31 March is coming. It is election day. We should rejoice in this day, even though we find ourselves at a moment when joy seems far away. Let us look toward this day and, for a moment, cast off all the burden of tension that has engulfed us lately. Democracy awaits us. Democracy won with our votes, with our desire and our will. Pluralism in our country, after so many hardships, is now a reality. The Democratic Party, created only a few months ago, has emerged from the election campaign with dignity and popularity. It aspires to win power through free votes and democratic elections. The victory of the Democratic Party would clearly mean a victory for democracy in Albania. Election day is approaching. May democracy win. May peace, justice and calm prevail. Even if the PPSH, which has ruled as the sole party for these five decades, does not win, this is no reason for alarm or loss of composure. Its defeat at the polls does not mean the loss of peace and stability. If this happens today, it must in no way cause tension or a loss of calm. Tension not only fails to help democracy; it harms it. Whatever happens to the political parties, people must know how to win in this time of democracy; they must know how to preserve what has been won: pluralism in elections, free will in them, calm and transparency. Let us win the joy, the calm, the quality of life we deserve. Let us win what we want, what we need and what enables us to live our lives. This is in our hands—in all our hands, especially on 31 March.

— “Albania is mired in debt,” Klaudio Marteli stresses. — On Monday, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, Klaudio Marteli, arrived on an urgent visit to discuss the problems of Albanian refugees. He met and held talks with his Albanian counterpart, Fatos Nano, and with the president, Ramiz Alia. He also held a press conference attended by foreign journalists who are in Albania. Mr. Marteli stressed that today’s meetings … arose from the need for swift and urgent communication between us in order to find the most optimal solutions. At the same time, he hopes that assistance will come from international organizations, both the UN and the European Common Market. He stressed that the Albanian side had given him assurances that such events would not happen again and that, according to the Albanian government, the situation … (Continued on page 6) Alban… Albania, about which they wanted to know whether the PD had any comm… The representatives of the Federation expressed the view that opposition parties should have equal access to Radio and Television programming, which should be impartial. RD correspondent

At the invitation of the State Department and the Albanian National Council, the chairman of the Steering Commission of the Democratic Party of Albania, Dr. Sali Berisha, and a member of this commission, Dr. Gramoz Pashko, departed on a visit to the USA.

The chairman of the Steering Commission of the PDSH, Dr. Sali Berisha, received a group from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights on Sunday, 10 March 1991. Dr. Berisha, answering their questions, spoke to them about human rights and the process of democratization in Albania. The Federation’s representatives expressed their concern about the difficult conditions facing prisoners. They also asked about the elections in Albania, which should be free and in accordance with international standards. They paid particular attention to Albania’s electoral law and asked whether the PD had any objections to it. The Federation’s representatives to Radio and Television programming, which should be impartial.

Enslaved to a dogmatic view of reality, the bureaucracy in power is moving from one absurdity to another. Among the latest in this series is its attitude toward the proletariat. The Albanian proletariat, nationalized in its entirety by the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat—that is, turned into an instrument owned by the overcentralized bureaucratic state, stripped of every minimal real right to personal ownership, not merely material but also spiritual—could hardly remain insensitive... seeing its struggle with the bureaucracy and the red feudal lords as a matter of life or death, it created the Free and Independent Miners’ Union, the powerful avalanche that undertook to unite the entire Albanian proletariat in its path. Those in power went down on their knees and agreed to legalize the existence of this union, not out of any goodwill, but because they were compelled to. Their entire reluctant stance, showing that they know very well in theory that the proletariat is the gravedigger of its rulers, speaks clearly ... That is why it is putting into action the entire arsenal at its disposal to divide the proletariat and prevent it from organizing nationwide outside its tutelage. This is because its interests are antagonistic to those of the proletariat, and it can secure them only by essentially denying the interests of the proletariat, which the latter seeks to defend by organizing in its independent unions.

