. The youngest of them was only 3 years old. Temporarily eternal? BY FRROK ÇUPI For several days now, a heated debate has been raging: The government will be changed! Let us not think about who will come and who will go, but only about this: They are being changed. Not even nine months have passed since they took office, and now they are being replaced. This is the heart of this analysis: Our ministers and government are so temporary and so easily replaceable. This is only one peak feature of the life of political society, but behind it lies an entire game. The kiosk is temporary; the building by the Lana; one’s membership in the Party or the Writers’ Union; the vow to protect human life; the library or the bank; human alliances; love for a certain neighbor; religious faith... and so on, and so on. Here one of the doors to our continuing misfortune opens. A neighbor arrives and does not intend to remain in brotherhood for long; a contract is made and nobody believes it will endure; a park is built and tomorrow, do not hope to find it still there; in the ancient castle, you cannot be sure the walls will not be torn down; the constitution grows a finger and loses an arm; the police officer and the judge do not believe they will be in the same place again tomorrow; the minister waits every day to see when he will be moved. Meanwhile, those who remain on the sidelines as investors or donors wring their hands: “Where should we hand over our contribution?” and everyone leaves the vacuum. The state—a shadow you cannot grasp. Thorns grow around institutions by the day: “What do I care? I may or may not be here tomorrow.” The whole society echoes with the crack of impermanence. The state cracks first. The government official counts the days he has occupied his chair and quarrels with his wife because he has stolen even less than the other one. Parliament gathers inside the shell of “no guilt and no responsibility.” The police officer and the judge wait for their shift to change without a criminal being left in their hands. This is the road we are once again travelling, toward... ruin. But how did we get here, I wonder? Perhaps this evil is not so deeply rooted, but it goes back at least to our Middle Ages. Back then we changed our religion more easily than [the word is unclear: sim?]na of the bakery, and meanwhile we were getting ready to exchange our Homeland for lands across the sea... Perhaps our misfortune of impermanence also began during the harsh communist period, when “everyone was nothing, replaceable in an instant.” From that dark period came the slogan: “They don’t ask your name, but your position.” Personality—zero. The cult, too—another zero. So when will we build the pyramid of the cult of the state?! They have studied us as lacking the ability to build a state, and we have proved this more in the past than today, and today more than ever. You cannot be both temporary and a state—never. If we remain eternally temporary, at least we will be left without a state. This is a responsibility...

Police mega-operation: the Krraba gang is arrested P. 6

Among the accused, many well-known names P. 3

P. 3 Public order, an honorary minister P. 7 Gramsh, weapons hidden during March found A group with 2,000 Kalashnikovs P. 10 Berat, police detain two and identify the others The masks that wounded five are revealed P. 13

Page 9 From the great revolt in Bathore in June 1995

Die, the ministers at risk go to the Presidency. Çeka again has a 45-minute meeting with the head of state Nano and Meidani decide to “lay down their arms” The closer the deadline for the Albanian prime minister’s return from France gets, the more the ministers rumored to be facing changes are seen arriving in their cars at the Presidency headquarters to meet the country’s number one. This comes as it is learned that Meidani had a telephone conversation with Nano in Paris a few hours earlier. In this mobile-phone dialogue, it was agreed that the existing numerical balance among the government representatives of the five parties would be maintained. P. 3