The vice-chairman of the Socialist Party, Servet Pëllumbi, at yesterday’s conference of this party in Durrës, once again declared the division within his party. While trying to explain the reasons why the SP is in a very unfavorable political situation, among other things because of disagreements within his party, he told the socialist cadres that this is no longer a matter of disagreement, but of the destruction of this party. He called splinters those whom others apparently call reformers. The splinters identified by Pëllumbi in the coastal city have cracked the glass block of his party so much that they have turned this party into a useless heap of scrap metal. He will not remember to tell the people of Durrës that his party has splinters and whole pieces, as if he had not thought that the merits of Marsi are now his own. Tired of repeating Marsi’s lessons, Pëllumbi has now taken on the role of the party detective. The system of ideological spying on its members was announced in Durrës as well, but this time not in the form of information, but in the guise of a Securitate-type person, in the same way that Ruçi acts toward potential candidates of the SP. What is happening in the Socialist Party? Three weeks ago Pëllumbi announced at a press conference that a reformed Socialist Party was in the making, which according to Pëllumbi was gathering support from the socialist leadership and was also better backed by resources. This happened not long after they had expelled from the party leadership five reformers, known for their declarations against the presence of Marx in the Socialist Party program, or we could also say otherwise, against the presence of the current leadership at the head of this party. These were the first signals that indifference was coming to an end, although they tried to limit it only to that part removed from the party leadership and their supporters. The process of malëshovization, which began with the five, spread to all components of the party, and under the slogan of bringing new elements into the party, malëshovism has now become an organizational feature of this party. Some days ago the Albanian press wrote about a revolt by the village socialists against those from the center. They demand more proper representation in the party and, among other things, do not accept Ruçi’s diktat to create lists according to his taste. The villagers, being also the largest part of this party, have a justified revolt since they still have not found their place in the actions of this party and apparently have no hope of thinking about the cliques of the center, but function in the service of another clique, which can also be called the village clique. The peasant socialists are expected to further develop their revolt into a request to break away from the party leadership in order to find breathing room elsewhere. Now, finally, Pëllumbi recalls the metallic image of his party, which no longer preserves from the metal anything but its coldness and its potential to rust. He brings onto the stage the splinters that have not yet been cleaned away, but on the contrary are increasing day by day, and the dependencies are shifting force from one clique to another. As can be seen, the situation in the Socialist Party is a mixture of chaos, in no way based on any specific ideological direction, but on banal egoisms within a party based on cliques. There reigns there the possibility of losing or winning the leadership positions of the party, and ideological confusion, the crisis of the alternative, nourishes even more this tendency of their party. It is moving day by day toward an artificial state that very soon will be experienced as a splintering of the party itself in general.

Serreqi sends greetings to Greek counterpart Pangallos Foreign Minister Alfred Serreqi has sent a telegram to his Greek counterpart Theodoros Pangallos, in which it says: On the occasion of your appointment as Foreign Minister of Greece, a neighbouring and friendly country, I am pleased to convey to you my sincerest wishes for success in carrying out this important duty. Allow me, Your Excellency, to confirm my desire and will to continue the dialogue begun for the most fruitful cooperation between our two ministries in order to strengthen traditional Albanian-Greek relations for the good of our two peoples and for peace and stability in the Balkans.

Berisha congratulates Arafat On the occasion of Yasser Arafat’s election as Head of the Palestinian state, the President of the Republic, Sali Berisha, sent a congratulatory telegram, which among other things reads: "Your election to the high office of Head of Palestine, this friendly country of Albania, is the triumph of the line of peace and its values, of the determination of the friendly Palestinian people to build for themselves and together with their neighbors a secure, prosperous and peaceful future. Press and Information Office at the President's"

Germany’s Leni Fisher, from the Socialist Union, was elected president of the Council of Europe by 38 votes, and she is the first woman to hold this post. Fisher, 60, a member of the German parliament since 1976, takes this post from the Spanish socialist Miguel Martinez, and will hold it for the next three years, on the basis of a tacit agreement to alternate the post politically from left to right. She was the sole candidate and was elected without a vote. Fisher’s party is an ally of Chancellor Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union.

