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Only a few more hours are needed for Albania to officially enter the third month of the State of Emergency. But since the very first day of its declaration, on 2 March 1997, the state of emergency, like every other Albanian phenomenon of these times, has not escaped its paradoxical, comic and tragic aspects all at once. Launched with great fanfare, for the first time in the country’s history since 1944, with an all-powerful general, with troops moving toward Vlora and with a squad that inaugurated it in Tirana by burning down the offices of the newspaper Koha Jonë, the state of emergency went no further than that. The military order of the first week ended, and thereafter all sides acted as if they had forgotten it. Unfortunately, all the events it was decreed to prevent took place. Starting in Fier and farther south, the curfew was never enforced; arms depots were opened throughout the country; hundreds of people were killed by gunfire; depots, banks, institutions and shops were looted; prisons were opened; the army disintegrated and the entire country sank into chaos. In defiance of all military regulations, the Southern Committees continue to organize rallies every day, while the heir to the Front, having arrived after almost 58 years, continues his election tour through all the cities, forgetting that in a state of emergency public activities by political parties are prohibited. The grand and frightening phrase “State of Emergency” was reduced to a ban on cultural activities and, strangely, to a curfew after 20:00 in the country’s most peaceful place, the centre of Tirana. Although Parliament has not officially lifted it, and although Mr Celo continues formally to direct it, no one has thought to mention that in a state disintegrating within 24 hours, every military measure is ridiculous. All the more so when the reasons for which it was declared no longer exist. The problem of public order and restoring it is not sufficient grounds for such an extreme measure. This is especially true since the state of emergency and one of its fundamental elements, the curfew, have achieved no serious result. Anyone who goes out in Tirana after 20:00 can see that military authority does not extend beyond the Tirana Ring Road, and everything outside it continues at its normal pace. The streets are full of people, clubs stay open late, and restrictions on movement depend on the will of citizens, not on a parliamentary decree. Public order, the Achilles’ heel of the Fino Government and Albanian society in general, can be restored more easily through normality than through panic. The people running along Tirana’s central boulevard to protect themselves from this absurd decision are the only reminders of the fateful days of a month and a little more ago. Parliament, the Defence General Staff and its Commander must have understood that war and danger are more a state of mind than a real threat. To stop feeding it, or to escape it as quickly as possible, Tirana and then the whole country need the normal conditions of life. Albania is neither Bosnia, nor Zaire, nor Somalia. It is a country in political crisis, with public order shaken, but far from civil war. In such a situation, the best thing would be for Parliament, which through its impotence and incapacity helped create the chaos, to apologize to this people by first lifting the state of emergency. BLENDI FEVZIU

Greek soldiers roast a lamb for Easter Photo Reuters