The Minister’s first serious test against politicians with financial ties to the kiosks in Tirana’s large park An unexpected visit by the Minister of Public Works to the offices of the Director General of the Construction Police, Mithat Havari, where he gives a firm order: Clear Rinia Park of kiosks and unauthorized constructions

Imagine for a moment what the wise Ismail Qemali, the emblematic [?] symbol of the declaration of Albania’s Independence, would say today if he were alive. Perhaps he would say, “Shame!” Perhaps, “May you be cursed,” or perhaps he would sigh deeply, saying everything in his silence, with his wisdom and sagacity. For generations, politicians and statesmen have labored over the power of the Albanians like threshers on a threshing floor, ever since that fortunate day of the declaration of independence, 88 years ago. Since that day, the state’s light has [?] dimmed, and Albania is what remains to me. Statesmen and politicians who, in the name of Albanian citizens, left no intrigue unspun in order to wield the power they dreamed of. For 88 years, the Albanian people have struggled between strength and the will for prosperity and a future, and the disordered ambition of a class of politicians obsessed with power. After 88 years, the Albania of Ismail Qemali and Isa Boletini, of Fan Noli and Avni Rustemi, is the poorest country in Europe. The offspring of the politicians of the last century could not make the country of the Albanians a Lady. Isolated for fifty years, at last the awakening of the collective conscience at the beginning of the ’90s, for democracy and development, has disappointed us more than once. Indeed, several times we have been on the verge of collective ruin, again through the fault of politics and politicians. Thanks to some of the new statesmen of these years, modest and forward-looking, a future is being created for the new statesmen, and in this country the “bridges” of self-isolation and those of old politics will finally be broken. But old politics, a syndrome born of Bolshevism, ironically and paradoxically, often becomes an obstacle to the democratic Renaissance of the Albanians. There can be no other country in the world where politicians, on the nation’s holiest and most precious day, instead of bowing reverently before the flag, before iconic heroes and before the blood that has been shed, fill the country’s squares with protests, as part of the opposition did in Albania today. To defy [?] in the name of [?], to seek power on the holiest day in the nation’s history, means turning it into an “intifada,” whose fate will be determined by a collective generation. Remember: the right to [?] belongs only to [?]. [?] stones at them. Praying that they heal the innocent. Not throwing stones at them. Praying that [?] lay a hand on the Bible and the Quran on the day of the national celebration!

George W. Bush greeting people. REUTERS

Today, on Independence Day page 4