On Monday, 21 August, at 12:00, the Secretary General of the Albanian Democratic Party, Prof. Dr. Tritan Shehu, and the deputy chairman of the Albanian Democratic Party will hold a press conference at QNK (the Pyramid) concerning the elections in the party branches. Press and Information Department of the Albanian Democratic Party

Letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs To the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour To Comrade Xhelil Gjoni TIRANA The leaders of the Democratic Party are to be arrested The Democratic Party is to be outlawed Ibrahim Rugova’s arrival—a mistake Ismail Kadare must not be allowed to return to Albania

Pellumbi’s reply? A failed attempt No one has confused you with Ruci, Mr. Majko ZP censors the meeting held by PS members at the American embassy PDS has come out of mourning They are unable to hold elections within the party

LORENC LIGORI EDI PALOKA Reading the extreme left-wing press these days, I am astonished to see the publicists, denouncers and repeaters of falsehoods—the Enverologists, lookalikes, ideologues, leaders and satellites of the PS—make such a dismal spectacle of themselves with their despairing, argument-free moral attacks on President Berisha, because their hoarse chorus has never fallen silent. But what has attracted the attention of the public and analysts in this campaign is their concerted effort, this time, to openly proclaim themselves the President Berisha’s sole enemy. To achieve this, they left their villas, holidays and tans, their insinuations, fabrications and arguments, and lined up, singing in chorus, with statements, interviews, articles and outbursts, announcing in capital letters in their pamphlets that “President Berisha is a socialist puppet,” or “Neither opponents nor brothers, but enemies,” or “President Berisha calls the socialists’ victory national treason”; that the President “is blocking the class struggle,” and so on. None of these statements can be found in the President’s speeches. So how is it explained that today’s socialist leaders and some of their wretched journalists take it upon themselves to lie so openly? Why do the socialist leaders themselves proclaim themselves President Berisha’s enemies? One hypothesis is that through this major lie they are trying to portray the President as an extreme right-winger, as intolerant, and so on. But they know that no one, at home or abroad, believes this anymore. Throughout these years of his political life, the President has stood firm against a flood of slander and insults from the vilest gutter journalism in civilized Europe, thereby demonstrating his attitude toward his opponents. They know that President Berisha is the only leader in Eastern Europe who, both yesterday in opposition and today at the head of state, has pursued and continues to pursue the struggle to overthrow dictatorship and build democracy and the rule of law under the motto “opponents, but brothers,” thus showing what an opponent and an opposition figure should be. This hypothesis therefore falls apart and cannot be confirmed. In the Marxist conception, an adversary or oppositionist can only be an enemy For the leaders of the Albanian socialists, it does not matter how President Berisha regards his opposition or adversaries. Their attitude toward President Berisha, as well as toward other opponents, is defined by their Marxist conception, according to which an adversary can only be an enemy: a class enemy, an internal enemy, an enemy of the party, an external enemy. It was precisely in the name of this concept that the Marxist dictatorship excluded the opposition and freedom of thought and imposed the class struggle as the driving force of society’s development, although in reality it proved to be a destructive force for society. That is why, for our Marxists at the head of the PS, it does not matter how President Berisha regards his opponents. In keeping with their concept, they can be nothing other than enemies of their opponents, and they take pride, glory and honor in this. The cult of the enemy is their past, present and future. But one may rightly ask: why have they chosen President Berisha in particular to proclaim themselves his enemies? A consideration of this issue shows that they have chosen him to launch or inaugurate the era of declaring every kind of enemy and all enemies

