28/06/1997
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Rilindja Demokratike

28 June 1997

We owe our lives and victory to God

Blue Albania. The capital of Albania, “Yes to Democracy, No to Rebellion.” Berisha releases the doves of peace for the Albanians. Like Tirana, all of Albania Around 200,000 participants at the rallies on the last day of the DP campaign. Berisha fires up Shkodër, Durrës and Tirana. The metropolises of Albanian civilization vote against the communist rebellion.

President Berisha's message: Tomorrow, the rebellion ends

The elections of 29 June are for all those Albanians who love Albania and their freedom, the elections of all the selves of Albania and Albania and self for Albania and Albania and everyone are for all those who know that all Albanians and Albania and self to be proud, 29 June is the day that separates democracy from communist rebellion, the day that will shamefully punish all those Albanians and non-Albanians, who with all their [fejlluar?] attacked democracy, the sovereignty and integrity of Albania. Photo: Armando BABANI President Berisha's message: Tomorrow, the rebellion ends The elections of 29 June are for all those Albanians who love Albania and their freedom, the elections of all the selves of Albania and Albania and self for Albania and Albania and everyone are for all those who know that all Albanians and Albania and self to be proud, 29 June is the day that separates democracy from communist rebellion, the day that will shamefully punish all those Albanians and non-Albanians who, with all their [fejlluar?], attacked democracy, the sovereignty and integrity of Albania. With this message, first and foremost I wish first to address all young Albanians, those who yesterday and [dytor?] with their hurricane overturned the communist dictatorship [me e gjerë në botën?], but also those who vote this year for Europe, and also those who all Albanians, for the first time, as well as all Albanians, and all Albanians, all Albanians, and all Albanians, all Albanians, all Albanians, all Albanians, all Albanians, all Albanians. Our schools, churches, mosques, teqes, farms, properties will decide to save themselves from the communist rebellion, for the friendships forged, to save Albania from division and chaos, for its integration into Western Europe, to save our future and that of our children. Democracy will win. The years of Democratic Party rule have not been easy years for us Albanians. But I am convinced that, for all those who want freedom and believe in God and Albania, they are the best years Albania and the Albanians have had throughout their existence. During these years, after 50 years of the harshest dictatorship, we have openly thought, believed and hoped for what we wanted, voted freely, moved freely, and all returned to the path of God, to the values of our Western civilization. In these years, 400,000 Albanians became landowners, not under the socialist law but under the law and program of the Democratic Party. 220,000 families in the cities became homeowners, and more than 100,000 families received other properties; the foreign debt of 500 million dollars was paid off. In Albania's villages and cities, villas and private homes were built—more housing than had been destroyed over 50 years. The country benefited from billions of dollars in Albanian and foreign investment, experienced a construction boom and a market boom, and per capita income increased fourfold. For three consecutive years it led Europe in economic growth. Albania replaced all the old laws of the communist system with new laws meeting European standards. It joined the Council of Europe, the Partnership for Peace and the Central European Initiative; established close relations with the European Union; and signed dozens of friendship treaties and agreements with many countries in Europe and around the world. The Kosovo issue and the national question received their greatest prominence and protection. Albania's achievements were realized first and foremost through an exploitation [shfrytëzim?] that became free in implementing the Democratic Party program and through international solidarity. All these successes were attacked on many occasions by figures known as friends of Albania [miqësia shqiptare?]. But these achievements clouded the minds and spirits of those who, in Albania, had lost their 50-year hold on power through the free will of the people, and of everyone outside Albania who, in the darkest recesses of the human conscience, harbored the fiercest enmity toward Albania, its integrity and development, the Albanian cause and the Albanian nation as a whole. Together, in recent months, using the collapse of the pyramid schemes as a pretext—responsibility for which the Democratic Party has openly acknowledged—they organized in Albania the last communist rebellion in Europe. Through this anti-Albanian and anti-democratic act, its planners and perpetrators failed in the three main sinister aims they had set themselves. They failed to seize power by force, to plunge the country into civil conflict as they have done elsewhere, and to proclaim a southern federation. They failed because your democratic spirit was unconquerable; they failed because freedom and Albania are precious and sacred to you; they failed because the National Reconciliation Platform established the elections of 29 June as the great opportunity for every Albanian to defend their freedoms and rights, Albania and its cause. But although they failed in their major aims, they are holding Vlorë, the city of Ismail Qemali, Gjirokastër, the city of Kadare, Sarandë, the beauty of the Mediterranean, and Tepelenë, the city of unconquerable men, in violence and terror. In these cities, for four months Albanian communists have imposed the regime of committees; they govern through violence and terror, prevent people and the press from moving freely, take politicians hostage, lynch those who watch RTV, break into banks, burn people alive, have [ndërtuar simbolet kombëtare?], oppose [kundërshojnë?] even as MPs, with only the gangs organizing the election campaign as their rivals, and, at the orders of their masters who hope to bring about Albania's partition, declare that if the DP wins they will not recognize the elections. Thus, in Albania, the communists have created the model of Albania they would like to see. Today they have wiped democracy from the face of the earth and speak of an Albania under [manë?]. On 29 June, [it?] must mark the beginning of a regime like the one established on 29 November, in which they will sit in the Albanian Parliament not by free vote but on the strength of the committees; govern Albania through gangs and committees; hold opponents hostage and make them disappear through terror and terrorist acts; annul the laws that have been voted for and for which the victims have suffered—first and foremost the law of the Albanian state—and re-privatize, that is, take back and remove land and homes, and isolate Albania once again. Communists have no homeland. Fiqoja is ours. But I am deeply convinced that today, more than ever, Albanians will vote for the Democratic Party and its alternative. They will vote for freedom of thought, not its coercion. For free elections, not committees; they will vote for participation in democracy, not for boycott and exclusion; for freedom of movement, not roadblocks, massacres and terrorists. They will vote to restore the law, order and calm of the past 75 days, not for rule by terrorist gangs and committees. They will vote for freedom of faith, churches, mosques and teqes, and for every right to a homeland [e pa shpirt?]. They will vote for their property and farm, not for privatizations and [shëtitjet?]. They will vote for low taxes, not progressive taxes; for international reconciliation; for understanding and tolerance, not national division; for Albania's integration and sovereignty, not its partition and [çezërimin?]; for the Albanian nation, not its enemies; they will vote for its liberation. We will win because we are on God's path, because our lives and victory come from God. May God bless our victory, the victory of Albania and the Albanian nation!

Pollo: We will win 5 to 3

Albania will be governed by the “Union for Democracy” ON PAGE 2

Tirana seals the PS's defeat

Fino, the new leader of the opposition after 29 June ON PAGE 2

The elections: the end of Nano's gangs

The final hours for the communist crime plots ON PAGE 4