Mazreku in the Tirana court on Monday On Monday, Mazreku in the Tirana court The Prosecutor’s Office is not investigating the accomplices ON PAGE 4

Smuggling by those in power continues ON PAGE 4

“How can we escape VAT?” Prices rise by 1.6% ON PAGE 5

Fatos Nano’s and Pashko’s 1 billion and 200 million dollars turn into 12 million dollars. Albanians pay the high price of their government, ignored and cast aside by the West. Fatos Nano’s government failed spectacularly yesterday in its test at the Rome Conference, once again holding up international aid, so essential to the country’s stability. The conference, which ended in record time because of Nano’s failure, set strict political conditions for Tirana’s Socialist government in exchange for extremely modest aid to Albania. The grandiose figures announced by Nano and Pashko before the Rome Conference proved to be a complete fiasco, as not one of the European donors showed the slightest willingness to open their purses for the adventurous government of Fatos Nano, which came to power with the help of gangs and massive electoral fraud to seize the pyramid-scheme funds. Of the 1 billion and 200 million dollars claimed by Nano and his adviser Gramoz Pashko just one day before the Rome Conference, donor countries reluctantly agreed to provide only one sixth of that amount. It was also emphasized that the 12 million dollars approved by the donor countries would not be given to government officials, but to the Albanian people, reminding Nano and his associates that the West has no trust whatsoever in a revanchist and adventurous administration such as Albania’s Socialist government. The statements by the EU president, Pos, Vranicki, and Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini echoed the conference’s position, calling on the Albanian government to respect the path of national reconciliation, end violations of the opposition’s freedoms and rights, and honor the San Edixhio agreement, signed on the eve of the 29 June elections. Meanwhile, the Rome Conference was notable for a mass boycott by donor countries: around 60 percent sent no representatives to the conference at all, while many of the other countries that attended substantially downgraded their level of representation. The absence of most donors and the low level of representation among the others, compared with the preparatory conference of 31 July, are directly related to the West’s growing lack of trust in the Socialist administration, which, in the mere three months it has been in office, has squandered years of aid to Albania. Nano’s complete failure in Rome proves once again that the elections of 29 June, conducted through violence, terror and bullets, were not a political solution for Albania. The Socialist government that emerged from them showed Albanians and the world within a few months that it could not contribute in any way to bringing the country out of the deep crisis it experienced after the armed rebellion, even though the very same people had incited and led that armed rebellion. Nano received only 1 percent of the aid the country needed in Rome because the West cannot allow European taxpayers’ money to go toward supporting a government that is installing a new Socialist dictatorship in Albania and has, from the day it was sworn in, pursued a brutal political policy of revenge and repression against the opposition and its own citizens generally. The Rome Conference once again showed that Albanians are forced to pay the high price for their adventurous and deceitful government, which emerged from the 29 June elections—elections now being shown to have been no solution at all for Albania. The Rome Conference—the shame of Nano. Western donors refuse to open their purses for an adventurous and deceitful government OUR RULERS RETURN FROM EUROPE WITH EMPTY POCKETS.

The Rome Conference, which ended yesterday with the complete failure of the Nano government, revealed low interest among donor countries and a downgrading in the level of representation by many of them. Only 17 donor countries took part in yesterday’s conference, compared with 39 that had attended the preparatory conference held in Rome on 31 July this year. In addition to the absence of around 60 percent of donor countries, the conference saw a low level of representation among the participating delegations. Apart from Italy, as the host country, which was represented at a high level, almost all the other countries had delegation representatives at lower levels than at the July conference. The absence of many countries and the low level of those that attended show that the credibility of the Nano government has continued to decline since the conclusion of the 29 June elections. The Nano government received so little aid that it is unclear whether it will be enough to pay all the per diems and expenses of the delegations at the conference, let alone leave anything that ordinary Albanians might feel. Why did the Rome Conference shrink?

OUR RULERS RETURN FROM EUROPE WITH EMPTY POCKETS.

Nano’s failure in Rome began in Tirana. He blocked the opposition from representing its opinion and alternative at the ministerial conference, so important for Albania. His refusal of an agreement offered by opposition leader Berisha—to also convey the opposition’s voice to the donor countries—was one of the main causes of his failure. On this occasion, he transferred his communist revanchism to the Italian capital as well, while leaving the impression that his government had failed to apply National Reconciliation at home. The pseudo-opposition he had brought with him could not get him out of trouble. This time Sabri Godo proved more unusable than ever, just like the right-winger Spartak Ngjela. Neither of them managed to convince anyone that they represented more than 2 percent of the opposition. In the end, Nano’s only card, which he had managed to secure through the posts on parliamentary committees and use as a façade in international institutions or in the countries of the West, was burned too. Meanwhile, the testimony of the Albanian prime minister showed how unacceptable his domestic policy is: it begins its revanchism in the administration and goes as far as the physical elimination of representatives of the real opposition.

How much the state television of Mazi lies Nano’s and Mazi’s state television wrote another page in the daily disgrace of its broadcasts yesterday, when it announced that the Rome Conference had allocated 360 million dollars to Albania. Just minutes earlier, BBC radio, Voice of America and two other prestigious news agencies around the world had reported that the Nano government had received only 12 million dollars, and even that subject to a series of conditions imposed by donor countries. But that was not all: in the next bulletin, Eduard Mazi’s television gave the figure as 100 million dollars instead of the earlier 360 million dollars, still far from the Rome Conference’s actual result. This is another ugly example in the ongoing stream of stale and abusive disinformation from State Television, which mocks Albanians in the most unscrupulous way by giving them grossly inflated figures. Given the rate at which the aid figure is being reduced in each news bulletin, TVSH is expected finally to reach the truth reported by the BBC and Voice of America in a few days. How long the state television of Mazi lasted

Berisha: The elections proved that they were not a political solution Tirana conference against nanocracy ON PAGE 2

A Council of Europe mission visits Tirana at the end of October A second delegation from the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the CoE will be in various Albanian cities from November 15 to 19 ON PAGE 3