During these nine months, half a century of brutal, one-party rule came to an end. The feudalocratic, anti-national Constitution gave way to a package of laws based on the Helsinki Acts. Albanian soil is being freed from the enslavement of the communist state. Religious faiths have gradually begun to revive. We are moving from enslaved labor to free labor. The government of stability, although it is barely ensuring public order, is working to prepare the country for reforms. Parliament is also pluralist and is not the dictator’s legislative puppet. But there is no room for euphoria, and there should not be. Democracy in Albania is seriously threatened by an alliance of crypto-communists and criminal elements from the ranks of the state security service, and ultranationalists. Such an alliance, together with the Stalinists in the ranks of the Red Army, carried out the coup in the Soviet Union. Therefore, the DP, PR, PSD, and democratic forces as a whole are calling for citizen political action until democracy is fully established in Albania. They call on democratic forces to undertake this action not in order to manipulate them, but to give them the opportunity to show who they are and defend their sacred democratic aspirations and ideals. The democratic revolution here and elsewhere is ... The coup in the Soviet Union shows how dearly the postponement of reforms can cost. It seems to have been planned to unfold as a chain reaction, first and foremost along the Moscow–Belgrade–Tirana axis. Ten days before the coup, Albanian crypto-communists and criminals from the state security service, in order to psychologically prepare the people for this dark calamity, began warning of the establishment of a second dictatorship. Let us recall that they did the same in the second decade of February, that is, before the putsch—a scenario that failed at the United School because the democratic students and teachers of that school did not follow the putschist forces of the state security service and other elements. Likewise, during the days of the putsch, threats began, along with Bolshevik-style provocations at the grassroots and secret meetings. Portraits of the dictator Enver Hoxha appeared on the doors of DP activities. Lenin- and Mao Zedong-style caps appeared in our cafés. But the coup in the USSR failed. Developments there showed once again, clearly, that the people are the force, energy, mind, and true power—and woe to anyone who takes them on. Secondly—Ongoing citizen political action aims to uproot communism from Albanian lands and from the Albanian soul. Put into practice, this doctrine ... is a genuine internal occupation. A foreign occupation takes away national freedom, and nothing could be worse; but totalitarian socialism, too, proved to be an occupation of individual liberty and individual rights. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians disappeared without graves or left their youth in terrible prisons. Meanwhile, this occupation turned Albania into Europe’s beggar. Precisely because they regarded real socialism as an enslaving occupation that denied the right to free thought and its expression, private property, free movement, religious belief, and so on, people of all ages took to the streets, clashed, and even died shouting, “Freedom, Democracy.” The dissolution of the CPSU, that giant of human oppression, was a great victory for all democratic forces in the world. [Text begins mid-sentence] in Albania. They appeal to the democratic forces to take in our country and elsewhere is showing that the dictatorship did indeed devastate people economically and spiritually, but it did not manage to destroy their democratic aspirations and ideals. Indeed, the first to rise up for democracy were those born and raised under the dictatorship. On the other hand, without the ideas, courage, demonstrations, rallies and strikes, and the dignity of all these civic acts, we would have none of the changes we have today. It is precisely the democratic forces that gave birth to and nurtured the PD and the other opposition parties, and that are uprooting communism from the lands of Eastern Europe and the USSR. Through sustained civic political action, the following objectives must be achieved: First—to prevent the establishment of a second dictatorship in Albania.

The legal prohibition of the creation of parties that seek to establish dictatorships of various kinds is a primary duty of democratic forces. The DP has insisted, and continues to insist, that without uprooting communism from Albania we will never have democracy. By this, of course, we mean uprooting communist power, practices, platforms, positions, and Byzantine ways—not pursuing the individual or the person, who in democratic Albania will be free to hold an independent opinion. In the Albanian lands, all Albanians must and will live as brothers. The DP has not denied, and will never deny, the individual or political forces the right to change. But it also stresses that the SP, by considering itself the legal successor to the PP and claiming to inherit its property, assumes a responsibility with grave consequences. The PPSH was the largest owner of Albanian lands. It built for itself, its leadership, and its apparatus the most imposing committee buildings, villas, schools, museums, and residences of any party in Europe. All its properties are the product of the brutal exploitation of the wretched Albanian worker and peasant over half a century; they are his toil, sweat, and blood. By accepting them as its own, the SP therefore agrees to stand and rise upon the graves, crime, misery, blood, and organized plunder perpetrated by the PPSH, whose policies reduced Albania to begging through Europe today with a sack and a bag, as never before in its history. Gentlemen, we have never asked for reformed forces to be outlawed, but we will never recognize as such those forces that plunder the country and the nation. The PP’s property must be returned to the Albanian state and people. But I want to stress that ownership is not the only thing that identifies the SP with the PPSH. The Socialist Party, which has still not presented its program but defends the PPSH program, bases its political struggle, just like the PPSH, on deception, slander, falsification, and the secret police. In the pages of its press, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha (Continued on page 2)

