On 25.1.1991, a rally was held in the city of Cërrik to mark the formation of the Democratic Party branch in the city. Around one thousand people took part. Many residents from the surrounding villages had also come. Azem Hajdari, Sali Lrisha and Eduart Selami took part on behalf of the Democratic Party’s founding committee, as did representatives of the Party branch in the city of Elbasan, Petro Marku and Fatmir Manushi, and members of the branch in Cërrik. The rally ended with the chants: “Freedom—Democracy,” “We want Albania like all of Europe,” and others.

The popular view today. Photo: R. Demi The popular view today. Photo: R. Demi

For the first time in postwar history, on the night of 8 December 1991, the roads and lanes and the square of the student town resounded powerfully with calls for freedom and democracy, pluralism and progress. These calls expressed the wishes and aspirations of all the intellectuals, students and [text corrupted] who had gathered ... in a prosperous and well-governed Albania. The students were the ones who struck at the “Chinese Wall” of Albanian bureaucracy, the state’s 16-year-old backwardness and centralism, creating ... the first [unclear] to see that Albania was nothing like a “cockerel ...”. Europe was decades away from it, and to see, indeed, the harm ... caused by the language of a particular political ideology, whatever it might be. For the first time after 46 years of socialist rule, in the cold midnight of 8 December and until late at night, the student square and the lanes leading out of it resounded with calls for freedom and democracy, to embellish to the utmost the bureaucratic centralist state, which did not spare the rubber truncheon against the student youth, the future of the Albanian intelligentsia. Many years later, from the platform in the student square, with the legalization of political pluralism and the D.P.—undoubtedly one of the most notable events of the postwar period and a turning point in our nation’s history—the one-party regime was brought to an end. From this square, where the PDSH was legalized, the direct road opened toward a pluralist, civilized Albania like all of Europe. The installation of the plaque and the naming of the student square “Democracy Square” symbolize not only the contribution of student youth to this nationwide movement for progress, but also, in a way, the entire popular movement whose beginnings were precisely in this square, where people gathered to demonstrate together with students—citizens of Tirana and from all over Albania—joining their voices to those of the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who were students. The plaque is being installed in the student square these days. BARDHYL UKCAMA [Fragment begins mid-sentence:] …law-enforcement bodies have been controlled exclusively by the state-party, which, despite its very bitter experience, has never allowed these bodies to be accountable, even formally, to any state institution. Even the People’s Assembly, the country’s highest legislative body, has until now been deprived of such authority. It has no committee for the army or the internal affairs bodies, as it does for other sectors of the country’s life. But under conditions of multi-party pluralism and on the eve of free nationwide elections, control of the army, the judiciary and law-enforcement bodies unquestionably poses a very great danger to political pluralism and the holding of free elections. It goes without saying how freely an Albanian citizen can go to the polls when the instruments of coercion are in the hands of a party that for 45 years has been master of the land and sky, of the state and the law in this country. In other words, maintaining party control over the army and law-enforcement bodies is a genuine attack on the democracy being established in Albania. We also emphasize that the struggle for democracy and progress in Albania is now being waged as a contest between conservative forces and democratic, progressive forces. Under these circumstances, it is self-evident that the conser-

THROUGH THE LABYRINTHS OF THE MARKET ECONOMY — The UN has a number of organizations, such as UNDP, UNCTC, etc., which engage economists and other specialists from around the world to help different governments restructure their economic systems. In this context, specialists from various fields came to our country a few months ago and gave several lectures to officials and specialists. These lectures have not been published to date. The publisher of the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike” therefore considered that publishing them would help people understand the market economy. In a centrally planned society, it is assumed that a group of government employees are paid to identify and determine consumers’ needs, after which the required goods are produced; the same applies to the transfer of goods to consumers and their sale, procedures familiar to you. In a Western business society, things work quite differently. What happens, for example, in the United States is that a large group of people observe the market and conduct studies into existing demand and demand that may emerge in the future, and goods are produced on that basis. In this way, large, established enterprises can coexist with small ones employing a few dozen people, since each can serve a particular kind of market. In the United States, for example, the automobile market is supplied by large firms, but many other kinds of products also come from small businesses. Socially, in this respect, and in comparison with a centrally planned society, there are two kinds of people who meet consumers’ needs: those paid by the state, and those who earn their own wages by doing this work themselves and who also bear the risk of their enterprise failing or making no profit. So there is a human dimension here, with a different degree of freedom. We are dealing with a person who can choose to embark on a risky venture, to fail or to make a profit. The beginning of this activity is also connected with the freedoms of private enterprise that your government has recently allowed to be practiced. Individuals are now being given the opportunity to experiment with their prospects of making a profit or suffering a loss. To conclude this introduction, I would like to say that these kinds of enterprises flourish as democracy develops. With the establishment of a legislative system within which entrepreneurs can operate, and under the “Decree on Enterprises,” this process is getting under way. Something else must also be understood: entrepreneurship has its benefits. For example, a successful entrepreneur who organizes work well in their enterprise to produce a product that is needed can create new jobs by hiring people. But there is also the other social side: in this context successful people earn more than others. And in a society where living standards have been kept roughly equal, some individuals emerge who become wealthy. The question is how such a person can be accepted in a social environment that has not previously known this phenomenon, beyond creating a legal framework. The fact is that, if the country—for example, Albania—allows this kind of activity, these people must serve the country’s specific conditions, and the rules governing their activities can be designed so that they serve society as well as possible. In this respect, certain general principles must be observed, such as competition. A single enterprise cannot be allowed to dominate the market; there must therefore be laws that, through taxes and restrictions on enterprises, prevent them from exceeding the limits of their ambitions and channel them within the general framework. Let us now turn to some of the laws needed to facilitate and enable entrepreneurs to operate. For people to do business on their own account, one way is to organize groups combining the technical skills and capital needed to develop the activity. A first step is to establish an independent enterprise that can do business in its own name, and not in the name of the state. You already have enterprises operating today. But what is meant by business has two qualitative elements. The enterprise in question is owned by a group of shareholders, so the ownership of such a corporation is in the hands of a group of people; in some cases the state may also be a shareholder, but this is not usual in Western society, where members of the general public may also own shares. Another form of enterprise is the individual one, without forming a corporation. Another form is a partnership, which does not require setting up a corporation, but only signing an agreement between the participants. The liability to society is the same, but the reason for setting up corporations is that (Continued on page 5)