The dogmatic leader of the SP experienced President Berisha’s political visit to China with dead jealousy. In response to this successful visit, he unleashed a series of envious attacks in their press, linked to closed or barred halls, as well as in the streets. Regarding these attacks and the positions of the conservative leadership of the SP, the spokesman of the President of the Republic emphasizes: they are a direct expression of the nostalgia of those elements that, within the multivolume work "Notes on China", suspect the SP and show that their views are stuck in the 1970s. In these days the head of the SP, inspired by the Enverist theory of purging the party of dross, has engaged in a class struggle within the Socialist Party itself, labeling as splinters the Malëshovists and reformers of a time that they themselves represent only the stubborn fundamentalists of the Albanian far left. Press and Information Office at the President's

NDREKË GJINI The investigation into the events of February 1991 at the Combined School, where four people lost their lives, was supplemented by the testimony of the state’s number one at the time, Ramiz Alia. The former communist president Alia was summoned and questioned yesterday by the prosecutors’ office in the capital, about developments surrounding this event, which constitutes the most shameful attempt by the former Albanian communist state to carry out a coup d'état, with the aim of suffocating the newly created democratic movement. According to internal sources from the Tirana District Prosecutor’s Office, former president Alia was questioned yesterday about the situation that had been created at the time in the Combined School, and about the circumstances of Hoxha’s bust. He gave explanations yesterday before the investigative group about the motives that had pushed him toward the idea and the orders given by him for the creation of total anarchy, so that afterward the declaration of a state of emergency could be justified, something that gave free rein to "legitimize" violence, terror and macabre killings against innocent Albanians. Asked about the killings, violence and terror, the crime of a military commission for the restoration of Hoxha’s bust, the declaration of a state of emergency, or the punishment of readiness unit no. 1, the former communist president Ramiz Alia yesterday tried to evade responsibility by justifying himself supposedly by not remembering anything, or by saying that these episodes did not come back to him. And this loss of memory can only be explained by the guilt complex that weighs on him. With this stock answer, trying to appear "forgetful," Alia does nothing but once again reveal the grave dimensions of the macabre crimes carried out and ordered precisely by him. Albanian justice is investigating these events. Ramiz Alia, as the main protagonist of these crimes, knows a great deal, but does not dare to find a pretext of memory loss. Yet this memory loss is a poor justification, because it was precisely Ramiz Alia, the offspring and loyal disciple with a thirst for violence of dictator Hoxha, who only a few weeks ago told several newspapers he favors episodes and events (in his own way) from 50 years ago, and now suddenly claims not to remember events from five years ago. But this is understandable, because he cannot testify against himself.

Our great writer Ismail Kadare, in a telephone conversation with TVSH, in response to a necessary information request for the program "Kujtesë", on the occasion of his 60th birthday, which will be celebrated soon, expressed his intention to denounce once and for all the terror and violence exercised by the communist regime in Albania. "In the spring of 1990," he said, "in a letter I addressed to Ramiz Alia, among other things I denounced the terror and violence of several high-ranking officials such as Aranit Çela, Rrapi Mino, Zylyftar Ramizi, Taço, Marko, Spiro Koleka, etc. At that time, Kadare emphasized yesterday in his telephone conversation for TV, all these people were in power and I felt that I demanded their punishment. From the reply I received from Ramiz Alia I understood that he himself was part of this clan. At that moment I decided to leave Albania. The occasion came with the murder of 6 May, in the autumn of 1990. I left with the aim of tearing the mask off this hypocrisy, discouraging the Albanian dictatorship and encouraging the democratic forces," concludes the great writer Ismail Kadare.

