The hostage-takers’ unjust demands are met; police withdraw, violating the law The Brisk forces did not arrest any of the rebels, who held the police commissioner hostage for three hours page 9

BY ENTON ABILEKAJ The Electoral Code and the voting commissions can no longer be considered the main problem in guaranteeing free local elections. Following the day-before-yesterday’s scandal in Laç, suspicions have resurfaced of destabilization on the eve of the elections or during their conduct. The police showed that they cannot control the situation, even 40 kilometres from Tirana; they showed that criminals can mock the State and dictate whatever they want, including serious violations of the law. The police once again confirmed that they are a victim of politics and look for the culprit only at party headquarters, perhaps because everyone knows where those are. Meanwhile, the criminals have gone. After dishonouring the State, they disappeared into its territory. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Order accuses the parties, after shamefully allowing the State to be abused. The Ministry of Public Order raises its arms when no one wants to see them and declares that the situation is under control. This hypocrisy might be forgiven at any other time, as it has been before, but it cannot be forgiven on the eve of the elections, because it cannot justify stolen votes and voters under the pressure of violence. The aftermath seems just as serious. The accusation against the DP headquarters, while the criminals have escaped, portends a frightening campaign. In truth, the support the DP gave the criminals when they took the police commissioner hostage is a familiar and sad scheme. But Poçi’s reaction is even sadder: instead of applying the force of the law against criminals, he used the weak language of politics against a crowd of criminals. Poçi’s political response cannot restore the State’s lost authority, cannot restore the police commissioner’s torn-off rank, and cannot guarantee free elections in Albania. The Socialist government, beset by events of this kind, seems to have been incapable of establishing order and may perhaps be unable to carry out a secure electoral process. But the fact that the first months under Poçi were a golden age of public order shows that no minister, acting alone, can eliminate the problems. Especially today, four months before the elections, nothing is certain. Doubts about a genuine and clean process, already present, have grown after the events in Laç. Now the parties and Parliament cannot discuss only the voting commissions and the Electoral Code. They must also ask the OSCE for the Interior Minister, or police teams to protect the State, at least during the election campaign and the elections.

Sierra Leone, Shork’s last news Page 9

Late-breaking news Last night, at 21:45, Zani Çaushi’s brother-in-law was found murdered in the Çole neighbourhood. He had been shot several times with a pistol and was found in a lane by a passer-by, who then notified the police. The Police Director, Besnik Bregu, told “KJ” that the Vlora Police had been placed on full alert to find the killers. No theory has yet been made public. But the execution of Zani’s brother-in-law was carefully planned because, according to the police, the killer followed him from behind and disappeared immediately after killing him. This is the third murder in the Çaushi family since Zani was arrested for the second time. Previously, two of his brothers had been killed. The blood feuds Zani has left behind mean that, after his brothers were executed, the attacks have now crossed the threshold of his home and are sending people from his circle of friends and associates to their graves as well.

MENTOR KIKIA A year ago, when the editorial meeting was being held at our newspaper, the first journalist to “report” was Kurt Shork. It was wartime in Kosovo, and Albanian newspapers devoted almost all their pages to it. The agencies were broadcasting the latest news from the war front every second—a war being waged in the name of peace. Bombs dropped, new victims, more graves and endless massacres. It was difficult to decide what to publish first. But Shork was undoubtedly the most widely published journalist. “So, what has Kurti brought us?” was the editor-in-chief’s daily question at the lunchtime meetings. His commentaries and news reports were undoubtedly the best published in all the Albanian newspapers about the war in Kosovo. And we in the newsroom were the first to read them. Not only to see how a great journalist from a major news agency reported on the war, but also to learn how to report in the most perfect way. He was a war correspondent, and for the Albanian press he will remain the journalist who portrayed most realistically what was happening to the Albanians in Kosovo. Though he had not been in the profession very long, he was a “warrior” who followed, pen in hand, the battles in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and, most recently, in the African country torn apart by civil war, Sierra Leone, where he was killed on Wednesday evening. As of yesterday, not only the agency he worked for, Reuters, but all the newspapers in Tirana will have one fewer journalist.