Today, March 11, 1991, at around 11:00 in the morning, the peace of residents and pupils at the schools in Tirana’s Neighborhood No. 8 was suddenly and alarmingly shattered by three gunshots. This time, too, the shots came from an extension of the “Block,” from the home of former President Haxhi Lleshi, who now serves as a member of the Presidential Council. Citizens who had left the long line for meat, and others who got off the bus in terror at the nearby stop, saw a 19-year-old young man collapse at the gate in a large pool of blood. The chief learned that the boy had been shot by the former president’s gardener, Ramadan Sula. That morning, when the water supply in his family’s apartment building had been cut off, 19-year-old Taulant Isaraj went to fetch water from the former president’s tap, which is always running. The containers he was carrying were proof of this. The emergency medical services and the police immediately gave the badly wounded boy, who had been hit by three shots, the necessary assistance and took the criminal in for the inevitable investigation. Nevertheless, the assembled citizens said that the boy was named Taulant Isaraj, was 19 years old, that his father worked at the Ministry of People’s Defense, and that his home address was: Rruga Miqësia, building 11, entrance 1, apartment 6. There is no need to comment on the citizens’ outrage and indignation at this absurd crime. Above all, there was the concern of the mothers, who, lamenting what might befall their sons, are still very afraid—even though the “dark forces” are being enlightened by the light of truth—because it is no small matter to arm the large army of gardeners, makeup artists, personal barbers, chicken keepers, cooks, and servants… ASTRIT LAMÇE Note: About this incident, as soon as it happened, several alarmed citizens phoned us, and Habibe Koka, a doctor at Ambulance No. 4 who witnessed how the incident unfolded, also sent us a written account, as did Tomi Moçi, Romeo Karaj, etc.

A forgotten statement At present, the Party of Labour has singled out two personalities from Tepelena. One is elderly, nearly a century old: the well-known Shefqet Peçi. The other is very young for the heavy burden the government of labour has placed on him: Minister of the Interior. Election time has come, and people nostalgically recall members of parliament and the lives of years gone by. How fondly they remember the names of MPs, and how vividly they see before their eyes their hands raised in the predetermined vote, by the hundred. They search their images for the faces of the MPs. They try to remember some passage from their conversations. How few, and how poor, they are! “How they never left us their photographs,” an elderly man tells me with his subtle humor. “Don’t be upset,” I tell him, “you’ll see them again; Muçia doesn’t forget his trade.” But let that be a fragment of a conversation I had a year ago. And, strangely enough, their forgotten photographs appear before my eyes. For example, I see Shefqet Peçi’s photograph. How many times has he been an MP in the Kurvelesh district! The people remember him well. I want to remind readers of just one thing: now, on the eve of the elections, Shefqet Peçi is once again being proposed as a candidate for parliament in the Kurvelesh district. Who is proposing him? The person you can imagine—I don’t want to weary you with the names of parties, or perhaps I do want to weary you with party names, or dubëti sh—but instead of approving his candidacy, the people of Kurvelesh said to him, with Lab humor: “You’re not really going to put forward the candidacy of an old man, for the first [unclear], to solve your own problems; let’s go further, your own problems?!… Let’s go further.” Who is Gramoz Ruçi? A teacher who has forgotten his profession, since he has spent about 15 years working for the Party. The first in Tepelena to declare that he would not accept political pluralism or the Democratic Party, he rants and shouts that the Democratic Party will be formed only over his body and those of Tepelena’s “heshtorë”! Just imagine a Minister of the Interior who rejects political pluralism and is also a member of the government! Can we demand that this government be depoliticized with such a minister at its head?! You will say that times have changed. I ask you: have the views and practices of these types changed? Still, we are with you. As for the opinion of the people of Tepelena: did Ramiz Alia do us a favor by putting a chief policeman in charge of us? I don’t know how true such statements are, but the people say them. Isn’t everyone speaking in the name of the people?! And furthermore. The roots of unity among the people of Tepelena lie in the fact that, thanks to the abilities of Gramoz Ruçi and his comrades, a quarrel has arisen between the residents of Memaliaj and Tepelena over a sports field. We could say the same about Labëria being given priority over the community, since the people gathered at the head of the administration in Tepelena are friends and relatives who have [unclear] and appearances. Salari is being entirely relocated toward the city by a [unclear] road. So … [unclear] and Hax… Mutsin? in the center as chief… [unclear]. Gramoz Ruçi, former first secretary of the Tepelena district Party committee and now Minister of the Interior, declared himself a parliamentary candidate after political pluralism was established. The constituency where his candidacy was announced rejected it. But… SELMan HODO

The day before yesterday in the morning, the Democratic Party held its regular press conference in one of the halls of the Palace of Culture, devoted to the problems of Albanian refugees in Italy and the election campaign. On this occasion, Preç Zogaj, chairman of the publishing council of the newspaper “Rilindja Demokratike,” read a statement by the PD steering committee, which said: Albania’s many years of isolation from Europe, the severe economic crisis reflected in low incomes and the scarcity of goods on the market, the clashing of weapons and calls for bloodshed by the illegal organization “Enver Hoxha,” which created uncertainty about achieving democracy peacefully—all of these were exploited by anti-democratic forces to incite and intensify the largest wave of Albanians leaving their homeland during this century. The Democratic Party, sharing the grief of the mothers and relatives of the refugees and experiencing the difficult situation of our compatriots—the victims of Albania’s totalitarian system—in Italy’s ports, regards these events as an attempt to deprive democracy of its strongest and most reliable support, the youth, and as an effort to suspend democracy’s development ahead of the March 31 elections, which will be a celebration for the people and Albania. Aware of the poverty into which our country has sunk and deeply committed to participating in free elections, the Democratic Party appeals to the governments of Western European countries and the United States of America to provide Albania with urgent humanitarian aid and to contribute to this country’s normal entry onto the irreversible path of democracy. The Democratic Party also addresses this appeal to our compatriots in the diaspora, the Albanian lobby in America and elsewhere. Grateful for the humanitarian commitment of the governments and individuals organizing the effort, the Democratic Party pledges to do everything possible to ensure that this aid goes first and foremost to poor Albanian families, [text cut off]… (Continued on page 2)

