The week-long strike continues in the lecture halls of higher education institutions ON PAGE 5

December 8 finds the “Aleksandër Xhuvani” University on strike ON PAGE 5

UNIONS WE ARE 5000 NAME DOESN’T [?] TEACHERS EDUCATION ARRIVED STRIKE DEMOCRATIC UNION Unions: We will hold out until January Secondary education warns of a strike ON PAGE 5

Berisha: “Today, this December, just as eight years ago, finds us with prisons and political prisoners, and also without its leader, Azem Hajdari. Today is the day of the oath. The student hurricane will save Albania.” Tirana takes to the streets and squares to protest in remembrance of the December Movement that overthrew the dictatorship. Tens of thousands of Democrats warn the government that killed Azem Hajdari

The end of the December Leader’s killers is drawing near ON PAGE 2

Yesterday, the rally in “Skënderbej” Square Photos: Albes FUSHA Yesterday, the rally in “Skënderbej” Square. Photos: Albes FUSHA

The president of Forza Italia has invited Mr. Sali Berisha to Italy to hold a series of meetings and press conferences to inform the political forces of the truth about Albania and the Albanians. In the very near future, President Berlusconi himself will come to Albania at the invitation of Mr. Berisha, at the head of a broad delegation from the political formation “Pole of Freedom”. ON PAGE 4

Today, 87 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 its 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 December Leader’s life, show Albanians that they have been and remain on the side of the killers, who have names and surnames but are untouched by those in power. The democrats and all Albanians who loved and honored Azem Hajdari can in no way tolerate this fact. The government must either immediately bring the criminals to justice, or publicly declare that it itself committed the murder of Azem Hajdari.

Forza Italia guarantees that it will raise awareness not only among Italian political circles but also within the European Community about the terror facing the Albanian opposition “We must make up for lost time through concrete meetings and cooperation projects. The visit to Italy by the chairman of the PD, Berisha, as well as the visit to Tirana by Forza Italia leader Berlusconi, serves this purpose.” ON PAGE 4

Dozens and hundreds of democrats are beaten, mistreated and turned back ON PAGE 7

December drives traders mad; they raise the prices of food products as well as luxury goods ON PAGE 5

Student strikers invite the prime minister to a meeting Students of the University of Tirana and all university centers have invited Prime Minister Majko to a meeting to debate their demands. The text of the invitation sent to Majko by all members of the strike committee states, among other things: “We, the members of the Central Student Strike Committee, gathered today, on 07.12.1998, having seen the solidarity of the majority of students at all Albanian universities, decided... ON PAGE 4

. Tirana and all of Albania celebrated yesterday the December of democracy, the one that belonged to the December activists, the democrats and the people of democratic ideals. Thousands of citizens of Tirana and others from all over the country turned their eyes toward the true bearers of the ideals of December, thinking that after two years of government terror, better days would return once again. This time, as eight years ago, December was the majority in the face of the anti-December gathering that posed last night in a hall of the Academy of Arts, represented by fifty people, most of them ministerial boycotters with no connection to December. Something like this is natural. Like every great movement, December had, in addition to its heroes, people whom the vices and hardships of dictatorship had broken, or others whom the road to democracy would tire. One of them was Imami, who last night forgot to mention Hajdari as well. He and others like him may have grown resentful of December. In the camp where they are now, they want to erase every trace of it. This was begun last night by the failed actor. But yesterday December shone brighter than ever in Student City, from where Azem Hajdari, together with thousands of students, shook Europe’s most brutal dictatorship. It shone on “Dëshmorët e Kombit” Boulevard; it shone in “Skënderbej” Square, this time together with the profound grief at the absence of the great leader Azem Hajdari. The anti-Decemberists, Albania’s eternal minority, destroyed the power lines three days ago so that Tirana would not see its brilliance on the anniversary of their crimes at home; once again, as in September, they gathered bandits from villages where they had attacked and robbed the national roads, former State Security men and the old Kalashnikovs of last spring, and threw Tirana back to 1945, or to September 5 of this year. But this is their last gathering. They do not have time even to preserve the minority they have. Their time is over, as is the time of those who joined December ’90 only to bring it to an end afterward, to turn it communist and sell it to the current rulers. Yesterday Albanians showed that they have severed no ties with the ideals of December. They demonstrated this just as they did in those days of ’90, in March ’92, May ’96, in their resistance to the communist rebellion in ’97, and by ignoring the socialists’ passport just a few weeks ago. The provocation of December with armored vehicles, police vehicles and special forces on every street corner in Tirana, the psychological warfare waged by SHIK and the left-wing terrorist press for more than a year, have not managed to break the brilliance December had yesterday—the brilliance that, above all, was hope. Yesterday, Tirana lived in hope. For more than two years, it demonstrated more than ever what the left-wing governments, from the first to the fifth, had denied it. The democrats and the majority of Albanians celebrated December with their heroes and martyrs, with those who raised the country from the mire into the light, while the former communists tried to overpower it with ministers or old anti-Decemberists at the head of the state, who attacked December from the bathroom of former communist president Alla. The communist government is counting its final days. This is the legitimization of December, of the struggles of those years and these days; it is the legitimization that strengthened every majority. Government must go where it belongs, to where Albania can breathe once again, as it did two years ago.