The Socialist Minister of Finance against full transparency regarding the usurious schemes Malaj denied the Socialists’ accusations that the frozen accounts of the two pyramid foundations, Populli and Xhaferri, had been used to finance the budget deficit of the Meksi Government Page 2

Beginning at the end of 1994, the International Monetary Fund began advising the Central Bank to remove the restrictive measure on “deposit security” and the bankruptcy provisions of the 1992 banking law (Article 28). The Central Bank accepted the recommendation, and pyramid schemes immediately began to flourish. Page 3 By Jack Kalinovski, Political Analyst, U.S.A.

Tjetër skandal i Finos

Fino’s recent statements as Prime Minister have made it clear that, faced with the choice of being Prime Minister of the Government of National Reconciliation or Prime Minister of the Committees, he has chosen the latter. Naturally, he could not have made a worse choice, regardless of his public claim that he had chosen it willingly and his great zeal in announcing it. Mr. Fino, who has definitively shed the mantle of prime minister and donned the costume of representative of the armed committees—not merely as their spokesman, but as their political leader—has made clear through his public statements who the main obstacle is to holding new elections within the set timeframe. As is known, the main task assigned to Fino’s Government in its brief program was to organize and hold early parliamentary elections. A prerequisite for those elections was the restoration of constitutional and public order and the achievement of transparency regarding the usurious schemes. But the Prime Minister has systematically tried and worked to obstruct or block these two important prerequisites, which would make possible a free and fair electoral process within the timeframe set by the political parties’ agreement of March 9. As is known, the Minister of the Interior has publicly stated that the Albanian police and the Ministry of the Interior are able to restore constitutional and public order in the districts occupied by the military committees, but the Albanian Prime Minister responded to his readiness by legalizing the committees in his own name. Mr. Fino is even more zealous than the senior PS leaders, who at least publicly deny that the committees are their armed crime. The Prime Minister has begun to forget that Parliament gave him its vote of confidence not so that he could pamper and support the armed committees, but so that he would work to restore constitutional order, which had been disrupted by his own intellectuals. Naturally, no one is concerned if the Prime Minister speaks on the phone with the committee terrorists; what concerns everyone, however, is that the Prime Minister of the Government of National Reconciliation is directly and most keenly interested in preventing normal elections and instead having elections under the bayonets of the committees’ weapons. If Mr. Fino has decided to enter politics as a representative of the terrorists, that is another matter, but this does not mean that the technical mechanism of the March 9 political agreement has any legal or moral right to go beyond being an instrument and nothing more. Mr. Fino, who is disappointing more and more Albanians by the day, should bear in mind that he cannot use the committees to blackmail people, nor obstruct the circulation of the non-left-wing press in the southern districts, nor try to seize RTSH, nor rely on the illegal decisions he has signed, nor invoke so-called international support, nor threaten to block the elections. The Prime Minister must not forget that he also undertook before Parliament to ensure transparency regarding the usurious schemes. Unfortunately, his comrade Arben Malaj, the Socialist Minister of Finance, has declared that this transparency cannot be achieved. This means that the Prime Minister’s Government is failing to fulfill, or is deliberately blocking the fulfillment of, its brief program. We would wish that the Prime Minister and Socialist ministers were not deliberately blocking the Government’s short-term program, but the many facts point to the opposite. Mr. Fino allows the committees to operate and threatens the elections through them; Mr. Malaj declares that he will not provide the required transparency regarding the usurious schemes; Mr. Vukaj continues making nostalgic statements and, in a fateful and tragic situation, allows explosive depots to remain in place, where they systematically explode, claiming many lives; another Socialist minister makes “discoveries” about unemployment and is not very concerned about welfare benefits and pensions. This is the record of the Socialists in the Government of National Reconciliation headed by the Prime Minister of the Committees, Bashkim Fino. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of the Committees must not forget that, despite the unreserved support of the terrorists, he will not succeed in blocking the holding of unconditional, free and fair elections, even though, regrettably, he has become the head of the Committees, because free elections are the central point of the March 9 political agreement and the only way to restore normality to the country.

