In the north, 760 families and more than 1,000 children are confined to tower houses The Ministry of Public Order and the Commission for Blood Feud Reconciliation give the grim figure Page 5

When the elderly leader Gjeçovi finished writing the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, he expressed the hope that Albanians would find another way to survive. After all this time, Albanians have changed their clothing, speech, education and knowledge, but not the Kanun. They have abandoned primitive rifles and coffee beneath the saddle, but continue to defend their blood. It matters little whether the victim is done away with using a Kalashnikov, a heavy-calibre weapon or dynamite; what matters is that Albanians kill. Although they no longer ride on horseback but in German cars, the inhabitants of this country kill. And since the times have brought a degree of technology to this country, the history of blood feuds has evolved too. Thus, the killer does not trouble himself to carry out the blood-feud ritual point by point. He does not call you by name, does not turn back when he has knocked you to the ground, spares neither women nor children, does not grant you the lesser or greater besa [sworn truce]... In short, he does away with you. After an extraordinary period of pluralism, when this country scarcely knew what a state was, old scores began to come to light. In a very short time they multiplied, and today there are 5,000 families caught up in blood feuds, 760 of them confined to their homes, while 1,100 children have their lives endangered by this history. The fact is that blood feuds are found not only in the north of the country; you see them just as readily in the south. Last March brought thousands of families in the south into blood feuds, and their reasons for confinement do not differ greatly from those in the north. The country is surrounded by a history of vengeance, while reconciliation commissions are set up from time to time and often amount to nothing more than good intentions. The police seem incapable of settling this score. Their response to this crime is woefully weak, while the justice system itself not infrequently becomes a promoter of it. A killer released from the courtroom is destined to die, whereas the judge could have spared his life and blood by putting him behind bars. For its part, politics is ready to sponsor this crime. Politicians in this country never forget to invoke typical Kanun expressions in their speeches to attack their political opponents. When the late Azem p u s h- [partly illegible] Berisha forcefully asserted that they had killed him on the eve of the proclamation, he was thereby observing a code that later brought the 14 shëtitorin. Albanians continue to live with a strong sense of vengeance. Anyone who forgives is disgraced as badly as can be, even though this country has plenty of places of worship, where both the victim and the killer are forgiven.

Flamur Baffjari, a 9-year-old Albanian living in Hamburg, has put on a mask bearing the national flag during a demonstration. Photo: REUTERS

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