The Albanian socialist leaders and their entourage cannot come to terms with Berisha, who from 1991 to 1995 reduced to nothing their dream of a coalition with the Democratic Party. It was their team of “ambassadors” in the days of December 1990, immediately after the founding of the Democratic Party, that put forward the thesis that the DP should not be an opposition party, but should also have its proper share in the government. It was Berisha, at the head of the DP, who opposed the actions that brought about the Government of Stability, a neo-communist government which, with its power, was killing Albanian democracy in its infancy. It was he, at the head of the DP, with the support of the DP National Council, who turned the historic decisions of 26 November 1991 into reality: he led the DP out of the Government of Stability, at a time when the two DP deputy chairmen and other figures were to carry out their final divorce from real democracy and their own political values, condemning, in Ramiz Alia’s backrooms or from London, the DP’s historic decision to break up the Government of Stability. It was he and the DP who thwarted all the monstrous, overt and covert efforts by those deputy chairmen or chairmen, ambassadors or officers who, in February, September and December 1991, in July 1992 and later in 1995, tried to promote and openly bring about the reversal of their victorious mission: the creation of a coalition between the DP and the PS. Heirs to corruption and crime, incapable of governing, some PS leaders and the extreme left as a whole will never forgive President Berisha for his firm line. At the DP Conference for Tirana, he stated that this alliance would be a deadly assault on democracy. He is uncompromising on this position. That is why, together, with a terrifying cry, they proclaimed themselves not merely enemies, but arch-enemies of President Berisha, because even if an individual is mistaken, the theory is not. In Marxist theory, you can only have opponents like him. Not opening up but isolation; not the West but the East: these are the red lines of the Albanian socialist leader’s foreign policy The Western orientation of Albanian policy is also one of the major points of disagreement between President Berisha and the Albanian socialist leader. For the Albanian socialist leader and his political circle, it is intolerable that the newly elected President of the Albanian state should visit Brussels, Paris, Rome and Washington during the first ten days of his term, and be received by the King of Belgium, European Commission President Jacques Delors, European Parliament President Egon Klepsh, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe President Miguel Martinez, Presidents Francois Mitterrand and Georges Bush, and Pope John Paul II; just as they find it undesirable that, in only four months of this year, Albania should be visited by President Herzog, President Kiestl, President Iliescu, President Demirel, Commissioner Van Der Broek, Prime Minister Mohar and many others. Were they not the ones who wrote in their press, on the occasion of James Baker’s historic visit to Albania, that Bush and America had offered aid amounting to two dollars per Albanian? Are they not the same people who insult, mock and lecture…

The Albanian socialist leader has also taken the same positions regarding the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration. At a time when European Commission President Jacques Delors was describing Albania as a special case, and the European Commission was granting Albania the highest per-capita aid in Europe, the socialist leaders’ press denigrated this in capital letters, claiming that the European Commission had cancelled $100 million in aid to Albania, forcing the Commission’s own representative in Tirana to refute their lie. They cannot forgive Berisha for advocating Albania’s membership in NATO even before coming to power and, after being elected President, for being the first among the presidents of former communist countries to request the country’s membership in that organization. They saw Albania’s rapprochement with NATO and the modernization of the Albanian army as the shameful end of their military doctrine of turning the country into a network of bunkers and militarizing it. They have spewed venom against NATO not only in the 1970s and 1980s, but also in 1992–95. Through their press and their positions they made every effort to block this cooperation and the restructuring and modernization of the army, but they failed. Determined in their policy against the country’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, they made a monstrous effort to prevent Albania’s membership in the Council of Europe. The Albanian socialist leader is the only one in Eastern Europe who, with the theory that “the apple is not green,” openly opposed Albania’s membership in the Council of Europe and continued to oppose it right up to the last day. Neither Zhirinovski nor Rusinuk maintained as black a position as the Albanian Zhirinovskys toward the country’s membership in the Council of Europe. Both the opening up of the country and its Western orientation, as well as its integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, were experienced by the Albanian socialist leader and his satellites with profound despair, great sorrow, anger and helpless fury. For his deeds, he deserves to proclaim himself the President Berisha’s enemy. That is why, and because of all this, I say in unrestrained anger, they proclaimed themselves Berisha’s enemies. They look to the East. Like Enver, they have denounced Albania as a country with its doors broken open. Not opening toward the West, but drawing closer to and looking toward the East—these are and remain their basic orientations.

The Albanian socialist leaders and their associates can never come to terms with President Berisha because he is the main “culprit” for the failure to hold early elections. Were they not the ones who called for early elections as far back as 23 March 1992? Were they not the ones who, every three months, vowed from platforms, in parliament, at conferences, in cafés and in the streets that they would provoke early elections? To this end, they repeatedly abandoned Parliament and even behaved like hooligans there; they organized hunger strikes, red protests and rallies, called for dragging people along and smashing skulls, and for four years deceived—and did nothing but deceive—their members, supporters and electorate, saying that early elections would be held that summer, that autumn, that winter, that spring, in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. In this context, only a few months ago they…

