—Amid cries of: “Thieves, get out! Fatos the thief, Fatos the thief...” Failure engulfed Nano and company —The communist fist, the pointing finger and the Kastriot Islami-style hysteria brought back memories of Enver —Naturally, in Vlora there would be 1,000 former members of the Sigurimi, former red officials and their collaborators at the “great” meeting of the PP —A warning to TV viewers!: Half of those present at the meeting were accidental onlookers, opposed to Nano and the Sigurimi members —A rally with just one message: the embrace of national destructiveness —A suggestion to the People’s Assembly and the judiciary: How long will these adventurers be allowed to destroy Albania?!...

The corrupt chief social-communists who are making the cities boil over: Vlora’s power at crucial moments is well known. Precisely this power was the main target of Nano and company’s strategy. The misery, shame and failure lay in the fact that it was all being done in the service of a figure like Fatos Nano, a symbol of evil in Albania today. In fact, in Vlora, for someone else (not Nano), in the service of the PS, it would not have been difficult to find even 2,000 former members of the Sigurimi, former officers, former officials and former red party members, etc. It is well known that they had a monopoly over Vlora during the one-party regime. But this time, in the face of the daily discrediting of Nano and company, there were also many people from precisely this contingent who paid no heed to Nano’s farcical invasion of Vlora. Only those who are sunk up to their necks and carry on their backs the heavy burden of sins and crimes they do not want to testify to paid heed. In Fatos Nano they see a savior, a straw to cling to, the product of their own kind today. And so, Vlora at the epicenter—a nerve center for the fate of many developments: A “banner” announcement in “ZP” for the Vlora rally dated 28.5.1993. Announcements, telegrams everywhere, in the villages and ... [The text continues: partly cut off at the bottom.] “specialized” groups of euros and eros-kas, both young and old, who had come from Tirana. A sound-system vehicle would roam—illegally—the streets of Vlora on the morning of the rally. Cell retirees, openly and secretly, were ... were pointing out the time to one another as the “joy(less)ful” moment of the rally drew near. And 6:00 p.m. was approaching. In groups and in marching formation, they set off like shadows toward the “Flamurtari” stadium. But who were THEY? Most were disgraced former members of the Sigurimi, the likes of Lefter Kasneci and Elham Abeni, Sterjo Cani and Hate Sula, Meramet Hila and Sezai Haredini, etc. Our eyes would see Hajder Dyrmishi and Selim Selimi, former members of the Sigurimi; Ilir Qevania, a former Sigurimi member, with his father, a member of the Pk and owner of three kiosks in the most select locations in Vlora; Medi and Vladimit Mecajn, persecutors and former Sigurimi members, with their families; Xhebro Shalari, a former Sigurimi member, as was Xhevdet Hamaraj; Beqhet Kajdhele and Kiço Gjika; the Enverist Çakerri family, as well as the Lico family, whose head of household was Petr it Brokajn, a former PPSH instructor; Theodhor Shijen, a former Enverist PPSH instructor, a hated figure in Dhermi; Neki Dredhen, a scoundrel and corrupt man; and Petraq Davidin, Niko Veizin, former “congressmen” of the PPSH; Xhevdet Selmanin, a former PPSH instructor; ... P.Ajtim Islami, an officer at the Naval Military Academy; Platon Arapin and his entire clan—privileged, with a brother who was a former ambassador, engaged in major trading; Gori Barin, former secretary of the (Continued on page 2)

Cartoon with the inscriptions “NANO GOVERNMENT” and “ANTË CO”; Rube 93.

Dear Adem Demaçi , I was in Strasbourg when I received the very painful and also inspiring news of your beginning a hunger strike. Dictatorships always regard three aims as primary: they close the borders, shut people’s mouths and tie their hands—The free movement of people frightens them, which is why they have invented barbed wire and roadblocks; “the free movement of thoughts and ideas terrifies them ...” ... The free press in Kosovo is an open front for human rights, which are being advocated so extensively but are still being violated in part of the world. We in the Athen[e]um ame have never separated the issue of the three million Albanians who live within the state border from that of the three million Albanians who live in their own lands in the remnant of former Yugoslavia. We openly fight for national and human rights ... ... there, where you received the “Sakharov” Prize, we informed everyone about your noble act and appealed for support and solidarity, from President Egon Klepsh all the way to members of parliament from all political groups. As Chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, on behalf of all the deputies, I salute you; and as a former political prisoner and participant in several hunger strikes at Burrel Prison over nearly ... three decades, I wish you strength and perseverance in the just cause of defending freedom of the press in Kosovo, which is an inseparable part of the rights of Albanians. Respectfully, PJETER ARBNORI hunger on your part. Dictatorships always consider three objectives to be paramount: —They close the borders, silence the people, and tie their hands. The have put up barbed wire and checkpoints. The free movement of thoughts and ideas terrifies them, which is why they shut down radio and television stations, close free newspapers, and invent the charge of agitation and propaganda. The end is always the tying of hands, captivity. Therefore, your struggle to defend the world. In the Motherland, we living within the state borders from that of the three million Albanians living on their own lands in the remnants of the former Yugoslavia. We openly fight for the national and human rights of the Albanians in Kosovo, which Helsinki so beautifully protects and Belgrade so shamefully violates. This is a long and difficult struggle that demands clarity, determination, and patience. At the head of the Albanian Delegation to the European Parliament, precisely