The President of the Republic received those forcibly returned from Bari The President expressed concern about their problem. “About this,” he said, “I have had a telephone conversation with Prodi.” Yesterday, the President of the Republic, Sali Berisha, received a group of citizens who had been forcibly returned to Albania by the Italian authorities in Bari, some of them also mistreated, according to the press and information office of the President of the Republic. They conveyed to President Berisha the concerns of all those refugees whose families and children had remained in Bari, with no information about their fate. President Berisha, expressing concern about their problem, said that he was following it continuously. with the Italian Prime Minister, Prodi, who assured me that he would immediately and that appropriate measures would be taken to resolve it.” President Berisha also emphasized that our ambassador in Rome had been instructed to contact your families and children. He has gone to Bari and contacted the local city authorities. Likewise, the Italian Embassy in Tirana has become involved in serious efforts to reunite you with your families.

The PD Secretary-General, Pollo, responds to a statement by the Socialist Prime Minister The request by Prime Minister Fino seems to me to stir up Enver Hoxha’s isolationist ghosts. It also shows that the PS, the real author of Prime Minister Fino’s letter, is desperately short of friends on the international stage. In a statement by Prime Minister Bashkim Fino given to the BBC, he called for Italian politicians to stop visiting The Secretary General of the DP, Pollo, responds after a statement by the Socialist prime minister. In a statement to the BBC, Prime Minister Bashkim Fino called for Italian politicians to stop visiting the Democratic Party. Mr Genc Pollo reacted immediately, saying: “I am very surprised that I learned this news from an announcement by the Italian authorities, and that, on matters concerning the entire spectrum of Albanian politics, the Albanian prime minister should consult not only with the Socialist Party, to which he belongs, but also with the other parties and obtain their consensus. Secondly, what is said in Mr Fino’s request is a genuine scandal and an unprecedented political provocation. We—Mr Pollo and I—worked for five years to open Albania to Europe and the world, to make as many friends abroad as possible, and to receive visits from as many Western politicians and businesspeople as possible. Prime Minister Fino’s request seems to me to conjure SP, the true author of Prime Minister Fino’s withdrawal, desperately lacks friends on the international stage.” Asked whether, under these circumstances, the DP would invite its friends from Italy and other countries, Mr Pollo also said: “Of course, it is a well-known practice in Europe, and all the more so in the European Union, for members of a particular group to support one another regardless of national borders. We will welcome representatives of the centre-right, the EDU and the EUCD, as we have done until now. But I think socialists should also visit Albania, and there would be no objection to Fausto Bertinotti, leader of Rifondazione Comunista in Italy, coming to Tirana or Polica. To this end, the Democratic Party’s parliamentarians will ask that all necessary steps be taken to ensure that Albanian legislation is clear in this regard and in keeping with this spirit. Tirana, 7 May 1997

Yesterday, former Austrian Chancellor Vranicki, the OSCE’s special envoy, arrived in our country for a new visit. He is to meet with the country’s highest-ranking state officials and political party leaders.

The family of the “People’s Hero” Ali Demi denounces: The “ZP”’s boundless immorality President Berisha has honoured us with His visit “President of the Republic Sali Berisha honoured us with his visit in remembrance of 5 May, Martyrs’ Day.” Members of the family of the People’s Hero, Ali Demi, expressed their respect for the visit that the President of the Republic made to the family of Ali Demi’s brother, Vehbi Demi. Vehbi Demi’s wife, as well as one of the “People’s Hero’s” nieces, have refuted both the news and the PS’s newspaper (ZP), which claimed that the President had not visited the “People’s Hero’s” family. The newspaper in question, without knowing the members of the Demi family, says it consists of two sisters, whereas A. Demi’s niece says there are three sisters and one brother. The President honoured precisely the family of Ali Demi’s brother, Vehbi Demi. VEHBI DEMI

NATIONAL LIBRARY… TIRANA

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Refugee families should be allowed to reunite Page 2

200 bullets against three lives A bomb that exploded in the city centre injured three citizens and destroyed a shopping centre Page 2