“What matters is that civil war was averted” The US President speaks about Albania with Prodi in New York: “The DP defied the law” Page 3 US President Bill Clinton Photo REUTERS US President Bill Clinton. Photo REUTERS

BY FRROK ÇUPI Many people, seeking an explanation for our political and spiritual crisis, say: “We Albanians need a Man.” They are right, but they do not know how to say that the state needs a Taboo. All the peoples of the modern world, organized into states, have their own state taboo. There would be no need to say even these few words if the organization of Albanians into a state had been accompanied by the state’s Taboo. But unfortunately, by undermining our idea of the state, the blow was directed precisely at this. The first founder of the Albanian state and its Minister of Finance are left to starve, accused of “theft.” A Minister of the Interior declared himself King, distancing himself from the idea of the state as a symbol and placing this burden solely on Lale Krosi. The great artist Noli refused to become a symbol of the state, because books and drink ruin him. Meanwhile Hoxha was installed as a symbol of the Party, leaving the state as a relic outside the Plenum hall. R. Alia came to the state very late. When the DP was founded, in December 1990, its program lacked the very vision of statistics. The man who came to power according to the DP’s program seized the state by the throat and twisted it like a virgin cat. Sali Berisha suffocated the state, because he needed the clan of his village, the basin in which to wash his hands before dinner for fear that someone might have touched Christian hands, and because he was shocked by the state’s vast reach beyond his mountain village. He attacked the state just as one would tame the puppies in the courtyard. Now we are here, after a coup d’état. Fortunately, now, although we may have lost state values, we have the chance of the state’s Taboo. The President of the Republic has become a symbol of the state. He came from the university and the sciences, embodying the highest values of a nation of value. On the day of the coup, he came from a distant road, where he himself took the opportunity to say these words: “I will remain in my position as President of the people; let the hordes come and kill the President.” Even his doctors, amid these killings, with the coup plotters’ plasma guns aimed at them, could not take away a single thread of his lofty character. All the world’s news agencies and political-diplomatic sources are saying realistically today: “We support Meidani.” First of all, we Albanians must support our Man of the State and uphold him as a Taboo. Because: - If we value the Taboo, we have built the first pillar of a state that is in danger. Under this taboo, both the individual and the Prime Minister are safe. - If we have our Taboo, we have somewhere to “pray” for justice and accountability when things happen to us. - Having our Taboo, the state and its citizens become One, one of the strongest forces of the modern state. Even if we did not have the Taboo, it would be right to create it, if we had eyes and minds. But now, in truth, we have it; we must know how to use it well.

“We will help the Albanian government” Kinkel: Donors’ Conference in Tirana Page 3

Ministry order: “Open fire on the attackers” Groups of bandits attack police stations Page 9

Suspicion focuses on Berisha’s statements Explosives detonate at the home of the PBONJ leader Page 6