— MANUSH MYFTIU ARRESTED — On 31 August, Manush Myftiu, former member of the Political Bureau of the PPSH and one of Enver Hoxha’s closest collaborators, was arrested. For about 40 years he served Zeus with zeal and blind obedience, turning the “witch hunt”—the persecution of thousands upon thousands of people—into an art. A single signature of his, made with a cold heart and a robotic hand, condemned thousands of people and tens of thousands of their family members to years, or even a lifetime, in prisons or internment camps. How many mothers and fathers, tears in their eyes, how many young brides with babies at their breasts, entered his large office to ask for justice and mercy for their loved ones, only for him to prove as heartless as the walls, freezing their tears with his very first look and words. But with his close comrades from the Bllok, the party, and the government, Manush was a different person. His signatures brought them nothing but benefits: hefty sums in lek and foreign currency, pleasant trips abroad, posts and undeserved jobs with ample perks, spacious apartments and villas...! With these acts of “generosity,” dispensing the people’s wealth as though it were his father’s property, he could prolong his hold on power despite the people’s growing fury and calls for punishment, and advance his career. For a very long time, as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he was known for his blind obedience to Enver and his dark soul; he was also entrusted with the post of chairman of the Internment Commission. His name is linked to dozens of internment centers, thousands of lives bound to death, thousands of buds and hopes broken before they could bloom, and thousands of loves extinguished before they could be expressed. While the victims were tortured in shacks like prison cells, stealing whatever they could just to fill their stomachs for a day and going without even a man’s share of food, Comrade Manush strutted about in a “Benz,” in his many-roomed villa or in the garden that reminded him of his family’s numerous properties in his native village of Kaninë and in Vlorë. Some time ago, when he learned that the new land law was being implemented, he hurried to send a letter to his fellow villagers ... growing fury and calls for punishment ... [the column continues] With this executioner of the dictatorship and poverty, the punishment of our communist pashas began. Their list is long. If we want to show ourselves and the world that we have a state governed by law and wish to build a genuinely new democratic order, it is an essential civic duty for them all to appear before a court. Not to open the files, but to establish justice. XHEVAT MUSTAFA

STRONG POPULAR SUPPORT FOR THE DEMANDS OF THE DECLARATION OF THE DP, PR AND PSD — Mass meetings in Tirana and the districts — THE PEOPLE WANT ORDER AND PUBLIC PEACE

Precisely at a time when the three largest opposition parties and all the other political forces are demanding that pluralist and renewal processes be carried out thoroughly, those in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who have both the signature and the seal for decisions on this matter have brought out and played a few old cards which, without doing them an injustice, we can call burned-out. From the long list of ambassadorial candidates, which includes all the department directors—8 of the 10 there are—the names of Bashkim Dino, Petraq Polifanti, and Fatmir draw our attention. Fortunately, the name of Jorgo Melo, Manush Myftiu’s Benjamin, and Sulo Lazri have been removed. They have really gone too far, something even more serious. They are putting them forward for the embassies, sending them into the field of play alongside 10 movement leaders. They are major signatories; they demonstrated great devotion to that kind of diplomacy, sending messages as ambassadors for life to represent Albania, the world’s sole island of communist paradise, and E. Hoxha, the greatest and most grievous theoretician of Marxism-Leninism of his time. All four made themselves known before their colleagues at other embassies, before the press and the notable figures of the countries where they served as ambassadors without personality or civic conscience. And when people see them once again at the head of our embassies, they will be astonished and ask: Can Albania really have no more distinguished intellectuals or more capable diplomats than these? Naturally, this will increase distrust of our official statements and of some of the democratic steps we have taken. The blindest and most zealous advocates of Enverist dictatorship, having changed their suits or formally surrendered their communist membership cards, will also take on the role of defenders and standard-bearers of Albanian democracy. But no one can trust them (Continued on page 6)

