• Private cars, with and without license plates, carry out kidnappings in broad daylight. • If things continue like this, Albania will become a second Sicily. At the Agricultural University of Kamza, a student is kidnap-ped. The perpetrators are several mafiosi linked to a private car. The student is held for three days and released, as «untouched». In Shko-në, at the Pedagogical University, an attempt to force a likable girl into a car fails; the mafiosi had had their eye on her for some time. In Tirana, at the medical students’ dormitory, fists fly as they try to seize another student. Naturally, it is a kidnapping for the purpose of rape. In Durrës, near the District Executive Committee, a high-school girl narrowly escapes two young men who speed away in a private car. In the Shënkoll area of Lezhë, the high-school girl does not go anywhere unless accompanied by family members. The reason? Young men appear in her path to kidnap her. In Tirana, as soon as we reach Elbasan Road, girls are assaulted by gangster boys, who give vent to their animal passions amid the cries for help of the unfortunate women. IN... IN... I would not wish for such events to have happened in other towns as well. That was the first picture. More painful, more horrifying than any model one could find. The second picture: Mothers, fathers and brothers, young people constantly on edge about their children or sisters at school. Even in their sleep at night they fear that something is happening to their daughter, their daughter who has remained undefiled until now; that someone is calling for help: «MOTHER! FATHER...!» They wake up disturbed by what they heard the previous day about... This is the time when parents are sincerely believing their ominous dreams. They are the first to wake even the PTs to talk with their student daughter. Some calm down; others set off in anguish, solely because their daughter did not answer the phone. Solely because they have heard that a girl was kidnapped and raped somewhere. Or solely because they had a dream. The third picture: The police. They too are in a predicament. When they try to enforce the law, some party leader rushes in with the accusation: «The State Security...» «The dictatorship is beginning...» «What kind of democratic police...» And the police fall silent. They remain indifferent even when a car passes before their eyes, with a girl’s cries for help coming from inside, cries that tear at the soul. PUBLIC OPINION demands not only that these shameful acts be prevented, but also that these traffickers in honor be brought before the law and given the severest punishment. GENTLEMEN IN GOVERNMENT! Demand that the law be enforced against these mafiosi. And against the passivity of the public-order authorities. Otherwise, order the population to be armed! If you wish, let us leave each citizen to take the law into their own hands and defend themselves! Stop these rapists, because, given the momentum they have gained, they may, as if in jest, seize a minister’s wife...! Then you will surely understand the need for taking the law into one’s own hands—but might it be too late?! …to keep worrying about their children or their sisters at school. So much so that even in their sleep at night they imagine that something is happening to their daughter, to their son, still untainted until now, that someone is hurting them: “MOTHER! FATHER!...” They wake up shaken by what they heard the previous day about the exploits of Mafia members in various cities, involving the rape of women. It seems to them as though it is their own daughter.

• On the first anniversary Autumn was left empty, October empty, The sky grew slightly blood-red at the edge, The arm of the day broke in two And cast the wretched news upon the earth. The words in the books went mad, Barefoot, they fled blindly, hither and yon, They tore the night’s shirts in the wind, They went knocking, not knowing where. Hundreds of chapters fell upside down, A great calamity befell the words, As upon soldiers on a battlefield At the evil moment, just after the king was slain, And that desolate departure beneath October’s sky Was more than a departure, greater still, So much so that all the partings, the departures of others, Seemed before it nothing but arrivals.

In the newspaper «KOHA JONË» dated … I published an article entitled «Ve…» … against me, after several w… Mr. Shkëndëri suddenly opens a fair of his knowledge in the fields of literature and history, serving us «unknown» material such as passages from V. Pasha, Mjeda, Fishta, A. Frashëri, B. Curri, I. Qemali, etc. As for which passages in my article refute the arguments mentioned above, nobody can understand that except the sharp mind of a boss who has been picking at nits while «fighting» for democracy in the mountains of journalism! Journalist Luan Rama has also shown silence concerning my article in the newspaper «Zëri i Popullit» on October 20. I would advise him not to read only article headlines and then make objections to others. It may be that he read my «unitarian» article in this fashion: eyes on the newspaper and heart with the Party (Socialist). I ask the reader’s forgiveness for this rejoinder. Beware, reader, of journalists like Shkëndëri Shkëndëri and Luan Rama! What they say contributes to the division of unity.

