Notes from Parliament — While the seats in the chamber were empty, the social-communist deputies had hidden themselves in the galleries, corridors and corners — While the People’s Assembly continues its work, examining and debating one of the most serious issues of democracy—the establishment of the rule of law, called for by contemporary trends in a state governed by law—and, specifically, assessing the work of the Prosecutor General and the institutions he represents, the Socialist Party deputies had abandoned the chamber, slipping like shadows into the galleries, corners and corridors of the Assembly to follow the lengthy debate among the Democratic deputies, hoping to catch whatever a communist shadow could catch. Seeing this chilling spectacle, I was overcome by great sadness—not only because they had abandoned the Assembly chamber while an issue weighing on and poisoning the democratic conscience of our people was being discussed: corruption and incompetence in the prosecution service. Not only because, for 50 years now, they have been accustomed to abandoning their own people at the most critical moments of their lives, as in the spectacle of the people left in the hands of unscrupulous speculators in justice. Not only because they sought once again to torment this people by keeping them bound within their fortress of justice, the Prosecutor General’s Office, rather than accepting their political responsibility. As always, whenever something important for the life of the Albanian people is being decided, the socialist deputies remain behind the scenes. While the deputies were engaged in a heated debate, with civic concern, they were in the parliamentary gallery like bewildered spectators of some yellow species. As always, they watched the drama of their own people with a spectator’s ticket in their pocket, and the idea came unmistakably to me that they are not one step removed from yesterday’s apparatchiks, crooks and communist intriguers. It became clear to me that from the Macbethian backstage where they are lurking, they are trying to prepare something sinister for Albania: just as they prepared the crisis in the justice system; just as they prepared the article and the November massacre of the country; just as they prepared the article in Zëri i Rinisë in cooperation with the State Security, precisely one day before the review of the work of the Prosecutor General’s Office; just as they are trying to prepare a parliamentary crisis. As throughout their lives, those communists, those wretches draped in history, those corridor rats, act behind the scenes, feel at home behind the scenes, kill behind the scenes, leaving behind a minefield, a fire hazard, a human betrayal, a denial of the homeland. MUJE BUÇPAPAJ

The leader of the so-called Albanian Socialist Party, Comrade Fatos Nano, has undertaken an incognito trip to Europe, where he spews venom against Albanian democracy. The socialist press writes nothing about the purpose of Nano’s trips, nor about his meetings, conversations or statements—for example, his meetings and conversations with Papandreou in Greece, and so on. Why this secrecy, this way of acting as in the days of Stalin’s Comintern? Surely not out of nostalgia. First and foremost, Nano is an economist by profession, and he calculates everything, whether he does so well or badly, whether he comes out ahead or loses, honoured or bankrupt. The very fact that Nano makes his trips clandestine reflects poorly on him, on his party, and on Albania’s new democracy. A good, honest act in the service of the homeland and the people has no reason to be hidden. Only moles are blinded by the light. In any case, the era of Comintern-style intrigue and backroom manoeuvres has ended once and for all and cannot be revived. It is a misfortune for those ardent latecomers who never lived through that era! The fact is that, regardless of Nano’s wishes and efforts, his party’s efforts, their complaints and lies, their monstrous accusations against democracy, and the slanders and fabrications taken from KGB files, genuine European socialists are showing him where he belongs. The positions taken by the leaders of the socialist parties of Germany, Great Britain, and others toward the Socialist Party of Albania are now publicly known. These parties, with an experience— …would thus ultimately destroy Albania. Everything here, too, was prepared in advance, secretly, by Cominternist emissaries. The Socialist Party, as the heir to the Communist Party, has inherited in its genes the instinct to destroy Albania. Anyone accustomed to destroying cannot build; an arsonist cannot at the same time be a firefighter; a crime cannot be the work of its victim. Communism, as an ideology and a practice, represents nothing but destruction and crime, a bandit and mafia-like organisation. It demonstrates this wherever it is present, in — NANO CLANDESTINE IN EUROPE, SPEWING VENOM AGAINST DEMOCRACY. — GENUINE EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS ARE NOT LISTENING TO THE NOISY KNOCKING OF THE LEADER OF THE ALBANIAN SOCIALIST PARTY. — THE SECRET TRIPS OF OTHER ALBANIAN SOCIALIST PARTY LEADERS, SUCH AS ILIR META AND PERHAPS SERVET PËLLUMBI IN POLIÇAN, MUST BE CLARIFIED. — WHO DEFENDS BANDITRY IN PARLIAMENT, AS COMRADE DRITËRO AGOLLI PUTS IT? — publicly known. These parties, with their extensive experience gained through immense efforts to defend genuine democratic socialism against the intrigues and unrestrained agent activities of Leninist-Stalinist Bolshevism, cannot mistake Nano’s marbles for walnuts; they cannot fail to understand what the self-proclaimed Socialist Party of Albania really represents. History has taught them the fate of the socialist parties of Eastern Europe that merged with the communist parties, even though they retained the name socialist party. European history is irrefutable witness to the treacherous role they played in the countries where they held power for nearly half a century. One cannot fight history and its lessons. Its laws are ironclad. Nano lies with excessive zeal, calculating that something will stick, but he is knocking on deaf ears. He sings the “Internationale” in the wilderness. The leadership of Nano’s party, as is clear, is destructive in character. They aim to undermine democracy in Albania by presenting the international public with a false image of it. The same thing is happening as in Enver’s time, but in the opposite sense. The dictator presented Albania to the world one-sidedly as a paradise, thereby creating a false image of it in order to preserve his power. His successor and pupil, Nano, is trying to do likewise, but in order to seize power. According to the absolutist and monist mentality of Albanian communism, Albania must accept communism in power; otherwise, it can only be a state of crisis and anarchy, fit to be humiliated and trampled by its supporters anywhere and at any time, as Fatos Nano is doing. That this is a familiar communist-style strategy and practice is demonstrated by all of Nano’s clandestine, destructive activity, recently intensified both abroad and at home, under the guise of pseudodemocracy. The recent destructive and terrorist meetings in Poland also speak to this, led by his hidden leadership: Meta, and, as is said, Servet Pëllumbi too, who suddenly denied it in Parliament, although they are seeking such events and their culmination. The Socialist Party’s responsibility for the tragic and tumultuous events in Poland is undeniable. The Poles were dealing with their own troubles, while the Socialist Party’s destructive and manipulative [text unclear] carried out a painful experiment of the same kind, which will come to an end. has inherited the instinct to destroy Albania in its genes. and mafia-like organisation. It demonstrates this wherever it is present—in power or in opposition, in the street or in Parliament, at home or abroad. Comrade Dritëro Agolli accused the democratic Albanian Parliament of being usurped or controlled by a gang. It cannot be said what state Comrade Dritëro Agolli was in at that moment. But since the Socialist Party is represented in Parliament also by singers of Enver Hoxha’s praises, such as Comrade Dritëro, there is no reason why he should not be accused and insulted by it. With the eyes of a member of the Central Committee of the PPSH, through the party’s executioner’s spectacles, one can see the democratic Parliament in no other way. Dritëro Agolli seems to forget that the criminals and bandits are his comrades—the leaders of the PPSH and the PS, who will one day answer for the massacre of Shkodër. Dritëro Agolli serves them as artistic decoration on the trips they have undertaken and at meetings where they have been received by the people and students like rabid dogs. From this position, the inquisitor of Albanian literature cannot be blamed for failing to forget his trade and continuing to serve as an inquisitor of democracy. It is a truly cutting irony, but democracy, with its tolerance, allows him to exploit it in its name, even though the Albanian people have not forgotten that Mr Dritëro, like the whole gang around him, did not have the courage or decency to stand silently for one minute to honour the martyrs of democracy. It seems the writer was hasty in his statements. Perhaps this was not a personal position, but submission to the party’s will and its military discipline. Perhaps it was part of the same act and demonstration as the PS deputies’ walkout from Parliament, in support of statements made in the press by L. Pobrati, former persecutor of the University of Tirana. In any case, like the whole party, Mr Dritëro did not remain in the chamber to condemn not ignorant banditry, but real banditry. Apparently, Albanian socialists as a bloc cannot commit themselves to condemning crime. That is because their leaders are themselves its personification, bound by a thousand threads to the past and to the world associated with it; because they have never been, and can never be, constructive, but are one of the most monstrous, organised and anti-national destructive oppositions. As such, they are fatally destined only to defend banditry and destruction.