On Sunday, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania, Mr. Sali Berisha, met with Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geza Jeszenski. The Hungarian foreign minister expressed his satisfaction with the democratic changes and developments in Albania, as well as the major successes of the Democratic Party. It is very important, he said, that people become aware of the great danger posed by communist propaganda, which is trying to blame the opposition for the truly catastrophic situation brought about in Albania by half a century of communist policies. He also said that Hungary, despite its difficulties, is helping and will continue to help Albania. Hungary will provide Albania with 100,000 tons of wheat on very low-interest credit and another 100,000 tons of wheat through the European Community. Mr. Sali Berisha stressed that Hungary and Albania (Continued on page 2) TIRANA Apparently, the spring and autumn of this year will be marked by two memorable occasions, filled with peaceful rallies of the Democratic Party, its full affirmation and rapid growth as the country’s main opposition force. The broad participation of the masses, everyone’s clear and radical democratic demands, and the crystallization of the coalition of the PD, PR, PSD, BSNH, and the political associations “Kosova” and “Çamëria” have greatly alarmed the leadership of the PP(S) and its parrots at “ZP”, as well as all the forces of the crypto-communist coalition. The rallies began a week ago at the “Dinamo” stadium and continued with those in Kavajë, Dibër, Gjirokastër and Vlorë. - VLORË - Undoubtedly, the rally in the city of Vlorë, organized on Monday afternoon, was the largest and most enthusiastic, once again demonstrating the temperament and fervent democratic spirit of the people of Vlorë, and their determination to preserve and strengthen their ties with the PD, and to support and fully implement its program. The speeches by the chairman of the PD Steering Committee, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, by committee member Arben Imami, by the chairman of the Vlorë branch of the PD, Afrim Jupi, and others, further heightened the enthusiasm at this gathering. Those attending the rally warmly welcomed Mr. Sali Berisha’s remarks on the growth and strengthening of the PD, its determination to destroy the criminal state security service and expose the crypto-communists, and the PD’s consistent position on resolving the national question. Among other things, Mr. Berisha stressed that for (Continued on page 2)

- Why can’t the political parties in Tropojë agree, and what is the people’s fault? - Who led the villagers in seizing the livestock? - The NTSH in B. Curri seems to have been put outside the law. - Instead of stone, the Park’s vehicles bring watermelons. Nearly two months spent trying to form a pluralist committee in Tropojë means that, for just as long, nobody has been dealing with the people’s troubles. It means leaving the swindlers, thieves and destroyers free to do as they please—whether they are workers and peasants who belong to no party, or directors with a PP membership card in their pocket; whether they are heads of councils and cooperatives, or secretaries and former secretaries of bureaus. It is not as though things are going smoothly in the other districts, or everything is being resolved well in those pluralist committees, but some have got things moving and a few results are beginning to show. But what is the people of Tropojë supposed to do when the parties cannot agree? And over what? Whether there should be one more or one fewer committee member. Is the people supposed to know that one person is drawing or putting a hand to the belt where his pistol is, while another flies into a rage and berates someone who has been in “leadership” for barely four hours and wants to run the government? The people’s thousand and one troubles cannot be solved this way. They are not being solved because the leaders—most of whom are still in place today—are not sincere. They see the slide (although they do not want to believe it). That is why they want to use the time they have left to fleece the people. Take a look at the villages of Tropojë. Until recently there were only 10 cooperative chairmen. Now there are 49, as the number of cooperatives divided up along village lines has also reached that figure. They are not only failing to work on the people’s troubles; in fact, they are leading the destruction. In the village of Lekurad in Gëgëysen, all 500 head of small livestock were seized the day after the village itself had decided to divide them equally and without any fuss. At the head of this “deed” were Sulejman Abazi, Party Bureau secretary, Azem Shpendi, council chairman, and other officials. In Margëgaj, the first to take a pickaxe to the property was a former personnel chief. The same happened in Kërrnajë, and elsewhere. In the village of Salcë, the chairman of the cooperative’s family circle and relatives have taken more than half of its property. It is no great achievement to slip up when examples are plentiful. In the town of Bajram Curri, there is almost no food at all in the market. And this is due less to a shortage of these products than to the swindling and dishonest work of the managers of the enterprises responsible for supplying the NTSH. B. Curri seems to have been put outside the law. True, that enterprise may no longer exist as such, but today it is the only one in this district responsible for supplying the people. One can imagine how severe these shortages are in the villages, especially in remote areas. Food supplies have also arrived in Tropojë to be distributed. Not a single kilogram of flour, they told us... [text breaks off] (Continued on page 6)

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