berisha, had not yet healed. According to Nano’s logic, he had the right to do that in July ’97, while we had no right to meet Berisha in November ’98, when the country badly needed an immediate easing of tensions, which would have greatly helped the discussion then under way on the Kosovo issue. I want to remind Mr. Nano that he could not protect the office of Prime Minister of Albania, while we weathered and confronted the most severe crisis Albania has ever known, sheltering 500,000 Kosovar refugees, while also preserving Albania’s stability and ensuring NATO’s success in this crisis. If anyone thinks this government was wrong to give its open support to NATO, its member countries and the United States of America in resolving the crisis in Kosovo, but does not dare say so openly, they should understand that this was the most correct policy, one that ensured the successful resolution of the crisis and a future for Albania and Albanians wherever they may be. I want to make it clear once and for all that Fatos Nano’s policy, “The Balkans for the peoples of the Balkans,” is now dead once and for all. The Balkans belong to NATO and the European Union.

In 6 months, 60 percent of murders Newcomers are driving up the number of crimes in the capital. Having moved to the new metropolis to escape other conflicts in their districts, these new residents of Tiranë have done nothing but change the place where they wash their dirty linen. According to the figures, around 60 percent of the crimes recorded during the first six months of this year bear the mark of people who have moved from all four corners of the country and recently settled on the outskirts of Tiranë. Police experts explain that the free movement of the population causes these problems in countries all over the world. On page 7 [Photograph of a man beside surveillance equipment]

[Photograph of a man]