The “silent heroes” remain silent: they do not give their names or reveal their real professions. At three o’clock, 15:00, dated 28.5.93—while heading toward Flag Square, we gather opinions from random passers-by. Our questions were: 1—Will you go or not this afternoon to F.Nano’s rally? What are your reasons for going or not going? 2—Do you think F.Nano really cares about Albania’s troubles at this moment?... 3—What work did you do before, and what work do you do now? Answers: Maksim Korkaj: 1—I’ll go out of curiosity. 2—I think so. 3—I worked as a driver in the army for 20 years; today I work as a driver with a private bus. Pazait Shehu: 1—I won’t go! No! No! I don’t like going. 2—I don’t believe F.Nano thinks about Albania’s fate... 3—I worked as a mechanic and driver; now I work with a bus that I brought here after working for some time in Greece. Bilal Cela: 1—I’m sorry you asked me this question! I have no reason to go to the Socialist Party rally, since I have nothing in common with Nano’s views. 2—Nano is now thinking about saving whatever he can of what he has left. 3—I was an economist at a former cooperative; now I am director of the Agricultural Bank of Vlora. Astrit Sulçe (coincidentally, no family relation to the author, ed.): 1—I won’t go, not only because I have work, but also because I don’t know why one should go—what new “problems” would Nano create?... 2—If he really cared about Albania’s troubles, he wouldn’t be sneaking around like this, up and down. 3—I was, and continue to be, an economist. —Durim Mahmuti: 1—I don’t go to the gathering of any party, since I trust none of them. 2—No! No! No!... 3—I was an agronomist; now I am retired. Around 17:50—at the “Flamurtari” stadium, a few minutes before the rally begins. I am among a crowd of citizens sitting cross-legged on the field’s green grass. Pensioners with caps and berets on their heads predominate. It is known that most of them have been (Continued on page 2)

We experienced Mr. Adem Demaci’s tragic hunger strike with profound human sorrow; we experienced it as a lofty act of the spirit of the distinguished writer, in his effort to keep alive the national identity of the Albanians held in subjugation in the former Yugoslavia, and specifically to preserve the last platform for national intellectual thought in Kosovo, the publishing house “Rilindja,” which is under fatal threat of being shut down by the Serbian barbarians. We understood this strike as an expression of the equally tragic fate of the Albanian people in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia, as an expression of the intensification of Serbian repression, aimed at making the Albanians a voiceless people. But humanity’s collective memory has shown what happens when you try to deny a people, already forbidden, even its only weapon: its word, with which it can defend itself and express itself. (Continued on page 4)

The development of events in Kosovo is deeply shocking: a medievalist backlash against people belonging to one of the two oldest peoples of the Balkans, contemporaries of European civilization—the Albanians—threatens even their physical disappearance as a people and a nation. Adem Demaci’s self-sacrificing act, shutting himself away on a hunger strike after more than 28 years in prison, is a call to open the eyes of European civilization to what is happening to the Albanians today and what threatens them tomorrow. In the darkest empires of the Middle Ages, people were beheaded, buried alive, or burned at the stake, but their mouths were not silenced. By closing the publishing house “Rilindja,” Milosevic’s dictatorship seeks, before the final act of ethnic cleansing, to silence the Albanians, cut out their tongues, and take away their last chance to speak to the world in their own voice. The Serbian “Panorama,” with which they want to replace it (Continued on page 2)

NATIONAL LIBRARY BEST WISHES Kurban Bajrami, this notable holiday of Muslim believers, gives me the opportunity to wish all Albanians, wherever they may be: “May you celebrate this great Day for many years, and may there be goodness and prosperity for our beloved homeland!” EDUARD SELAMI Chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania Happy Bajrami i Kurbanit, the great holiday, and many happy returns, dear readers of our newspaper! THE EDITORS OF “RD”