The 16-year-old Romani boy from Lezhë, Kastriot Shabani, found a pair of gloves and climbed into the ring, which seemed to him like a pedestal. He looked up and saw the stands packed with people, shouting in an astonishing chorus all around him. With tears in his eyes, he remembered London’s yellow-haired Mexican (the only story he had read willingly in his eight-year-school books) and gave himself courage. Kastrioti rapidly landed several sporting punches on his opponent’s face. The people he watched from the corner of his eye from the pedestal-ring shouted: «Come on! Come on!» But our protagonist had no strength left. He sweated. He grew tired. He stepped back for a moment into a corner of the ring to gain time, but, to his surprise, his opponent, grinning inside his headguard, quickly came up to him and hit him in the face with somewhat more than his fair share—the Romani boy cursed himself for ever having read that sad story by London. The great palace came crashing down amid a clatter before our protagonist’s half-tearful eyes, within the ten seconds of the knockout. As the boy came down from the mocking ring, for the hundredth time the burden of the firewood weighed on his conscience—the load he had carried an hour earlier up to the fifth floor of a gentleman’s building on Durrës Street, in exchange for 15 lek, which had secured him relief from hunger and defeat in the match in the 45th second. October 16, «Partizani» Sports Palace.

I happened to meet Haxhi Sula from Lezhë. With trembling lips and tears streaming down his face, he tells me: We were ten orphans. Mother, today we are still ten, and… because our brother Qemal Sula, 24, although he died two months ago, we still have not buried him. He was in an accident and was kept for a week in the hospital refrigerator, then taken to the morgue. The family he was working for informed us immediately. But our dead brother’s body has not been given to us, because we have to pay 5 million lire. We have never had enough bread to fill our stomachs or clothes for our bodies, let alone ever imagine that we could raise such a sum to buy the corpse of our unburied brother. What a horror! Can there have been a single night in these two months when his grieving family fell asleep without seeing the dead man’s disfigured face appear to them, without hearing him call out to them, without hearing him plead?! And you, government officials, parliamentarians, members of the opposition—will you really leave our dead brother in Italy for two days, let alone two months? Isn’t it shameful to answer, «The state has no money», «There have been many corpses», and so on, while you see off delegation after delegation at Rinas?! You, Mr. President, were a guest in Italy. You would have done well to include in your visit programme a brief stop at the morgues of various Italian cities, and to meet there with the «ambassadors» of the Albanian furnace. If you have any decency, gentlemen, honor the dead first, because later many «generals» will be needed to search for the remains of the dead refugees!

On page 3, read: Interview with Mr. Dritëro Agolli In the next issue: 1 — Italy through the lens of «Koha jonë» (By ZEF SHTJEFNI) 2 — Reflections on Ded Coku (by PAL PEPA) 3 — New socialist blood in the pluralist Committee! (By EDMOND KAÇELI) 4 — Reportage with the Italian soldiers in Durrës. (By ALFONS ZENELI)

During October, many letters from various readers arrived at the newspaper’s address, from the cities of Fier, Lushnjë, Berat, Gjirokastër, Kukës. More or less, they all have reasons concerning… the newspaper «KOHA JONË» … Expressing… the newspaper will do in… read, we assure you… … «Mihal Duri» in Tirana… by the Tirana post office, because… other central newspapers. … the post office… we have adopted distributing it through newspaper sellers employed on contracts with the editorial office. So far we sell the newspaper in these cities: TIRANË, SHKODËR, DURRËS, KAVAJË, ELBASAN, FUSHË-KRUJË, LAC, MILOT, RUBIK, LEZHË, and sometimes in VLORË. On January 1, 1992, the central post office will undertake to distribute the newspaper «KOHA JONË» throughout all the districts of the country. THE EDITORIAL OFFICE