It has been one month since the beginning of the economic reform, which was not unexpected by all of us. A month in which we really have been buying bread at liberalized prices, with a ceiling price. It is true that meat, cheese, butter, etc. are no longer in our shopping baskets, and we are buying some [?] at very high prices. The same goes for transport, fuel, and the prices of other services. Many are also experiencing the days of social assistance, now extended to all the country’s unprofitable enterprises. Despite these difficulties at the start of the reform, life as a whole is naturally finding its way forward. Most importantly, for the most part people are aware of these critical thresholds. Nowhere, in any part of our nation, are there reports of traders dealing in goods. Suffice it to say that this month alone, 15,000 trucks of various tonnages have entered our country through customs posts, 70 percent of them privately owned, which shows a positive trend in the market economy. Our ports, day and night, receive and dispatch dozens of ships and ferries belonging to different countries and companies. Statistics from the Customs Directorate say that in these six months alone, more than 1,784 ships docked at our quays, most of them bringing goods. Our airport is operating with a rapid, daily flow. Who can say that trade is no longer operating? It is this active trade, moving goods both inside and outside the country, that, even with still-limited means and resources, has brightened our shop windows, which until yesterday were stained and drab, and has refined the tastes of young people and people of all ages. Can it be said that our good and wise statesman is not working? Only the [?] that socialism created... Only them! It is the lively work of hundreds of thousands of Albanians who, rejoicing in receiving the land—a concrete achievement of today’s government—have brought a market boom in all kinds of vegetables and fruit, in milk, dairy products, and other goods. Although with great difficulty, health care and culture are working too. So are our refreshed and democratized administrations, and the entire superstructure. It is an auspicious sign of hope that the Meksi government is working at full capacity and without showing fatigue. It should be supported even more by every citizen who calls himself Albanian and a true patriot. This will be to the benefit of every individual in society. Time itself will sift through everything, and everything will fall into its natural course, provided we work for the time and its [?]. Only in this way will today’s days of hope soon become strong DAYS and illuminate the life of every individual, the life of our new society. The government is working intensively - The people as a whole are supporting it - rain, just as the meteorologists of «ZP» or the other station had predicted. As before, people live, move about and create, only with new possibilities and visions for the future. Each person, having understood their new position in society (naturally, to the extent allowed by their level of culture and education as a citizen), puts on the table what they earn through their free labor, and puts on the table as much as they create with their free and independent thought. There is no longer censorship or the censored. Travel along the Tirana-Shkodër highway on this day and you see everywhere signs of a life in motion and renewal. On the outskirts of the towns and within them, or in the villages, your eye catches many new houses and shops rising day by day or already completed. The relevant ministry, the Ministry of Construction, has also made a valuable contribution to this system. During this first month of the new government’s operation, it has secured all the material resources needed for construction, both for private buildings and for state-owned ones. Iron (of several kinds), sheet metal, profiles and other materials have arrived through imports. In addition, bricks, cement, lime and aggregate materials have been secured from domestic production. Furthermore, work is under way in all transport sectors, including passenger transport, road transport and rail transport.

Seminar held on the auction sale of chemical fertilizers On Thursday, 10 September, an open seminar with traders from all regions of Albania was held in one of the halls of the former Party School. The seminar, organized by the firm IFDC (this firm has undertaken the distribution of chemical fertilizer aid from the US government), was intended to describe the auction in detail, explain the other procedures involved in the program for importing DAP fertilizer, and provide technical information about this fertilizer. The seminar’s opening remarks were delivered by Mr. NHH Majuhander, the firm’s head of finance and credit, (Continued on page 2)