Following the interview with “Voice of America” and an article in the newspaper “Bashkimi,” Domenika in... was interrupted, and Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti appeared on the television screen. The main issue in his interview, as has usually been the case in the Italian media these days, was the issue of Albanian emigrants. We did not time how long the interview lasted, but it was certainly much, much longer than the official announcement issued three days ago by the Albanian Telegraphic Agency in the Albanian press and on television about the visit that Claudio Martelli, Deputy Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, will make to Albania. Well, what can you say to that! The Italian prime minister found the time (for which, once again, we thank him), while at least one of the many spokesmen we have appointed recently could not find time to appear on television or in the press. There is only one thing they could do: have someone speak about the lives of Albanian leaders. We miss seeing an Albanian government spokesman speak on television or in the press, explain these situations, reassure and calm the people, and tell us what will happen if one of these frightening, pitiful, and monstru... emigrants returns… (Continued on page 2) proletariat, that not merely material but also spiritual, could hardly fail to become conscious of its condition, position, and role at this key historical moment through which our Homeland is passing. In the course of this process, its glorious emergence—the miners—in the battle … of the Albanian proletariat. clearly to this truth. In the organization of the Albanian proletariat, in its strength, the bureaucracy sees the implacable enemy of the stolen privileges it has secured for its caste. … the honor of the Albanian proletariat. To achieve its wicked objectives, the bureaucracy undertook to stage the failed scenario of reorganizing the Professional Unions… (Continued on page 2)

For a laugh: I invite you, dear readers of “Rilindja Demokratike,” to take a look at the following document, published in full according to the original: R. P. SH. Association of the Union of Volunteer Activists “Enver Hoxha” Gjirokastër, 25. 2. 1991 Decision: In the Name of the People The people of the districts of Gjirokastër, Tepelenë, Përmet, Vlorë, Skrapar and the Mallakastër area, assembled in Gjirokastër on 24.2.1991 to defend the image, life and work of Enver Hoxha, the leader and founder of the Albanian state, taking into consideration the vandalistic conduct of certain lecturers at the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Gjirokastër, who incited students to stop their studies, begin a hunger strike and break the bust of Enver Hoxha. Note: The original is displayed in the premises of the I. L. P. “Eqerem Çabej,” Gjirokastër. To laugh and to cry: Someone might think that even the director of the Higher Pedagogical Institute in Gjirokastër received this sort of decision with a derisive smile, since it leaves him “no alternative and no right to call it into question.” Yes, indeed! That is what I thought at first, too. But… I said to myself: This country has the rule of law! The affairs of a state governed by the rule of law cannot be handled recklessly by the “policvilat” that have sprung up lately, with seals and signatures, orders and illegal decisions in their swollen heads! In my own region, too, there once lived poor Marka Fana, may he rest in peace, a character as pitiful as he was comic, who roamed the forest roads armed with two clubs and a belt of stones— …stones, the harmless Mark Fana would enter the ravines and, in the evening, at the edge of the forest, order the overthrow of governments, chairmen and directors; he would issue stern warnings to the president of the state, grumble at him, and silence the king of Arabia. After carrying out all these operations, he would emerge from the bushes satisfied, and we would laugh and rejoice with all our hearts. I laughed again as I used to, when I read the decision signed by Mr. Valer Zeh[s]k[a?]. “Just imagine the laughter that must have erupted at the Institute in Gjirokastër,” I said again. But all this humor immediately evaporated when the following document fell into my hands: To the accounts department: Mr. Marsian Shena’s salary has been deducted for the days of the students’ strike. Since his name does not appear in the decision sent by the Association of Enver’s Activists, the withheld money should be returned to him. 7. 3. 1991 Signature of MIHAL KASES Deputy Director of the Institute This means that decision number 1 has come into effect. It means that the Executive Committee of the district’s KP and the Ministry of Education have been suspended. It means that another head is seeking to rise above the State governed by the rule of law (!?): the Association of Enver’s Activists. I am afraid that the quality of the postal service has declined considerably in recent weeks. The letter from the founder of the association in question… (Continued on page 4)