Former Italian Prime Minister Betino Krak(si) became on Thursday the highest-ranking politician to be tried in Italy’s bribery scandal, but the former Socialist leader denounced what he called a conspiracy against him. “There are certain legal sectors that continue to function like an exact political clock,” Krak(si) stressed. He will be tried alongside a former treasurer of the dissolved Christian Democrats and others over bribes allegedly paid by a group of businessmen for contracts with the state energy group ENI. His trial began on 29 March, one day after the end of the general elections. In statements to journalists, Krak(si) stressed that the judiciary had been tainted, and he denied the accusations. Around one-fifth of the members of the outgoing parliament have been warned by judges that they will be tried on charges ranging from corruption to links with the Mafia. Krak(si)’s case is the first involving a prominent politician to come before a court. Krak(si), for his part, admits that political parties have been funded through illegal contributions from companies and individuals. It is known, he says, that parties have broken the law on political financing, but he denied the more serious charges of corruption.

—Deputies are unfamiliar with the laws and their powers —How many PS deputies are there in Parliament?— —The “Nano affair” on the agenda in Geneva— “23 deputies denounce the violation of deputies’ rights. They demand that the detention order for F. Nano be suspended.” These are the words the Siamese newspapers “ZP” and “KJ” put on their front pages. (I call them Siamese because the interviews with Nano begin in “KJ” and continue in “ZP”.) Their request was published in “ZP” and “KJ”, while the response of the Speaker of Parliament, to whom the request was addressed, was published in “RD”, since the aforementioned newspapers could not publish it. Mr. Arbroni’s response is entirely correct and clearly exposes their ignorance of the law. Two sentences from Arbroni’s response are enough to show how baseless the request to release Nano is. First, at the Prosecutor’s request, Parliament can decide only to lift a deputy’s immunity, not to impose a security measure. That is within the remit of the independent judicial authorities. Could it be that those making so much noise about violations of the independence of these bodies are now seeking to impose their will on the judiciary themselves? As for the power to lift immunity, some of the deputies who signed this request once voted “in favour” of lifting F. Nano’s immunity. Second: Nano’s status as a politician does not make his investigation and trial political, because the charge against him is not a political one. According to the 23 signatories, every politician should have an open path to ordinary crime; or, as I have mentioned before, all the thieves and criminals should join the opposition parties so that, if arrested, they will be treated as political prisoners. Nano and his friends exploit the fact that, even after his arrest on quite clear and substantiated charges, Nano remains the chairman of the PS. According to them, this makes the judiciary responsible for keeping a party chairman in detention. In reality, this tarnishes the PS, because it is the party that retains as its chairman someone accused of corruption. Since the opposition invokes Europe when it suits it, why does it not look at what happens in Europe in similar cases? Specifically, all those politicians accused of corruption or other offences in Italy immediately resigned from their government and party posts after the accusations were made. Krak(si), Marteli, Andreoti, and others did so, even though their guilt has not yet been legally established. With the PSSH, this does not happen. Why? Because Nano has latched onto the theory of a political trial and is trying to clear himself, which is understandable. What is incomprehensible is why the PS continues to play Nano’s game—or whether some of its leaders have ties to Nano that are stronger than they should be. Another thing that is surprising about the request signed by the 23 deputies is the party affiliation of the signatories. They are from various opposition parties, but they are not all the deputies. It is clear that the larger the number of deputies signing, the more persuasive the request would be, yet, strangely, not all PS deputies signed it, although independent deputies and those from the PBDNJ did. This makes one ask how many PS deputies there are in Parliament and where they are sitting. What was said above concerns the Albanian Parliament, although “ZP” writes that the “Nano affair” was on the agenda of discussions at the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva. I do not know what “ZP” means by “on the agenda”. In any case, it refers to 25.1.1994, whereas the notice was published in “ZP” on 28.1.1994. I do not believe the Nano affair was on the agenda from 25 to 28 January. Besides this, the notice’s five lines express disillusionment, even though they end with the hopeful phrase, “the proceedings continue without interruption.” EDI PALOKA justice? As for the competence request once voted “in favour” of lifting immunity for F.Nano. Second: Nano’s being a politician does not give his investigation and trial the character... that their guilt has not yet been legally proven. Is the PSSh such a thing that does not happen? Why? Because Nano has clung to the thesis of a political trial and is trying to save his own skin, and that is understandable. What is incomprehensible is that the PS continues to play Nano’s game or that of some...