Interview with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Aleksandër Meksi, given to our journalist A. Krasniqi Question: Mr. Prime Minister! Recently the Government approved a decision to liberalize the prices of textbooks, including not only new books but also old ones, whose costs have now accumulated. What criteria were used to make such a decision, and will the state make up the difference in this case? Answer: In setting the new financial criteria for this difficult year of transition, we were guided by the good intention of providing students with every material and financial opportunity to study under normal conditions, as well as by the state budget’s capacity to provide subsidies. We are convinced that the economic reform that has begun has its difficulties and its transitional hardships, but above all it is a guarantee of overall national progress and greater prosperity for every individual. Albania needs capable personnel, and the people being trained today at the universities are needed throughout the country. Specifically, in response to your question, we have two groups of textbooks in mind: The first group includes textbooks for compulsory education and secondary education, and the workbooks for them, while the second group includes higher-education textbooks. For the first group, the Council of Ministers, taking into account the views of the Ministry of Education, has decided that retail prices for the public will not change. As a result of the complete liberalization of the prices of raw materials and auxiliary materials, and of wage increases, the cost of producing books has [?] tenfold. On this basis, the Government anticipates that current retail prices for textbooks will rise threefold. The difference between the proposed retail price and the actual production cost will be covered by a state subsidy. The change in the sale price is also made necessary by the requirements of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund concerning our country. A very serious concern is posed by the textbooks in the second group (higher education). Despite the Ministry of Education’s efforts to have these treated like the textbooks in the first group, it was ultimately decided that their prices would be fully liberalized. Since these textbooks are also produced in smaller [?], their retail prices turn out to be very high. Specifically, some textbooks recently coming off the press are priced at between 60 and 140 new lekë per copy. According to forecasts, their prices could reach 340 lekë per copy. As for textbooks that were produced some time ago and are in the retail network, it is expected that their price too will increase threefold. Question: The liberalization of prices has also caused student scholarship allowances to rise significantly, while the absolute majority of students cannot afford this allowance. What role will the state play in addressing the financial disparity this has created for students? Answer: Under price liberalization, the financial allowance has increased by as much as 5.5 times. This increase greatly raises the level of scholarships and, consequently, the fees paid by students who do not receive scholarships; these fees, having risen proportionally, would inevitably lead to a decline in the number of pupils and students attending schools. In view of this very high allowance, it was considered appropriate to create a more suitable arrangement, under which it would be possible for the state budget approved for this year to cover more than 50 percent of the financial allowance; that is, all students who do not receive a full scholarship will pay only half the scholarship amount. For accommodation expenses, a lodging allowance has also been set, which is actually 10 lekë per night. Since this amount is high, we believe that students should pay 1 lekë per night and the state budget should cover the remaining 9 lekë. To ease the state’s financial obligations and possibly improve food provision, the Government has contacted all the humanitarian organizations operating in Albania in recent days, and they have committed to provide assistance. We have also done this to secure paper for printing textbooks. We are fully committed and are working intensively to ensure that pupils and students are provided with the material, technical, and educational conditions for a successful school year...

(Continued from the previous issue) O sinful brothers, broken by violence! May those who took the vote through your weakness have the big heart to forgive you and spare your lives, for Albanians smeared with mud and splashed with mud are of no benefit to the nation. But let us not bow our heads so low. Which people should we praise for their courage? The English, the Americans, or the French? Fine, we can do that, but have they been put to our test? We know there are peoples who faced dictatorship courageously. We do not envy those peoples their courage, but their dictatorship. New faults over these two years: the State Security was a perfect organization, well fed. We do not know where our many troubles came from, from the Party of Labour or from the Security that hid behind it. Think for a moment: no ordinary communist, no secretary, no minister, no division commander had the power of a State Security operative. The Dictator himself was terrifying because he commanded the Security army, not because he was First Secretary of the Party. The title of Secretary was needed to display him before the world. It was the mantle that covered his [?]. Today the Security no longer exists, but it has not died. It is a beast torn to pieces, but the pieces are alive, they move, have muscles, and strike. There are whole areas where its networks still operate, [?], intervene. That is how we emerged from the dictatorship and, naturally, that is what we will have after the dictatorship. A Security employee keeps the names of those wretched secret collaborators in his pocket like a pack of cards, and from time to time frightens them by saying he will expose them naked in broad daylight. This type neither explains nor feels responsible for the fact that, as soon as the economy pointed toward the free market, the basements of Party militants were already full of goods for sale. And he points his finger at informers among the persecuted! Which, then, is the greater crime: preaching socialist conscience about public property from an armchair while your villa is piled high with refrigerators, or being unable to bear the pressure closing in on you and, out of desperation, admitting that you too heard someone, some person, whisper that the Political Bureau was hypocritical and stealing? No one expects that Security official to explain how it happened that all those who are multimillionaires today, no more than three years ago, kicked over peasants’ baskets of figs to save them from the sin of becoming rich. And he points at the persecuted and teaches us where justice should begin its work. How nice! As we were talking with a friend, we noticed that people are no longer talking so much about national reconciliation. (?) We saw Albanians themselves there, in the dark basement during the dictatorship. In this way people do not calm down, cannot set things right with one another, cannot unite their minds and hands to build. This is a great fault, a new fault. I told him that, apart from one person, Bedri Spahiu, I have seen no one publish his repentance. He told me that guilty people want to show remorse but are afraid and have no guarantee that they will be forgiven. I told him that once such a guarantee is given, that repentance is a hypocritical and formal gesture. A dishonest gesture. Why does the Socialist Party not take it upon itself to apologize to the people, to those who suffered, for all the atrocities and crimes of the country? If repentance is expressed collectively by the party, on behalf of the group, it does not bring frightening personal consequences. He told me that the SP is not guilty. It is another party, not the Party of Labour, which is now dead. I told him that as the Party of Labour was dying, it showed remorse, but we do not know about it. Let the Socialist Party convey it to us, since it was there at the last moments, at its bedside. He took that as irony. (Continued on page 3)

