Traffickers escape thanks to spies working in the police force Information received from US intelligence services is seen in the hands of drug carriers page 8

Diplomaticus Without even waiting to learn, let alone analyze, the results of the visit to Italy by Albania’s new prime minister, Ilir Meta, some segments of Albanian politics opened their bags of stones and began hurling them at the fruit, trees and soil of government policy. The attacks began with the fact that the prime minister had chosen to make his first visit abroad to Albania’s Adriatic neighbor, which had been the first to invite him and was the only neighboring country that was a member of the world’s seven most industrialized nations. A provincial mentality, built on the instinctive suspicion of why the visit was made to the neighbor on the second floor and not the neighbor on the first floor, gave rise to mutterings beneath the fig tree that the prime minister was leaning toward an Italian-friendly line, that Greece’s jealousy had been rekindled, and so on. Whatever step the prime minister might have taken, the critics’ armies had long been sharpening their weapons: if he went to Greece, he would be called pro-Greek; if he went to Turkey, he would be called pro-Turkish, and so on. But foreign policy is not like Nasradin’s house-cart, which turns wherever the villagers suggest. The first pleasure of this kind of diplomatic provincialism is that it has found a position from which neither Ilir Meta nor any other prime minister after him will be able to escape, because there will always be a country to which a first visit can be made. The second pleasure of diplomatic provincialism is that it considers it unnecessary to hear what results the prime minister’s visit did or did not produce. Diplomatic provincialism, without having any facts at all, multiplies them by zero and does not hesitate to attack both the Italian side and the Albanian side, just to arrive at its fixation that both sides are acting in bad faith. The third pleasure of diplomatic provincialism is to fantasize about how Albania should set the Italians against the Greeks, or the Europeans against the Americans, because in its courses against illiteracy it has learned to exploit contradictions within the enemy camp. It is indeed a reality, although a painful one, that certain segments of Albanian politics still feel comfortable with Enverist concepts of international isolation as the best choice for foreign policy. In these segments, there is an attempt to revive an Albanian policy of the enemy syndrome, carried to the point of obsession with the living enemy syndrome directed at Western countries, and the madness goes as far as digging up the bogeyman of neocolonialism. It is no coincidence that segments of this kind are found both on the left and on the right of Albanian politics. This means that these segments wish to tie themselves to other objectives, while with pathological stubbornness they attack steps and policies aimed at strengthening Albania’s relations with our neighbors who are members of NATO and the European Union.

Clinton CHAMPION OF FREEDOM Rally in Tirana: Clinton should come to Albania too page 9

Minister Preçi calls for privatization to be reviewed Based on the scandalous statistics inherited in his office, the new Minister of Public Economy and Privatization has immediately called for a review of privatization, especially its most unjustifiable aspect: auctions without a starting price. “Privatization procedures involving auctions without a starting price for state-owned shares in certain companies have brought very little revenue into the state treasury, as they were sold at token prices.” This is stated in part of the request that the Privatization Minister sent to Prime Minister Ilir Meta. The prime minister is expected to give a positive response as soon as he sees that national assets have been given away over the past month. page 15

Yesterday, the “Albania’s Friends Group” expressed its open support for the government headed by Meta, as well as for the Albanian parliament’s adoption of two laws on “Local Autonomy” and the “Status of Civil Servants”—laws which, according to the Friends Group, should have been adopted months ago. Nevertheless, the “Albania’s Friends Group” expressed its satisfaction that the new government had made insistence on adopting these two extremely important laws a priority. Prime Minister Meta has stated that he “will uphold the Law, using even the force of the law”; the Friends are pleased with this determination, which must not fade in the coming months.