-The shoulder-to-shoulder opposition by Socialist deputies to the bill on human freedoms and rights is a complete self-exposure of their demagoguery about renewal and being a constructive opposition -The Communist-Socialist deputies shed crocodile tears for the freedoms and rights of the Albanian people, whom they persecuted, enslaved and depersonalized for almost half a century -Fatos Nano asks the Democratic government, in office for not even a year, to correct its mistakes, and forgets the 50 years of crimes committed by his party and by himself against Albania and the Albanians

According to his passport and biographical documents, he is Albanian. But bearing in mind the saying of the people that a person is judged by his deeds and not his words, we have the right to question his Albanian identity. We base this not on the fact that he is the son of a family some root or branch of which comes from our own kin, but on some of his statements and actions. Can a person be called Albanian if, during 1990–1992, he fully carried out the Ramizian scenario of destroying and transforming Albania into a wasteland in the heart of Europe? Can a person be called Albanian if he was prime minister on 2 April 1991, when four Albanian sons were killed and dozens wounded in Shkoder? Can a person be called Albanian if he created or led four governments that were the most destructive and anti-national in Albania’s history? Can a person be called Albanian if, with four words conceived by his “atavistic” mind but spoken by the mouth of the puppet Ylli Bufi, he burned 40 Albanian sons alive in Fushe-Arrez? Can a person be called Albanian if he brought Ajdin Sejdini, allowed him to roam Albania as though it were his own property, and let him make the law even over the Albanian state? Can a person be called Albanian if he became a chief and a leader when, with his ears plugged to Europe’s grave news, he does not know how to give the Meksi government 100 million dollars for the Albanian people’s daily bread, yet makes a great fuss over the millions it has received so far toward a billion dollars? Can a person be called Albanian if he is not pleased when the government seeks and secures aid for the Albanian people, including from the Islamic world? Can a person be called Albanian if he is frightening foreign businesspeople who wish to invest in Albania more than the Serb does, portraying the country as a wasteland and a hell, and presenting our democratic order as a dictatorship even more terrifying than Pinochet’s, while he himself enjoys unrestricted rights and freedoms and no harm comes to him, even when he breaks the law with both feet; while they never hesitate to use the most obscure words in their vocabulary, the most outrageous insults and the most shameless and intolerable fabrications against the President, the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly and other government officials? Can a person be called Albanian if he calls for the resignation of the Democratic Government, a political crisis, and the halting of reforms—turning back precisely at this time, when the world has put a noose around Milosheviç’s neck, the most frenzied enemy of the Albanian national cause; at this moment, when our Albanian brothers in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and everywhere in the world are calling for a stable, recovered, strong, democratic Albania? We could continue this chain of questions, but even these make clear the issue of whether the number-one leader of the Albanian socialists and of the Albanian opposition in general is truly Albanian. I will end with a short question: Would Fatos Nano ever become Albanian, and if so, when? XHEVAT MUSTAFA

The seed of freedom has sprouted and will grow strong because this is its season I have always been convinced that one day Albanians, too, would build a free society, but I did not believe I would be fortunate enough to see it with my own eyes. The idea that I would end my days immersed in dreams of freedom, as all those who fought for it did, troubled me like an unrelenting anxiety. I feel for those who were executed, imprisoned and interned in concentration camps, as well as those who accepted communist enslavement against their will; but I also feel for those who believed in their freedom and were forced by terror to drown it, in order to lead this flock of a people to the meadows of happiness, as Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor imagined. However long this night may be, it will eventually come to an end, and a new day is now dawning. The dark shadows are desperately, almost madly, trying to preserve their possessions, even though they know the sun is very bright. Gentlemen, no one should forget that God planted the seed of freedom in the depths of our being, and now it has sprouted and will grow strong because this is its season. As the idea and practice of freedom spread and took shape over the centuries, some of its basic principles were refined. These principles, on which international charters of fundamental human rights and freedoms are based, as well as the laws we will vote on today, are essential if freedom is to mean more than just a word. In summary, they are: 1. The individual matters. 2. Equality before the law is essential. 3. The greatest possible freedom of choice must exist. 4. Freedom of thought, belief, property, expression and identity. 5. Individual rights are not absolute, but may be restricted only by law. The starting point in the philosophy and practice of freedom is the individual. The earliest struggles for freedom sought to free individuals from slavery and serfdom, to recognize them as equal to all others before God and man, and to liberate their thoughts and actions from the authority imposed on them by others. Belief in the importance of the individual leads to recognition of what is called individuality. In a free society, all people are equal before the law, which means equality before the law, equality of opportunity and political equality—that is, people are equal not in a biological sense, but in their broad relationship with society. No constitution, party platform or social ideal can make the mediocre equal to the genius, or the weak equal to the powerful; but social institutions can extend to every person the status and dignity befitting a human being, and ensure that everyone can realize at least what nature has bestowed upon them. Without recognition of this ideal under the law, full democratic freedom is impossible. Individual rights are not, and cannot be, absolute in a free society. A person cannot do absolutely whatever they please. There are constraints that penalize an individual who violates another person’s rights. In addition to restrictions imposed to prevent the violation of other people’s rights, many rights are also limited in the name of society: freedom does not allow people to be incited to quarrel; freedom of the press does not permit publications that…; military service is limited in time, and so on. The purpose of legal restrictions is not to curtail freedom, but to prevent its abuse; otherwise, freedom would be destroyed. In this sense, restrictions themselves represent freedom used appropriately and administered well. Almost three hundred years ago, the English philosopher John Locke stated: “The law is not meant to abolish or restrict, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.” It is not true that there is a contradiction between freedom and legal regulation, because every law rests on an act of responsible control. The real contradiction is between control that suppresses personal life and the spiritual world, and control intended to guarantee the external and material conditions for their unhindered development. Honorable gentlemen, let us all vote together—we were all slaves, the rebellious and the punished, as well as the dictator’s few deceived servants—but we were all slaves.

