In support of implementing economic reform “SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs [?]) are the future of the Albanian economy,” emphasizes the director of the European Community project for Albania, Mr. Henrike Xhelten. To this end, the European Community has allocated our country a fund of 1.3 million US dollars, to be put to use by May of this year. To provide assistance with training and loans, the project has aimed to establish a national small-business structure in Albania. Since February of last year, when this work began, the Albanian SME Assistance Team has established regional business agency offices in 27 districts. A total of 480 people engaged in various types of business have submitted applications for loans; 300 of them have completed business plans (the relevant documentation). The agencies have approved loans for 130 businesspeople, averaging from 5,000 to 10,000 US dollars each. Loans are issued without collateral [?]. Work is under way to extend lending to other sectors, such as food production, exports, the development of the country’s rural areas, etc. Mr. Holten says that, through the introduction of management enterprises for entrepreneurs [?], more than 1,000 jobs will be created in Albania. This will help encourage production and profitable business among these entrepreneurs, who will receive training and specialize in various fields, and will be involved in managing and coordinating business operations, etc. ATA

(Commemorative message from President Berisha addressed to the parents, families and relatives of the martyrs of democracy) Ladies and gentlemen! We have gathered here today to commemorate an event that was both painful and sublime. Although the communist dictatorship in Albania won the elections, it had to celebrate its victory with blood; therefore, it organized the barbarity in Shkodra, where it killed the heroes of Albanian democracy, Arben Broci, Bujar Beshasun, Besnik Ceken and Nazmi Kryeziu, and wounded dozens of others. On 2 April, Shkodra, after Timoshares [?], experienced the greatest massacre organized by the communist clique in Eastern Europe. The martyrs of 2 April were young; they fell in the springtime of their lives. They died before daybreak, but their deeds, sacrifice and blood illuminated the dawn of Albanian democracy. Today, two years later, Albania is completely different, and we commemorate that event with deep respect. But I know that every word we say about them is far less than their youth, their lives. They rest in the soil of your free city. And Shkodra, the city of knowledge and culture, of faith and generosity, above all the city of the free spirit, honors them today and will never forget them. But, like all the martyrs of this nation, they hold a special place in the hearts of all Albanians who love and honor freedom and a free Albania. They truly rest today in the soil of Shkodra, but they also rest throughout Albania—in all our lands and everywhere Albanians live. That is why all Albania and the entire Albanian nation honor them today. The dictatorship killed them in the spring so they would not see the full arrival of spring, but through their sublime sacrifice they turned its ruthless victory into defeat, while they themselves attained immortality, because martyrs do not belong to a single era, nor do they win only for one generation. Freedom is eternal. I knew Arben Broci; I was fortunate to work together with him. He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party. They were among its first members. They were all brothers in freedom. Martyrs may die as members of a party, but in their immortality they are people without party affiliation and belong to everyone who loves freedom. The protests and demonstrations of 2 April were merely a pretext for the dictatorship to carry out its massacre and monstrous crime against democracy, to strike at Shkodra, its heart. But it was only a desperate blow by a wounded beast in its final throes. The thundering surge of suppressed wills had already set the Albanian ship on its unstoppable course toward the shores of freedom and democracy. Ladies and gentlemen! Those we speak of today may not be remembered for long, but the deeds of the martyrs of Shkodra will live forever. The verses of the great Fishta—“May they never be forgotten / May they be sung in song and dance”—are the finest tribute we can pay them. As we commemorate them in this great gathering, the deeds of the martyrs of Shkodra, the martyrs of freedom, remain beyond the reach of our efforts to pay tribute, for through their courage and bravery they were immortalized at the altar of the homeland and democracy. They were sons of an Albania being reborn and of its future. Therefore, it is the duty of all of us who remain to continue their unfinished mission with dedication, to transform their movement into devotion to a free and democratic Albania, in which Albanians, with God’s help and blessing, may experience and enjoy a new birth. The message of the martyrs of 2 April will echo forever across the expanse of free Albania. Their blood, their youthful years, their dreams and ideals stand at the foundations of our new democracy. We are forever grateful to them; the generations to come will not forget them. Honor to their memory and to the lives they gave.

