The inability to cope with life drives people to take their own lives Yesterday, three suicides by hanging in Tirana, Durrës and Kavajë The inability to cope with life drives people to take their own lives Driven by poverty, 2 men hang themselves with a rope Yesterday, three suicides by hanging in Tirana, Durrës and Kavajë page 7

Mentor Kikia Ten years ago, when we brought down socialism and thought we were building capitalism, we learned that before this could happen, an intermediate phase had to be passed through.

Meta at Shuli page 5 Interview/Dokle This is the “season” of major investments page 4 Analysis The PS, against Berisha or for Albania? pages 16–17 Elbasan/History “We sell blood to buy flour and oil” page 9 The trial of the boss Zani celebrates his birthday in the dock page 12

Ten years ago, when we brought down socialism and thought we were building capitalism, we learned that before this could happen, an intermediate phase called transition had to be passed through. It that before this could happen, an intermediate phase called transition had to be passed through. When we were all expecting to enjoy the boundless benefits of communism, propaganda told us that socialism first had to be built, as the first stage of communism. In fact, some of its stages had already been built. But socialism collapsed, and we never got to see what communism was. Likewise, we never learned how long it would take to build socialism. Quite rightly, we can now ask: How long will the transition we are going through take to be “built,” so that we can enjoy capitalism? Equated with a chaotic economy, in terms of both order and politics and the economy, the transition does not seem to have any intention of ending in Albania. Nearly four years ago, when the economy had made progress, we learned that it had all been built not on a capitalist foundation, but on a kind of fraud known around the world as a Pyramid scheme. The collapse of these pyramid schemes, at a cost we all know, was necessary before we could hope to get capitalism properly underway. But the chaos continues. Land reform has not been carried out. The large enterprises and those considered strategic have not been privatized. Many of them have been destroyed and continue to crumble, partly with the aim of lowering their value before privatization. Social wounds continue to deepen. The number of unemployed is growing, and so is the number of those abandoning the country. Even after ten years, people’s lives are still marked by dark winter nights and dry summer days. The roads are even more ruined, and people’s wages increasingly laughable compared with prices. An elite stratum, linked mainly to those in power and organized crime, has artificially raised its standard of living and grown very distant from the rest of the population, which is consuming more and more antidepressants day by day. Everything is in decline. But the greatest decline is in the hope that this country will one day become a place where people can live normally. Meanwhile, crime, smuggling and corruption continue to grow. Politics is becoming increasingly irresponsible about its mission and the country’s fate, ever more conflict-ridden and conducive to chaos, gathering armed hordes around itself to use as a shield. Postwar Germans needed ten years to get through their transition, even though they emerged from the war with only old people and children, and with their cities completely ruined. Our transition, meanwhile, seems as though it will never end and is destined to become politicians’ best excuse before the people. And, under this name, Albania seems destined to remain for a long time a transit country for the passage of clandestine migrants, drugs, weapons and prostitutes.

Page 15 Searching for food in garbage bins in Tirana