— The Socialists refused to take part in the session at which the motion concerning the work of the Prosecutor General was to be discussed. Their justification was that they had not been allowed to make a statement (which had nothing whatsoever to do with the agenda prepared beforehand) at the beginning of the session, but only at its end. Apparently Mr Dokle considered this a grave insult (because the violation was not, or the action was clearly anti-socialist; therefore none of their deputies entered the chamber). The Socialists showed unity in absurdity as well. Mr Imami and the chairman of the PSD, Mr Laço, asked that Mr Gazidede, head of SHIK, be summoned to Parliament to provide explanations concerning the issues raised in Parliament by Mr Hajdari and the article published in Zëri i Rinisë. It was explained that Mr Gazidede could not come to Parliament because he had been invited to the hospital to provide explanations concerning the request the Prosecutor General’s Office had sent to Parliament for the removal of his immunity as a deputy. The chairman of the presidium explained that he had rejected such a request because it should have been submitted to the Mandates Committee for consideration. Mr Hajdari then asked that reports on this matter not be allowed in the press. Mr Arbnori explained that no such announcement had been issued by the Assembly’s main guard. During his rather brief speech, Mr Hajdari called it “something” like a coup d’état, since it concerned the dismissal of the prosecutor, which he had repeatedly said he opposed. Deputy G. Pashko stressed that dismissing the prosecutor would be unconstitutional, since he could be dismissed only if it were established that he had committed a criminal offence or was mentally ill. He proposed a roll-call vote so that everyone would bear personal responsibility. “With this action,” he said, “after four years anyone could put us in prison. I’m afraid of prison.” — Holding two documents in his hands—the appointment of Mr Manaj as deputy prosecutor of Vlora by a “Decision of the High Council of Justice,” signed by the Prosecutor General, and the notification received from the High Council of Justice stating that no decision had been made by The chairman of the PSD, Mr. Laço, summoned the chairman of SHIK, Mr. Gazidede, to Parliament to provide clarifications regarding article published in «Zëri i Rinisë». It was clarified had been admitted to hospital, but that he would be summoned at the earliest opportunity. - MP A. Hajdari asks [continues] ... for which he stated that he was opposed. The MPs said that some of the answers given by the Prosecutor General during the interpellation had been distorted or were lies. One specific case mentioned was the accusation brought by the people of Luma against Shefqet Peçi for the extrajudicial killing of dozens of people. In his response, the prosecutor had said that the case ... - Having in his possession the two documents—the Council of Justice stating that it had taken no decision on this matter—Mr. Malasi (Continued on page 2)

Year II of publication No. 196 Saturday, 19 September 1992 Price: 3 lek Published every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday

NATIONAL LIBRARY TIRANA