Also attending were the President of the Republic, Mr. Sali Berisha, the Speaker of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, Mr. Pjeter Arbnori, and Prime Minister Aleksander Meksi 2 April 1993 was a bitter and festive day for Shkodra. The city was filled with numerous events organized to commemorate 2 April with sorrow, gratitude and grandeur—a day that has entered the recent history of Albania as the day of the communist massacre in this city, where four people lost their lives and dozens of others were wounded. In the morning, a ceremony was held to inaugurate the memorial dedicated to the martyrs who fell to the bullets of the dictatorship of Ramiz Alia and Fatos Nano. Alongside thousands of Shkodra residents were the President of the Republic, Mr. Sali Berisha, Mr. Pjeter Arbnori, Mr. Aleksander Meksi, as well as representatives of political parties, various organizations and associations, members of parliament, etc. “It is a painful but sublime event,” President Berisha emphasized in his speech in the city of freedom, as he called Shkodra. A rally was then held in the hall of the “Migjeni” Theatre, followed by tributes at the city cemetery, where the four heroes of democracy also rest. Visits to their families were also part of the commemorative program, which continued in the afternoon with the opening of a photo exhibition dedicated to 2 April, a literary evening by actors from the “Migjeni” Theatre, etc. Note In our next issue, you will read an extensive report on the events organized in the city of Shkodra on the occasion of 2 April, written by our journalist Muje Bucpapaj. RD CORRESPONDENT

Old and new flirtations The closeness of positions between the Serbian Socialist Party and Andreas Papandreou, chairman of PASOK (the Greek Socialist Party), had been evident for two years, Milošević emphasized in an interview given to Greek television. Whenever the circle of sanctions against Serbia and its current government is tightened by the international community, the Greek government and opposition do not hesitate to express solidarity with the Belgrade government, which all Western countries and organizations accuse of inciting the war and causing destruction in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. Naturally, this support is sometimes direct and sometimes indirect. But following the international community’s latest threats, eight members of the Greek opposition, seven of them socialists, were guests of S. Milošević—a visit loudly trumpeted in Belgrade. The only exceptions are Russian parliamentarians and writers like “Limonov,” who demonstrate their “Bolshevik patriotism” on the front lines, firing cannons at “enemies.” The Greek socialist representatives, like the Russian parliamentarians of communist persuasion, are trying to fill the void created by the absence of Western diplomats and politicians, who generally come to Belgrade on urgent business. But, unlike the Greek government, which sends signals of support while maintaining some reserve, the Greek socialists do not conceal their support for and sympathy toward Milošević and Ćosić, two figures considered by most Western diplomats and media to be primarily responsible for the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia. Likewise, newspapers controlled by the socialist opposition in Greece give considerable space to interviews with Milošević and Ćosić. In short, according to Serbian propaganda and the Greek media, the Serbian and Greek socialists are great friends. It is well known what interests this friendship serves.

