Avdyl Matoshi, 29, Gjin Kolbucaj, 29, and Naim Dizdari are killed. The opposition urges Albanians to protect themselves from the criminal government. The resignation of Nano, Meidani, Gjinushi, Ceka and Brokaj is demanded. The rule of the gangs is drowning Albania in blood. The state—a gang Crime in general, and political crime in particular, has gripped the country. Over the span of five days there have been a large number of victims and shocking events, making it terrifyingly clear that today’s Albanian state is a gang-state and that gangsters are at its helm. In Patos, police forces, former gangsters during the rebellion, brutally massacred a wounded man. They hanged him, burned him and cut off the head of the young Agron Pasha after forcibly taking him from the surgical ward of Fier Hospital. Three prominent Democratic Party activists were killed yesterday at midday in Tropojë by communist gangs placed in charge of the police in that district. Abdyl Matoshi, one of the founders of the DP, Gjin Kolbuca and Naim Dizdari fell victim to the bullets and the brutality of today’s regime, which has sown its gangs throughout Albania. gangs throughout Albania. were forcibly taken from the surgical ward of the hospital in Fier. Three prominent activists of the Democratic Party placed in charge of the police in this district. Abdyl Matoshi, one of the founders of the PDS, and brutality of today’s authorities, who have planted their gangs throughout Albania. Today Albania finds itself between state violence and the violence of gangs supported and inspired by the state. Albanians are being attacked, killed, massacred and abused from both sides as never before. Although this is a criminal situation, Interior Minister Neritan Ceka declares that order has been established. In fact, the Interior Minister is right about the kind of order he has in mind. For some time now, the order of criminals has prevailed in Albania. They have been recruited into the police and made ministers and police chiefs. In Albania, criminals are the prime minister, the Interior Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Speaker of Parliament. This is the order established by the socialist government that came to power through violence and murder. Ordinary people must now protect themselves from these bandits. The Albanian state has itself turned into a gang. It has been institutionalized as such and has no intention of making any other effort. What matters to them is that the bandits—that is, they themselves and the entire gang hierarchy—have peace and quiet. People are left alone. Anyone who is not a bandit poses a potential danger to the state gang. For ordinary Albanians, there is no longer a state to protect them, but a state that abuses, kills and robs them. The gang-state has taken it upon itself to destroy everything good in this country. It has decided to kill ordinary police officers, merchants, opposition members and young people; to kill people at random in the streets; to create a communist fascism in the country and present itself as nothing but bandits. The devil has a paradise in hell. The gang-state established in Albania follows the same principle. Precisely as three leaders of the DP were being killed in Tropojë, the Interior Minister declared that order had been established in the country. He urged people to remain calm—that is, to die calmly. They were to preserve this calm even as Çeka’s bandits hanged them, burned them alive or killed them in roadside ambushes. Such an Interior Minister must leave as soon as possible. Even if they shut the door on him, he should break it down and leave the ministry. But he is only a bandit in the gang. He cannot act differently from the criminal code that brought him to power. He cannot remain silent, with his Kalashnikov-like appearance spewing death over people whenever he appears. Now everyone understands that when the Interior Minister says order has been established, everyone must hide. Every time they show themselves, they run the potential risk of being killed by his colleagues with black hoods on their heads.

The DP accuses the government of political killings in Tropojë Yesterday at midday, at 12:30, three of the most prominent Democratic Party activists, members since its founding, were ambushed and killed on the Tropojë–Bajram Curri national road, near the village of Cernicë: 1. Avdyl Matoshi, 29, former founder of the PDSH, one of the principal leaders of the student demonstrations at the Agricultural University, a participant in the hunger strike that led to the dictator’s bust being toppled, and recipient of the “Torch of Democracy” medal. For several years, Mr. Matoshi led the PDSH Youth Forum. He later headed the most important financial institutions in Shkodër and Tirana. He was a senior officer in the Ministry of the Interior and is currently serving in the Burrel police force. 2. Gjin Kolbuca, 29, prominent DP activist and former senior official in agriculture in the district of Tropojë. Since the DP was founded, he has contributed to its ranks and structures. In recent years, and currently, he is an officer of SHIK. 3. Naim Dizdari, one of the founders of the DP’s Tropojë branch. He has been chair of a PDSH section since the day it was founded. He is currently the head of the eight-year school in the village of Shkëlzen. The Democratic Party of Albania will soon present new facts about this event. However, based on the standing of the three murdered men and on the fact that a person prosecuted for murder, previously implicated in terrorist acts in the service of the PS, has been placed at the head of the Tropojë district police, it considers what happened a political murder, one of many since the Nano government took office. It accuses the current leaders of the state and the criminal structures of the police and SHIK—which are directed and staffed by common criminals—of their murder. To reward them for setting Albania ablaze during the months of the communist rebellion, the Nano government appointed them to the structures of political revenge. For this heinous terrorist act against its prominent activists, the Democratic Party asks all governments, institutions and international organizations to condemn the criminal government of Fatos Nano, installed in power, and not to recognize it in the future. Avdyl Matoshi Naim Dizdari

The terrorized city can only defend itself by guarding against another state crime. Police are not allowed to enter the city. The Patos massacre fully comes to light. Journalists are horrified as they watch the violated corpse of Agron Pasha on video ON PAGE 3

On 8 January 1998 at 12:00, the Democratic Party will hold a funeral ceremony in “Skënderbej” Square for the “Torch of Democracy,” Mr. Avdyl Matoshi, one of its founders and distinguished activists, organizer of the student demonstrations at the Agricultural University in December 1990, and for several years leader of the DP Youth Forum. He was killed in a criminal operation by the state in the village of Cërrnicë, Bajram Curri, together with two other distinguished Democratic Party activists, Naim Dizdari and Gjin Kolbucaj, also a “Torch of Democracy” and a December 1990 student. The Democratic Party declares 8 January 1998 a day of mourning. At all its branch offices around the districts, the national flag and the flag of the Democratic Party of Albania will be flown at half-mast. The Democratic Party invites all the citizens of Tirana to take part in this funeral procession and to express their civic protest against state crime silently, without slogans, with a flower in their hands. It also calls on drivers throughout Albania to honk their car horns at 13:00 in remembrance and protest against the crime, and invites citizens to commemorate him at 19:00 by lighting candles in the windows of their homes.

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The parliamentary group of the Democratic Party expresses solidarity with the jurists’ demands in defense of the independence of the judiciary Judges and prosecutors on the third day of the hunger strike ON PAGE 4