Nine illegal adoptions in Durres and Shkoder, along with numerous legal and documentary irregularities, were discovered by the Albanian Adoption Committee attached to the Council of Ministers during the strict inspections it carried out at children’s institutions in Albania. The chair of the Committee, Dr. Hilmie Mara, told ATSH that the adoptions of children aged 0–3 in Durres and four in Shkoder took place during the period when the March 1992 law suspended adoptions until the Committee was established as the sole institution authorized to carry them out. In Tirana, the former director still keeps at home the registers containing information about completed adoptions and has not handed them over. Cases have been found in which a child registered as dead has no hospital discharge summary or death record. In the absence of internal regulations, children are taken from these institutions and from the hospital where they are admitted for treatment, never to return, on the basis of only a signature from a parent who has not been legally identified. In many cases, the addresses of the new parents within the country are missing, although the Committee needs them to monitor the child’s treatment as required by law. The relevant director of the Ministry of Labour and Social Assistance allowed children to leave the institutions when the law did not permit such action, Ms. Mara says. The court likewise issued adoption decisions when the law did not allow it. These violations have been brought to the attention of the Court of Cassation. In addition to revealing serious abuses in children’s lives, these irregularities pose a serious obstacle to restoring, within six months, the children’s documents and adoption lists, for which there are many applications from within the country and abroad. So far, only the American and Italian embassies have informed our Adoption Committee about their laws and the names of some institutions involved in adoptions. “We are awaiting contacts with these institutions and information from the other embassies,” Ms. Mara said. “Under the authority granted to us by law to monitor the treatment of Albanian children adopted abroad,” Ms. Mara said, “we are trying, through our embassies, to find the correct addresses of the foreign families who have adopted Albanian children so that we can contact them.”

While the comprehensive reform for the transition to a democratic order is producing its first results, individuals who have “fallen from the fig tree” into “ZP”, “Koha jonë”, etc., following the PS’s directions, instead of taking advantage of the great opportunity time offers them to stop dragging their feet at this moment of reckoning with the past, have recalled their lost handouts and come out with a series of lies and declarations of crime, terror and deceit, further completing their biographies. The scenario began with: “We’ll drag them along, we’ll crush the democrats’ heads,” and continued with such macabre, provocative challenges as: “There’s also Avni Rustemi”...—apparently thinking of the remnants of the Communist executions—and would go on with the words of a “retired political extra”: “The greatest traitor to the country.” And, it seems, this year will end with articles of this kind that manage to “liberate” those individuals and their imitators, who have prostitution, that bad vice, that great humiliation, in their genes and habits, and have passed it on to the world... etc. “Open up, walls,” and “forgive them, O God,” someone might say, since first and foremost they are not even ashamed of themselves. Of course, this is not a matter of the double “investments” some newspaper might make; the matter must simply be said plainly. People say: “It is always the fruit, not the leaves, that get hit by stones.” It is indeed a positive sign that the major issues are on the right track. With clear reasoning and a cool judgment, everyone is now able at least to reason about what we have achieved. “What would happen to a person, their family and clan if someone said, ‘Enver Hoxha was the greatest traitor to the country,’ or whispered privately to the ‘comrade’ beside them, ‘Comrade Enver didn’t smile properly’?” The alternative of democratic socialism, with the transition to and consolidation of a capitalist form of economy and the comprehensive institutionalization of the democratic order, is accepted within pluralism but must not be idealized or made the object of a new demagoguery. Under this name, former senior officials of the party-state, State Security, M.L. professors, party members and officials converted into businessmen, etc., are speculating. All those who for 47 years regarded Albania as their “private estate” and the people as “servants” ultimately ensured that the country they had “ruined” ranked last on the list—even at a time when socialists in capitalist Europe were casting aside the flag of M.L., the revolution by violence and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and began the golden age of magnificent serial publications from the Institute of M-L Studies attached to the KOPPSH. They would attack European democratic socialism with every kind of insult, curse and slander. Not only that, but “considerable” funds would be approved, with the help of “M-L communist parties”, to overthrow the bourgeoisie in Europe and in the USA itself. Since democracy is not only an end but also a means of transformation, the application of the law to anyone who brings out and demands the black cloak is necessary.