The leaders of the extreme left proclaimed themselves enemies of President Berisha because they cannot accept the laws and system of the state and justice. For this reason, they are also the only political force in Europe to have voted against the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, denouncing it as a manipulation by President Berisha and declaring that, as a result, Albania would soon not be admitted to the Council of Europe. They took the same position toward the Criminal Code and the entry into force of the Code of Criminal Procedure. These days they openly stated that the President is ruining democracy, because it is not laws meeting European standards and models, but the old communist laws, that are the true laws of their soul. Those laws, and only those laws, supposedly provide the highest form of democracy through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Albanian socialist leaders and their entourage proclaimed themselves enemies of President Berisha because he denounced their alternatives, based on Marxist ideas, as hostile to and incompatible with the values of democracy. Naturally, for the Marxist leadership, not only the President but any individual who cannot accept Marxist doctrine can only be their enemy, the enemy of their party, their class and the entire universe. They regarded the opposition as such as far back as December 1990. But the truth is that student youth, the intellectual Sali Berisha and thousands of others took to the streets precisely because they regarded Marxist doctrine and dictatorship, the class struggle, hyper-collectivism and the expropriation that follows from it as enemies of democratic and human values. One may rightly ask: when Berisha and the others regarded these things as such in 1990, while you were in power, could they change their minds now, after overthrowing your rule and experiencing the values of freedom? No. On the contrary, now, in the light of democracy, Marxist doctrine and its companions seem to them five times more hostile, cruel and inhuman than they did five years ago. Now there are voices saying they will change it. But nobody believes chameleons.

You cannot regard yourselves as anything other than enemies of your opponent Berisha, because he has openly denounced the participation of some of you in, and your direction of, the latest acts of communist genocide against the Albanian people, as well as the usurpation of the PS leadership by people who headed institutions involved in the crimes of the communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe—namely, the Albanian State Security service. When he denounces this, you reply that you have been “excluded.” You are gravely mistaken. He is denouncing the fact that, throughout the PS, from the leadership down to the grassroots and across its entire hierarchy, numerous members of the Albanian secret police have been installed—people who planned or carried out genocide against the Albanian people. This factor, together with the socialist alternative based on the principles of Marxism, has determined the almost complete international isolation of the PS, the main party of the Albanian opposition, whose leadership you have usurped. By denouncing this great tragedy of the PS, President Berisha seeks to free honest people from your enslavement, because he is not removing you for the simple reason that you have been excluded. No, he is destroying you; he has eliminated your political future. And it is this last factor that compels you to launch an immoral campaign against him, which will certainly end in your inevitable failure.

The PS leadership can never accept the support President Berisha has given the Meksi government and economic reform. That is why they have often tried, to their shame, to denounce the World Bank and the IMF, and even the President’s personal means of support within these institutions, for the great assistance they have given Albania. How can they accept that the government backed by President Berisha, through its program, should reduce inflation from 400% to 1%, raise income from $200 to $600, triple exports and increase investment from $2–3 million to $2 billion? They cannot accept the settlement of the debt, the President’s appeals to heads of state to resolve Albania’s debt, or the work of the government and the committee it established to address it. Precisely for this purpose, just as 30 years ago, they censored this news—which was broadcast by all the world’s media—not for a day, a week or a month, but until yesterday they kept it under a tomb-like silence. Through their silence they showed that they were deeply interested in the financial noose they themselves had tied around Albania’s neck not being removed, but tightened ever further, so that they could keep the country as proletarian as possible and rule over it. That is why they declared that Albania had gone “from rain to hail,” that the new private businesses and factories were Albania’s prisons, that buildings undergoing renovation were the capital’s “cemeteries,” and that only $2 million had been invested in Albanian tourism. Pity Albania and its people. Your lies are over. Albania in 1995 is entirely different from Albania in 1991. The only ones left over from that time are you red hoodlums, who have denied your true name; you who in 1990 declared Berisha an enemy, while now, in 1995, you declare yourselves his enemies. You have a myth and cult of the enemy that you will preserve from generation to generation, from century to century, from millennium to millennium.

Interview with the deputy chairman of the Albanian Democratic Party, Tomor Dosti The conference of the PDS branch in Shkodër; the Secretary General of the PDS, Mr. Tritan Shehu, and deputy chairman Ali Spahia also took part Interview with the chairman of the Democratic Party branch in Mallakastër, Mr. Naim Bega