— Cannibal communists cannot live in a state governed by the rule of law — E. Hoxha did not sign the Helsinki document in 1971; his successors are not approving the law on human rights and freedoms. The bloodied hands of the social-communist spokesmen trembled in parliament as they spoke out against the law on human rights and freedoms submitted for approval by the President of the Republic, Sali Berisha. As conservative socialists and communists, they thereby revealed their cannibalism, their vice and their ignorance, closing the door on the dark eras of history that they had applied ruthlessly during their 50-year rule. After assaulting Albanian life and individual freedoms for half a century, after killing and massacring Albanian people for two years running—from behind, to burning them alive in Fushe Arrez—the conservative social-communists, unable to exist in a state governed by the rule of law, where human freedom is protected by law, attacked themselves in an animalistic manner, devouring themselves, according to the familiar principle of Bolshevik savagery. By rising against a state’s fundamental constitutional law, the law protecting human freedoms and rights, they denied the humane spirit of free existence and affirmed the primitivism of their race. In 1971, E. Hoxha did not sign the Helsinki document. (Understandably, this was to suppress every freedom and human right of Albanians.) Now the PS parliamentary group cannot approve the chapter on the protection of human rights. Could this be a coincidence, or a chance resemblance to the successors of the dictator Hoxha? Certainly not! The conservative communists are seeking power at any cost, and if they were to regain it, a law so fundamental to a state would create obstacles for them in the purges and eliminations they know how to carry out; that is why they are rushing to reject it. In any case, those tragic times are over. But, according to a Greek legend told in “Thoughts,” the “shadows” pursue a murderer; the ghosts of vengeance will not leave the criminal in peace. The same is happening with the murderers of their own mother, the conservative communists, who, although they murdered Albania cruelly, cannot break away from their victim. This terrible bond with crime prevents them from approving the law protecting human freedoms. It plainly reveals their cannibalism; thus, with the Albanian mercenaries and others protected by law, the conservatives have nothing left to do but display their cannibalism by devouring themselves. MUJE BUÇPAPAJ

To the Islamic Community of Albania On the occasion of the glorious day of Eid al-Fitr, it is a particular pleasure for me to send my most sincere congratulations and best wishes to you and to all Albanian Muslims wherever they may be. It is democracy that makes freedom of belief possible, a freedom that was denied to our people for decades. Today, you have the opportunity to worship God and to encourage among your believers love, peace, understanding, tolerance and mutual respect. Once again, I wish you from the heart a happy Eid al-Fitr! May God be with us! SALI BERISHA PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA

-I WANT TO ASSURE YOU OF MY FULL COMMITMENT TO CONTINUING SUPPORT FOR ALBANIA His Excellency, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha President of the Republic of Albania Dear Mr. President, Thank you for the warm and thoughtful letter you sent me on the occasion of my inauguration as President of the United States. As you know, hope was the central theme of my campaign and is now a theme of my administration as well. It is a theme that I believe suits not only the people of the United States, but also the people of Albania and other nations in the region. continuing support for Albania, so that the hopes of your people, about which you wrote so eloquently in your letter, may become reality. My administration shares with you deep concern about the crisis in the Balkans. I know that I can count on your continued assistance, and that we can work together with the United Nations and the other nations of Europe to find a solution to the crisis and prevent its spread to Kosovo and the region. I look forward to working together in the months ahead. Sincerely, William J. Clinton

ALI SPAHIA With or without you, we will give this law to Albania All of us in the struggle for democracy have seen it first and foremost as a struggle for fundamental freedoms and human rights. Albanian democratic thought had understood, even during the dark years of the communist dictatorship, just as the advanced thought of the democratic world had understood many years earlier, that science and technology, and material wealth however great, do not necessarily make life better, easier or more dignified to live. The human being, that magnificent creature who, for everyone, keeps within the heart a spark of divine fire with which to realize his great and brilliant ideas, asks above all else that his human rights and fundamental freedoms be recognized and guaranteed. The first and fundamental lesson we must draw from the experience of this century—our own and that of the entire communist, Nazi and fascist world—as well as from the experience of what is happening today in the space around us, is that nothing must be spared to win these freedoms and rights; and once they have been won, they must be defended without sparing anything, because without them there is no democracy, no life worth living. Today, while unbridled barbarism all around us is putting 2,000 years of European civilization to the test, we are approving laws that enshrine the right to live, to think freely and express one’s thoughts freely, to believe in the religion one chooses or to believe in no religion, and to organize as one wishes. We are approving laws that recognize and guarantee national minorities all the rights that a citizen of a democratic society may have, as well as the right to preserve, cultivate and express their own national identity. Although the opposition had been conducting an unrestrained campaign for months to destabilize the situation in the country, with the clear purpose, now, of obstructing a solution to its earlier demands for new elections and the resignation of the government, and with the clear purpose of obstructing the development of economic reform and its smooth progress, we responded to the President of the Republic’s call to hold a round table with representatives of the political parties and parliamentary groups, so that consensus could be reached on important laws. Thus, the law on the return of property and the law on rights (Continued on page 2)

“... not to be used to work together... [?]” Sincerely, William J. Clinton