—Amateurism need not serve national precedents— Everything would and would not begin on the evening of 21 January 1994, the evening of the first plenary session of the People’s Assembly for that year. I say “would not begin” too, since the mass and the extremists of political crimes did not understand that evening: “The essence of the problem discussed that night did not depend on the phrase ‘enemy country’ used for a moment by Mr Shehu. The essence was the review by the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee of the movements demonstrating on the national question, such as the one involving the ND leaders in Belgrade, which also included deputies of the People’s Assembly. This was also the point of the ‘RD’ headline, ‘Deputy Majko and Serbia.’” Likewise, I think Deputy Majko’s intervention in Parliament that night was inappropriate. Without wishing to prejudge further, it was inaccurate, but only “to make a fuss,” or “to say something,” to prevent an action from taking place, while the “grain” of it, to the detriment of the Albanian cause, did not conceal the painful historical reality. That “human” intervention was also amateurish, and could naturally have worsened into a precedent for the question asked by the “RD” journalist at the press conference with Mr Selami. Let us also not forget that Mr Majko belongs to that political force which has so far left so much room for the “anti-national question...” Whether Majko intended to prove this with his amateurish intervention, he knows. But we want to remind him that whether or not one is at enmity with someone does not depend entirely on courtesy and protocol. Indeed, pathological enmity is often cloaked in exemplary protocol and courtesy. Historical facts and actions can also show that there has been war, bloodshed and tragedy, even though embassies existed in the respective countries and held protocol receptions, farewells and cocktail parties. As for the question, “Does the Albanian question come after Serbia?”, history and current events answer with the message: “The Albanian question did not originate with Albania.” Albania, if historically it has been indebted to the years gone by, today is not indebted at all, much less to Serbia or the Balkans. Where is the other half of its body, when half of Albania’s body is bloodied today?!... Without being slaves to inferiority or megalomania, and without taking into account international compliments about official Albanian policy in the region, we can say that today, as never before, great Albanian politics is at a high level of foresight, intelligence, dignity, maturity and strength, especially in support of the national cause. Your reference, Mr Majko, to President Berisha’s statement, “We are for avoiding conflict and for a peaceful solution in the region,” could not justify your outburst that night in Parliament. All the more so because we were not dealing with an announcement or an official statement. What you did is called “much ado about nothing,” or, in other words, at least “noise” that you could have avoided making... So let us leave this “much ado about nothing” behind. Let us keep amateurism away from national precedents.

And they say the SP stands for the rule of law... On 12.1.1994, a powerful explosive device was planted at the Holy Waqf of the Teqe of Selita e Vogel. At that time, five young people were there. Artur Shishi was injured; a fragment of concrete from the explosion cost him the sight in one eye. The anti-religious terror did not end on 12 January. Ten days later, Gezim Doçi himself arrived, the Chairman of the Socialist Party and a member of the commune of this village, together with his son, his three brothers, and [others] from the road of that village’s criminal. Gezim Doçi tried to strike its Saint, Nigjar Eleonora Bregu, but the men of the Waqf drove him away. The socialist hooligan hit Drini Ajdiniulliu with a crowbar, inflicting three wounds, three blows to the head; they battered the elderly Haxhi Ndreu with shovels and kicks to the jaw and left him covered in blood. They beat the believer Agim Jaku until he was unconscious, and he had to be rushed to hospital. Genc Kulla was also beaten and wounded, with bruises and injuries from stones and other objects; Gezimi Begolli was injured on the head and back; Gazmend Basha on the stomach, face and head; as were many other believers, women and girls, who went inside under a hail of stones. But who is the benefactress Nigjar Eleonora? Since 20.7.1987, Baba Abdyl Qesaraku, through her, has healed many illnesses. Baba Abdyl has passed away. The year 1994 records 15,824 believers at her Teqe who have received help from the Divine Connection. To understand the role the master is playing, let us point out that she heals physiological disorders (including infertility), epilepsy, paralysis of non-clinical origin, spells and curses, spiritual and family imbalances, helps find missing persons, etc. The Teqe of Nigjar Eleonora has a membership of 30; 16 have higher education and are engineers, artists, doctors, lecturers and students, among others. These 15,824 believers ask: But what is the state doing in the face of these criminal acts against the faith and democracy? Drin Ajdinlliu Gezim Begolli Gazmend Basha Haxhi Ndreu Genc Kulla Albert Mehameti Agim Jaku

CAUTION!!! NOT EVERYONE CAN RIDE THE SLALOM OF DEMOCRACY

On 27 January 1994, the Republic of Albania and Brunei, guided by the interests and wishes of their two peoples, decided to establish diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. Both sides agreed to develop friendly relations and cooperation between their countries on the basis of the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations. ATSH