A stabilized and revived Albania offers and makes possible a solution to our national cause Enverist missionaries in the diaspora continue an old scenario with new slogans Pity those who have fallen and will never rise again The SP, as the direct and worthy successor of the LP or PP, is resolutely and creatively implementing the Enverist scenario of postponing the solution to our national cause until the Greek calends. The old and new missionaries of the secret coalition between the Enverist headquarters and the Serbian chauvinist headquarters are becoming increasingly active in Albanian communities in Europe and beyond, watering the old seed and sowing a new seed of division and hostility among them. In Belgrade and elsewhere, they understood many decades ago that their old aims toward Albania and the Albanians—the perpetuation of their division—could be achieved only by preventing Albania’s development, strengthening, modernization, democratization, and stabilization. A strengthened, strong and stable Albania, fully and honorably integrated into Europe and other international structures, would consign to the rubbish bin the voluminous files containing old and new anti-Albanian plans. They have only one alternative, only one alternative, only one alternative before them. There is only one choice: to spare nothing, to use every weapon and every means to ensure that little Albania never emerges from the abyss into which it was plunged, according to the well-laid scenario, by Enver Hoxha, Ramiz Alia, Fatos Nano and their comrades. As in the years of the century, the comrades in Belgrade now have the unstinting international assistance of old and new Albanian Enverists. In this already failed crusade, they have themselves lost the possibility of power; terrified by the new thinking of the future, left with the new realities, and bound by paid obligations, they nevertheless retain their will to serve hostile foreign circles. Fatos Nano’s visit to the old diaspora, where he will divide Albanians and others in Macedonia, splitting them up into more groups than there are Albanians, whether they are across the border or in the diaspora, will disorient, deceive, manipulate and divide them, making the Enverist fog even denser—the fog that for decades has clouded not only their vision but also their thinking. His speech, full of great-sounding words about democracy but also containing a few barbs at Enver Hoxha and his era, and his meetings with people long branded as pawns of the Enverist Sigurimi or the UDB, are enough to convince anyone of this. It is no coincidence that Enver Hoxha’s works have been smuggled into and circulated widely in the diaspora; in Albania, over the past two years, they were used to wrap cheese, peppers and oregano. Nor is the publication and distribution of Ramiz Alia’s work “I, Ramiz Alia, Bear Witness to History” in Tetovo and elsewhere accidental. In his campaign against the DP and the Meksi Government, Fatos Nano is so unrestrained that he even pursues this aim during condolence visits to the families of the victims of the Skopje air disaster. Our national cause is very concrete. In Fatos Nano’s words, it is shrouded in such fog that one cannot make head or tail of it. Naturally, this is no accident, but a maneuver anticipated in the 50-year scenario and in its platform for retaking the throne and scepter of the chief criminal, or perhaps an even higher post. Fatos Nano presents himself as responsible for defending and resolving our national cause, but remains silent about the fact that it was precisely his party, his idols and great teachers, Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia, who rendered an enormous service to Albania’s historic enemies by leaving a uniquely Albanian country in the heart of Europe, isolating and impoverishing it terribly, and reducing the Albanians to nothing in their own eyes—while neglecting their scattered nation, their brothers throughout the world, and those being oppressed and persecuted with beastly cruelty by Serbian thugs. Fatos Nano is also silent about the misdeeds and disasters of his four governments between 1990 and March 1992, which gave the country its final push into the dark abyss prepared by his predecessors—an act so dearly desired and long awaited by his comrades-in-ideals in Belgrade. The timing of the campaign by Fatos Nano and his comrades for early elections and the resignation of the Meksi Government is also conclusive proof that they are grave-diggers of our national cause. A political crisis in the country would mean blocking democratic reforms, extending the transition period indefinitely, and irritating, disillusioning and insulting the democratic world, which would be entitled to think that a people who do not understand or want what is good for them do not deserve its attention and assistance. It is easy to understand that, in this case, everything would go only to Milošević’s mill, with a noose around his neck because of the embargo and the world’s condemnation. Naturally, it is clear that the Albanian people know today’s socialist leaders, the party they represent and the “paradise” they offer inside out. They no longer trust those who shamelessly and inhumanely deceived and lied to them throughout their lives. They are convinced that these people are merely riders of their own armchairs, blinded servants of many masters; the Police gave them their latest slap. But their conservative communist-socialist comrades refuse to see, accept or understand this truth. They still imagine that they can deceive the people again, win them over once more, and put them to sleep with the opium of their slogans and promises for another 50 years. Miserable Albanian Don Quixotes of this modern century’s end! XHEVAT MUSTAFA

The one who should answer for the victims too has the shamelessness and audacity to shout [partly illegible]

Spring is the only season When on 2 April no leaf fell. When my friends lay on the ground And Albania shuddered... Spring is the only season Pregnant with love, When the swallows come joyfully And kiss my four friends. Spring, beautiful spring, You have spread your wings to the [?] Come make your nest in my soul And let the flowers bloom for our children. Sister Rozafe left one breast outside When Treachery left her without a son. What can I leave for my friends?! I ask a word from all of you. Should I let time judge us?! Should I let the mothers curse?! New Spring in Albania, Come kiss my friends’ brows. AGIM DOÇI

I had known Arben Broci; I was also fortunate enough to work with him. A lifelong tribute to their memory.