The blood avenger has sent word that he will kill him too, even though he is 13. He tells “Koha Jonë” how he spends his days at home Armini, the brother of 11-year-old Halil Xhani, killed by the blood avenger, is seeking rescue from the tower where he has been confined for one year, three months and ten days page 9

In recent days, the grim fact that blood feuds are no longer sparing even children has been made public through the media. As a result, there are many little ones who are forced to spend their days confined within the walls of the towers where they live. Otherwise, they are very likely to suffer the fate of 11-year-old Halil Xhani, over whose head the blood avenger emptied two magazines of bullets. Like little 13-year-old Armini of the Xhani family, whose adult male members are away from the family, there are other children who are forced to endure confinement in their homes. Such an extremely bitter reality, but also an absurd one, leads to the conclusion that a good part of the country has returned to the early Middle Ages. And responsibility for such a return in time can only fall on the state. The inclination to spare not even small children is also contrary to the Kanun itself, whose articles set out the harsh and tragic custom of blood vengeance. Specifically, according to the Kanun, children may not be targets of blood vengeance. So, if we speak of the state’s role in this regard, it must be said that, unable to curb this cruel custom, it should at least reach the point of respecting the Kanun, protecting children from the bullets of the blood avengers of their families. The experience of recent years has shown that the state has not cared, and still does not care, about curbing the epidemic of blood vengeance, which is now spreading at an unpredictable pace. Thus, unable to stop the blood avengers’ hand with the means of force at its disposal, no effort by state bodies is apparent even to reconcile the families’ blood feuds. But, as with many other things, the inability to confront the phenomenon of blood vengeance in general is also a consequence of the failure of the justice system, which has inevitably caused the enforcement of the law to be replaced by taking the law into one’s own hands. Blood vengeance itself has become the macabre embodiment of such vigilantism. Otherwise, today’s officials and politicians in general could justify their indifference to blood avengers and the killings they commit, and their taking of lives, by pointing to the many difficult problems the country is facing. But if one follows this kind of logic, bearing in mind the unstoppable spread of blood vengeance in Albania, it is by no means impossible that one day all that the state is doing now will bring back the dead, victims of blood vengeance. The blood of a child, the dead dressed as “martyrs” to the Kanun, is in truth a great outcry that makes this state not merely ashamed but guilty. The delay, manageable by a [unclear] with its body guilty of this state. The delay of desire concerning this crime of a villager who today belongs to the family of descendants. To say that this crime, fatally returned as in ancient times, is bringing us ... a tragedy of Albania returned to the West. [Note: some of the final lines of the article are unclear in the image.]

Candidacies from civil society emerge for the local elections Independent Vlora MP Fejzo challenges PD and PS He resigns his parliamentary seat to run for mayor of Vlora The first surprise of the local elections took place yesterday in the coastal city of Vlora, the city that brought the socialists to power three years ago. Independent MP Vladimir Fejzo announced yesterday that he would stand as an independent candidate for mayor of Vlora, thereby resigning his seat as Vlora’s independent MP. He told the “KJ” newspaper last night: “Yes, I have decided to run independently of the parties, with the aim of working for a different Vlora from the one PD created in ’97, and free of the empty promises of PS during 1997–2000. (continued on page 2)

US President Bill Klinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday in Japan at the G8 Summit