No. 7 Saturday 26 January 1991 Year I of publication Price: 1 lek Published every Wednesday Tirana—the world’s only capital without foreign journalists Our Tirana is the only capital in the world without permanently accredited foreign journalists, unless we count one correspondent from HSINUA, also a legacy from the time of the great brotherhood with China. Two years ago, a well-known AFP journalist told me that until quite recently the news agency he worked for had had correspondents everywhere except in Tirana and Ulan Bator. Without in any way wishing to belittle that country and the Mongolian people, known throughout the world for producing mare’s milk, the comparison made by the French journalist struck me as deeply ironic. The irony was made even more bitter by the fact that, by then, even the “fortress” of Ulan Bator had fallen. The only one still closed to this day is our “fortress” (!). Thus, in this respect too—which is one of the key parameters of the Final Act of Helsinki, freedom of information—we have no company but ourselves. It is well known that throughout the half-century socialist era the official propaganda worked with great intensity to instill in people the idea that foreign bourgeois-revisionist journalists were among the most dangerous ranks of Albania’s sworn enemies. There is no need to analyze why the regime needed a complete absence of foreign journalists from our capital, since the reasons are now known and understandable to everyone. In any case, it is striking that in this respect we proved even more hard-line Communists than Stalin, who had allowed representatives of some of the largest bourgeois newspapers in his capital and even in various republics. For several decades, however, refusing to accredit foreign journalists in our country was an act that fully accorded with the entire foreign-policy line pursued by the regime in power: the policy of Albania’s tragic isolation from the whole world. European and global integration processes were not only openly rejected; with comic zeal, every possible trumpet was sounded to denounce these processes to domestic and foreign public opinion. Thus, the absence of journalists had its own logic, however completely perverse that logic may have been. But what logic justifies such an action by our government today? Although foreign policy is carried out by the same cabinet of ministers, at least its slogans have changed noticeably. It is true that, at the end of the day, one has to follow where one’s feet take one, but it is said that we too are turning toward the European Community. The official propaganda, like our authorities, has not only lost the courage to denounce these integration processes and their protagonists, as it used to do, but it also lacks the slightest courage to assess realistically the multitude of businessmen and political envoys now coming and going here. Only journalists continue to have to pass through the eye of a needle, as before. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dozens of visa applications from journalists from all over the world that have been awaiting the minister’s approval for months. And accrediting them is out of the question. It is clear that such an attitude is not simply inertia inherited from the past. So who is afraid of the permanent presence of foreign journalists, and why? What undesirable information about Albanian political reality might they find and publish, to the displeasure of our officials? These and other questions leave room for much speculation and bitter suspicion, which cannot be dispelled even by an impressive figure for the number of foreign journalists who have passed through our country over the past year. The vast majority came as tourists or to cover the various international events held in Tirana; when these events ended, they were herded out, without being allowed even a cursory look at what happens and what people experience here. But even if things were otherwise, it is clear that the hurried comings and goings of journalists could not play the same role as correspondents permanently based here in truthfully reporting everyday developments in Albania—a necessary means of communication between our public and world public opinion. It hardly needs saying that it is not to the credit of our people that Tirana, having fallen behind Ulan Bator too, has, for the past few days—since Sadam Hyseini expelled all the foreign journalists—been left ranked alongside Baghdad alone. BESNIK MUSTAFAJ

— REGARDING THE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON’S MISREPRESENTATION — On 21 January, the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike” published the Resolution of the Political Committee of the European Parliament on relations with Albania, which was voted on at the meeting of 9 January, with 14 votes in favour, none against and two abstentions. We clarify that this resolution belongs to the Political Committee and not to the European Parliament. The inaccuracy is that “European Union” was written instead of “European Community.” We apologize to readers for this technical error. THE EDITORS