PAD Secretary-General accuses: Wherever Nano gets involved, there is a spectacular rupture. Pashko: I won’t leave the government just because three people want me to PAD Secretary-General accuses: Wherever Nano gets involved, there is a spectacular rupture The coalition is breaking up; PAD packs its bags Pashko: I won’t leave the government just because three people want me to pages 2–3

Amid the great uproar that arose over the dismissal of two ministers in the Meta government, an attempt to give the information a patriotic hue stood out. One of the dismissed ministers declared at a press conference that four months earlier he had prevented a great national tragedy: the acquisition of several depots by a Greek oil company. After this patriotic denunciation, he hastened to escalate his claims into self-congratulation for protecting the country’s territorial unity from suspicious foreign circles and even from the danger of the country’s partition. Immediately afterward, the democratic opposition in Albania, which lately does not think ahead before speaking, joined the dismissed ministers’ patriotic apologetics. Can this patriotism after the pilaf have any effect, especially since, according to simple calculations, the heroic act by “the minister in question, the president and three other ministers” in defense of the homeland must have taken place four months ago—that is, during Pandeli Majko’s government? An ordinary person cannot help wondering why the minister in question did not declare that the homeland was in danger while the Majko government was still in office. Why did he not announce it after Majko left, either? Why did he wait until he was dismissed by the next government for unpatriotic reasons, then rush to raise the patriotic alarm? In ordinary people’s language, this is called patriotism after the pilaf. Does it have any effect? We do not think so, because if you look back at all the resignations that have taken place over these years, you will find that ministers and officials of various political and party persuasions all claim they were removed because they defended the interests of the homeland. Why this passion for playing the patriot? Because many important Albanian politicians believe that you can do anything to this people, as long as you tell them that others are selling the country while you have not sold it—or are not selling it—and you have cleared the hurdle. In other words, politicians are still playing Enver’s xenophobic card, even in the year 2000. Do these waves catch on? In this Albania, truly poor but with a people rich in information and cultural awareness, they are unlikely to. Someone once said that nationalism is the last refuge of failed politicians, but Albania is enriching this definition with an addendum: nationalism is the last refuge of dismissed politicians.

Head of investigations in Tirana initiates proceedings following the complaint page 24 The first Serb raises the flag in Tirana

Yesterday marked the start of the first investigation prompted by a complaint from a prime minister against a minister. Agim Trana, head of investigations at the General Prosecutor’s Office, personally set off for the place at the center of the accusations, the Ministry of Public Economy and Privatization, and seized the documents concerning the licensing of oil companies. Zëf Preçi, the former minister who continues to perform the duties until a new minister is appointed, was himself there to receive his investigator. Tirana has thus demonstrated that this time the Prosecutor’s Office has taken seriously a case that seems destined to go down in history. A person who came from civil society into government is leaving after two months under a corruption accusation and, with no political force defending him, is also under the psychological weight of prison. page 7

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