The League Against Dictatorship continues its resistance The League Against Dictatorship informs all members, supporters, and all citizens of Tirana that today, October 3, at 5:30 p.m., a large rally will be held in Skënderbej Square. Let everyone protest together against dictatorship, killings, and political imprisonments. Let us demand a political solution and a technical government to overcome the crisis.

Strong discontent in the socialist camp. The Alliance hesitates until the last moment to leave the government. The most un-Albanian cabinet in the country’s history A full three days to unblock the clan warfare in the coalition of corruption and smuggling. Gjinushi backs down after threats to expel the PSD from the cabinet

. The Majko government has retained all the negative features of the Nano government, leaving no hope that anything might change in precisely those areas that were the reasons for the fall of the Nano government. The Majko government maintains the smuggling line in its entirety, calling into the key positions associated with combating it precisely those people who have been implicated in smuggling and, moreover, have no personal incentive whatsoever to make changes outside Nano’s lines in the customs and police structures. By maintaining this line, the country will once again suffer consequences for the state budget, while organized crime may become even more deeply entrenched in the Albanian state structures. The failure to fight smuggling and the government’s involvement in it, coexistence with organized crime, and the failure to combat it were two of the main reasons for the fall of the Nano governments. The almost year-long resistance of these governments will have the opposite effect in the case of the Majko government. The government may fall within a few days, just as it took a few days on previous occasions to form, on the basis of the same deals that had also been envisaged in the case of Nano 3 and Nano 4. The government is also preserving the lines of corruption, both at ministerial level and at other levels, in directorates, etc. Majko will not be able to move a single director appointed by Nano, making his position at the head of the government entirely formal, while also preserving the normal pattern of distributing corruption along the lines and among the specific clans within the PS and other parties in the autumn coalition, the PSD and PAD. Both the way this government was formed and the obvious deals made during the selection process over three days speak not of the coalition participants’ insistence on quality, but of their insistence on a marketplace of interests, mostly connected with government tenders, taxes and duties, customs obligations, and even the use of new laws to facilitate various thefts or businesses monopolized by people close to Nano and his group. The Majko government remains entirely tied to the shadowy groups of the communist rebellion, which now also hold the important post of Minister of the Interior. The head of the Fier committee, who will lead the police, represents that criminal, anti-state element that carried out attacks with firebombs not only in Fier but throughout the south of the country. Now, not only will there be no separation between crime and the police, but precisely the group that entered the police ranks because of its merits in the Leninist revolution will feel safer and more strongly represented. The judiciary, the weakest point of all socialist governments, is now at greater risk than ever. The Majko government also retains its regional character, abandoning the national character that every government should have. The appointment of ministers from the north, paradoxically, has been welcomed by the government, though not by their colleagues within the PS. Newspapers directed by Nano attacked the Information Minister yesterday, who is from Shkodra, as if he—and he alone—were the great evil of the Majko government. Surely we will see something like the beatings of Asllanbego, and both will leave their ministerial posts, while preserving the form of a government from the First Operational Zone, or the zone of the committees. Nor has the anti-national character of this government been touched at all. There is not a single person in its composition who has distanced himself from Fatos Nanos’s anti-Albanian statements. Most of the ministers come from minorities in Albania and, beginning with the prime minister, there are considerable doubts about their origin and nationality. Majko is not Albanian. If we add this government’s clan-based nature, then its future is very bleak.

160 Albanians killed in Kosovo in the last ten days

The PS withdraws Majko from the National Reconciliation government because of his illness Pandeli Majko succeeded in forming the new government, while his psychological condition is still unknown. He has not denied the statements that he suffers from a mental illness. Majko until

Pandeli Majko has managed to form the new government, while his psychological condition remains from a mental illness. So far, Majko has remained silent in response to statements made even by various doctors, who confirm that the new prime minister is in an unstable mental state. Sources in the Socialist Party say there were many reservations among the Socialists about Majko’s candidacy for the post of Prime Minister, based solely on his health condition. ON PAGE 3

Alfred Abdullari, lawyer for Mr. Blerim Çela, denounces procedural violations and delays in the proceedings against his client ON PAGE 5

Today, 21 days since the murder of the December Leader Every day that passes since the murder of Azem Hajdari, the symbol of democracy and pluralism, proves the involvement of Fatos Nano’s government and his successor in the crime that shook the entire Albanian world. The governments of the former communists, which leave free and unpunished the criminals who took the life of the December Leader, show Albanians that they have been and are members of the group of killers, who have names of their own but are not touched by those in power. The Democrats and all Albanians who loved and honored Azem Hajdari cannot tolerate this fact under any circumstances. The government must either capture the criminals and bring them to justice, or publicly declare that it itself committed the murder of Azem Hajdari.

Berisha calls on the North Atlantic Alliance The chairman of the DP, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, calls on the North Atlantic Alliance to carry out air strikes as soon as possible to punish the Serbian military operations for the barbarities and crimes against humanity they have committed in recent months and continue to commit in Kosovo. Berisha emphasized that NATO air strikes are necessary to judge the war-mongering and destabilizing potential of Serbian nationalism in the region. Albania, Berisha emphasized, should offer NATO this entire operational window of its own, as well as all the necessary facilities, so that these operations can be carried out with the greatest possible safety and at the lowest possible cost.

Majko and Shuli were left holding the keys to a straw hut Gaqo Apostoli resigned from his post yesterday, after first signing three contracts worth 34 million ECU (around 50 million dollars) with a Greek company, a Macedonian company and an Italian company for the construction of several important roads in Corridor Eight. In this way, Apostoli secured his own interests and those of Gjinushi, despite Majko and the Socialists’ insistence on securing for themselves a ten-percent cut from the multimillion-dollar tenders of the Ministry of Transport and Public Works. According to the familiar practice, Apostoli put around five million dollars into his own pockets, Gjinushi’s and, of course, Nano’s, leaving Shuli and Majko holding the keys to a straw hut. Gaqo, backed by the big wolves Gjinushi and Nano, let Prime Minister Majko understand that he was powerless, despite getting close to the big clock. T.S.

Memaliaj and Kuçovë: protests against Nano and Fino As things seem, Nano’s departure and that of his protégée Bashkim Fino will not be limited to losing the post of prime minister; they are seeking to replace [them?], those accused of smuggling and corruption, ordinary and political crime, and the government’s complete failure. They now also face the loss of their seats as MPs. This is not being demanded by the prosecutor’s office, but by the people who gave them their votes... ON PAGE 5

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