Last night on Albanian television However, he admits the accuracy of the Republican Institute’s poll for his party One of the main leaders of the Socialist Party, Gramoz Ruçi, when asked last night in an interview on Albanian television, expressed skepticism about some of the results of the poll by the International Republican Institute. Although he seemed to accept some of the data from this poll, which places the Socialist Party at 20 percent in the upcoming elections, he could not help but show his irony toward this internationally reputed institution, denouncing it as a provocateur and questioning the accuracy of this institute’s poll, with an Albanian population expressing his dissatisfaction that the institute had failed to find the foreign tastes of its results. The Republican Institute has conducted other polls in Albania in the 1992 elections, the results of which are almost the same as those that emerged after the elections. In the current result the Socialist Party has less support from the electorate than in the 1992 elections, and also regarding the reforms carried out in these four years there is a figure of over 70 percent in favor of the reform that it made in the areas designated by the Socialist Party. Yesterday’s news, taken from the Reuters agency and published by several Albanian newspapers, considers President Berisha a figure of great reputation among Albanians compared with Nano, who enjoys this reputation among a very small number of those surveyed. S.N.

SAMI NEZA In both Germany and America, the same formula for Kosovo has been outlined, which, compared with previous years, is more advanced in statements, but in relation to what Albanian diplomacy and Albanians themselves aim for, it is little. Nevertheless, the statements by the two countries have provided grounds to present this as a success after so many years, a stationary point that does not go backward and from which one can move into expansion to obtain what is needed. Albania’s diplomatic moves are increasingly being developed in the interest of the main country; diplomacy in the interest of economic reform, political reform in Albania, and diplomacy in the interest of solving the Kosovo problem. Albania’s effect in the broad field of international relations is in a divided situation because of the functions assigned to it geographically. Albania and its political position in the Balkan situation are shaken by ethnic and national problems, problems that Albania has to a greater extent because of its half that lies outside its borders. The Albanian president himself, in the autumn and over the last two months, has carried out a series of meetings and visits that have been translated mostly into the sphere of the country as well as the vital problems of Kosovo. His visit to the US and meeting with the American President awakened the appropriate expectations in Albania to achieve a partnership of responsibility and a sense of security in Albanian diplomacy regarding its priorities. The United States gave Albania assurances regarding economic reform and the continuation of political reforms in Albania. Such a meeting, and even the superlatives of the American President about Albania’s development, is a reference for many Americans who are thinking of investing in Albania. American aid to Albania occupies an important place among aid packages and potential, not only aid in agricultural programs, oil extraction, technical assistance and military aid, since the whole country has benefited from the "Partnership for Peace" program. A few months ago the Albanian-American foundation was created, which will stimulate foreign investment and especially investment. Despite this, American aid to the Albanian army is framed within a figure of 5 million dollars, the very foundation of the fund, Albanian-American relations are inscribed within military relations between the two countries. Only last year three to seven joint military maneuvers were organized between the two armies, and the US has provided a high level of support to Eastern Europe as a whole. Meanwhile, Secretary Perry will make his second visit to Albania in April. At the same time, the Americans themselves did not forget to tell Berisha that they would like an Albania once again governed by his party. Albania also received American assurances on putting the Kosovo problem on the agenda as well as on treating this problem as a non-emergency issue, accompanied by concrete initiatives that, also communicated with Rugova’s diplomacy, made possible the opening of Kosovo’s perspective in the US and that of the US in Prishtina. The visit of the Albanian President to Germany had the same effect as that of America. German support for Albania was confirmed again. On this occasion, more than 50 million marks were given to Albania, of which around 10 million will be returned as a loan while the rest is a grant. The tone of the talks and the German leaders were harmonized, and the view was that Germany is now the most important country in Europe for Albanians. German support for the country was identified as support for the Democratic Government of Albania, and this is very important in the context of an electoral campaign. Germany has shown attention to Albania since the time of the dictatorship. It was a German who reminded people of Albania in the conditions of its complete isolation. Today many Albanians understand (To be continued on page 3)

From the legacy collection of the PS Minutes of the Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee of the PPSH, dated 25 and 26 July 1974