An inspection carried out at the Flour Production Enterprise in Tirana uncovered ... An inspection carried out at the Flour Production Enterprise in Tirana uncovered many legal violations

An inspection carried out at the Flour Production Enterprise in Tirana uncovered many violations and breaches of legality. Tirana uncovered many violations and breaches of legality. The enterprise’s director, Astrit Tako, acting on behalf of the private firm ALI-MARKET, transported a quantity of pasta using the enterprise’s vehicle and sold it on its premises. The transport costs, amounting to 17,514 lekë, had not been reimbursed to the enterprise. Likewise, in March 1992, Astrit Tako, acting as the representative of the private firm SIMAND and authorized by the Ministry of Food Industry, sold the enterprise 2,482 m [?] of imported sieves, a quantity that covered the needs of all the flour mills nationwide, thereby turning the enterprise into a forwarding agent. The sieves had been bought from a private citizen, a person who has so far not been identified and who did not have the appropriate permit legalizing the trading activity. In December 1990, the enterprise received a «Lancia» car from Unit 1000, valued at 17,000 lekë, which several months later it sold to a citizen as scrap metal for 100 lekë. Although it is claimed that the car was involved in an accident, the enterprise has no documents to prove this, while the sale document was also drawn up in violation of the ...

Sadly, our nation wants one another [?]. Sadly, our nation wants one another at the most difficult moments, at times when the media’s DNA [?] its fate. This is a great tragedy, but a climactic one for a nation’s destiny. These 100 [?] the red-and-black flag, which with Hashi Qamili would [?] with his flag. Sadly, we did not succeed in achieving unity. And such were the Albanians and the Albanians [?]... These fighters for a democratic Albania ... But ... And there were no lack of Ephialtes, either, later on; in 1944, Slavo-communism exploited precisely one such Ephialtes, indeed the most prominent one, to pursue a savage anti-Albanian policy, the longest and most unprecedented. But at last the days of democracy arrived. People, worn out by poverty and spiritual exhaustion, freed from the all-encompassing dictatorship [?], experienced the greatest joy of the freedom they had longed for. The Democratic Party, together with the other parties that aspired to freedom and rapid progress, led the movement to uproot communism, the sole cause of the dire situation we have fallen into. For a party to oppose this, this task, being difficult, requires the total commitment of all the country’s democratic forces. This presupposes that in the Democratic Party thought and action must be united at the highest level [?]... salvation, another anti-Albanian, an anti-human, an Esat Pashë Toptan, who intrigues and betrays the national interest, must not emerge again. Having agreed together, everyone must stand apart from displays of «monolithism», and from an obstinate desire for advancement. Judge for yourself, dear reader: do we have time to waste on debates, on empty academicism? The facts we are living through prove how necessary cohesion is at this time, even at the cost of many personal and petty interests. And yet Ephialtes appear again. They appear once more at a crucial moment for the country. When the national question is in focus and economic reform has only just begun, intellectuals emerge from within the PD itself, even from its leadership, who do not submit to the will of the majority and thus violate every norm of culture. THE EPHIALTES If you are a pioneer of the democratic processes, if you have earned your place, continue along this path; do not part company with your comrades, because you gave your word and took an oath. But you should not become jealous because others come to the PD, even if they arrive a little later. In democracy there is room for everyone. When the politically persecuted arrive too, the martyrs of the cause, you should rejoice, because they spent the harsh years in the prisons and camps of the dictatorship, while you completed your studies and earned titles, wandering through art institutes, lecture halls, journalists’ clubs or writers’ clubs. And now you have the selfish fear that tomorrow they will take your places. But you forget that in democracy there are no permanent positions, and mandates are limited in time for everyone. Nevertheless, democracy has lost nothing. It moves forward, so that you too, and the Albanians, may at last be free and prosperous. Time works for democratic Albania, never for those who drop out along the way. GJOMOR DILAVERI