Sude under house “arrest.” Police: “We’re guarding her in case...” page 2, 9

. Photographs with Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac, or a nudge from Al Gore, are far from enough to repair Sali Berisha’s image at the OSCE. After five years in politics, the Albanian president has become an expert at exploiting opportunities. A careful observer of the president’s movements could easily spot his strained efforts to approach European and American leaders. Ill at ease, like anyone entering a house whose occupants he has been badmouthing, Berisha fawns on his hosts, hoping they will forgive his insults. Three months ago, after the May 26 elections, he vilified the OSCE and its observers in Albania. The press controlled by the president heaped abuse on the German observers and rummaged through their biographies to find scraps of communism. Two women sent as observers by the German foreign ministry were accused of having flirted with Enver Hoxha. Even after the German embassy and foreign ministry reacted forcefully, Berisha did not back down. Meanwhile, in his campaign speeches, Germany took America’s place; until before May 26, America had been at the top of the list of countries thanked by the Albanian president. This double-standard policy went as far as expelling the OSCE from observing the local elections of October 20. Naturally, Chancellor Kohl, who listens grimly to Berisha’s complaints, does not know the details the Albanian SHIK has “served up” about the two German envoys. Unlike Berisha, he is not in the least interested in whether his two compatriots “flirted” with Enver Hoxha or not. The Chancellor, like Jacques Chirac before or after him, listens silently to the Albanian president’s repeated pledges of Albania’s pro-European policy. Unlike what he will declare when he lands in Rinas, Berisha is speaking neither about Kosovo nor about German investment. In the few minutes he has beside the Chancellor’s armchair, Berisha has naturally used the opportunity to remind him that Germany is the only defender he has against attacks from the United States. Beside him, the roving ambassador Genc Pollo, in Lisbon in the role of interpreter, tries to smooth over Berisha’s sentences, which are always somewhat anti-American, in a language the latter does not understand. Anti-Americanism is the only card left to the Albanian president, who thinks he shares the same views as Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac. Kohl, however, if he digs a little into his memory, will surely recall reading in one of the reports on the Balkans that, in 1992, the Americans strongly helped bring to power a former communist, anti-communist president. This president is now pledging to him in Lisbon his commitment to a pro-European course. Meanwhile, the OSCE’s annual report, following electoral fraud in Bosnia and Serbia, surely also records the theft of votes in Albania. The report holds President Sali Berisha responsible, as he whispers complaints about the American administration into Europeans’ ears, trying to repair with photographs the tarnished image in the OSCE files. And whenever the cameras turn towards Kohl, Berisha moves closer and speaks into his ear, while Al Gore gives him a little nudge with his elbow. KJ

Lisbon, OSCE Summit. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Berisha, and adviser G. Pollo interpreting

Sude’s “vacation” continues. The mystery surrounding the pyramid scheme keeps deepening. A bounty for Grunasi’s “head”