Growing concern in the International Community about the situation in Albania ON PAGE 3

Ceka’s driver had called several times about the missing man. Smugglers transporting clandestine migrants are taking advantage of the situation. “Guardia di Financa” powerless to crack down on government smuggling ON PAGE 4

You can easily find the answer to the question of why elections should be held by answering the question of what this government is doing. During six months of socialist rule, the country witnessed organized crime involving the state. Only after six months, with the involvement of some officials, was a ship among the many that have arrived on the Albanian coast carrying cigarettes and other smuggled goods finally seized. Mobile phones in the hands of state officials have been transformed from luxury communication devices into instruments of corruption at the expense of Albanians. One phone call, and millions are stolen from the country. Anyone with a mobile phone looks like a smuggler, since they carry one around all day long—Bashkim Fino, Neritan Ceka, Ndre Legisi, Zabit Brokaj, and many others around them. During the socialist government’s months in office, the trafficking of clandestine migrants also grew significantly, beginning with Albanians and ending with Kurds and Chinese. Trafficking in prostitution and narcotics grew to the same extent. During these same months, neighboring countries—especially Italy—developed the horrifying idea that Albanians were a threat, solely because criminals were being exported from Albania: precisely those who had burned and destroyed, killed and stolen during the communist rebellion, with the full support of the Albanian socialists—add Neritan, Arben and Skënder to that list. During the socialists’ six months in government, crime did not decrease; it rose to the level of state crime. Political killings followed—in Parliament, on the streets, in ambushes—starting with DP MPs, founders of the party, and journalists from the opposition press. During the socialist government, more than 600 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded, while not a single trial has been held against any gang or gangster. Only a few criminals have been arrested, while other gangs have been left at large. Various gangsters have been summoned to the police, given officer’s titles, and these latter have put uniforms on another crowd of gangsters, making them a potential danger not only to the public but also to the honest and dedicated police officers themselves. Massacres have increased under the socialist government, and the threat to life remains great even today. The operation to collect weapons began and ended as a political operation, without collecting any weapons. The operation’s executor, Minister Çeka, has now understood that after collecting three or four pistols, law and order were still not restored. The 600,000 weapons in the hands of Albanians could be collected very simply if Çeka collected the 1,000 weapons in the hands of criminals, who used those very weapons to seize the post of Minister of the Interior. Çeka cannot collect those 999 weapons; he has one himself, because he is stubbornly tied to them. During the socialists’ six months in government, people became poorer. Their standard of living fell by as much as 70 percent. If they governed for a year, Albanians’ standard of living could fall to 40 percent—that is, far below freezing point. Then the socialist government would have no one left to govern and would have no buyers for the smuggled goods that its ministers bring into Albania every day. It is better for 20 government officials to become poor than for all Albanians. In six months, the socialists have received no official aid from Europe, while they have waged a six-year campaign against Fatos Nano and concealed crimes—how can the rule of law be renewed, and while the beds and the whole country are covered in filth, all people must be humiliated. So why do we need this government?

OSCE

The judges’ health is deteriorating. Courts have been suspended for three days If judges are removed and appointed whenever elections are held in Albania, that means that instead of justice, you have an administrative bureaucratic apparatus controlled by the party in power. ON PAGE 2

Solidarity with the lawyers’ demands

Opposition: The government’s accusations prove its collaboration with crime ON PAGE 3

The PD chairman denounces terrorist acts

PDSH denounces TVSH’s censorious policies to the detriment of the opposition PDSH denounces the censorious policies that TVSH’s henchmen never stop applying to the detriment of the opposition in Albania. Thus, in yesterday’s 16:00 news broadcast, TVSH not only failed to cover PDSH’s press conference, even though one of its crews attended the event, but also irresponsibly accused the party. The wretched servants of the clique that has usurped power should not censor PDSH in order to show their obsequiousness toward their bosses’ orders. TVSH must address professionally and with civic conscience whether or not the position of the Political Committee of the KE is true. PDSH stresses that respect for viewers and the importance of informing them about the opposition’s positions do not mean respect for manipulators of public opinion.

Very important meetings for Genc Pollo in Bonn On his way back from the meeting of the Committee of Judges for the selection of judges for the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, PD co-chairman and chairman of the Parliamentary Group, Mr Genc Pollo, stopped in Bonn. Pollo met with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Ms Leni Fischer; the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the German Bundestag, Prof. Karl Heinz Hornhues; the head of the German delegation to the Council of Europe, Mr Klaus Bühler; the head of the German delegation to the Northern Assembly, Mr Klaus Francke; the Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Mr Wily Wimmer; the CDU’s head of external relations, Johan Adolf Kohaus; former Social Democratic MP and current Honorary Consul of Albania in the Land of Westphalia, Mr Peter Ruschenbach; and the foreign affairs representative of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group, Mr Martin Weis. He also held meetings with the German Foreign Minister, who had fallen with the press. Briefed on the situation in Albania, his interlocutors expressed their deep concern about the situation in Albania, the many anti-democratic steps taken by the Nano Government, and its repeated failures. The CDU representatives stressed the need to organize a strong opposition led by PD in order to halt the current backward steps and win the next parliamentary elections. At the German Foreign Ministry, during a meeting with the director for Southeast European affairs, Mr Gottfried Haas, Mr Genc Pollo emphasized that PD supports every peaceful effort to resolve the Kosovo issue and called for it to receive greater attention internationally. Mr Pollo thanked the German government for the role it played in the Contact Group, which had convened specifically for Kosovo, and expressed PD’s full support for the Group’s statement of January 8 on this issue.

NATIONAL LIBRARY, TIRANA ANNOUNCEMENT Today, January 15, 1998, at 11:00 a.m., the National Council of the Democratic Party will meet in the hall on the third floor of the Palace of Culture. The Council will discuss “The DP’s positions and alternatives in response to the deepening and severe worsening of the all-encompassing crisis in Albania.” Members of the DP Parliamentary Group are also invited to attend the meeting.

Classes suspended at the University of Shkodër ON PAGE 2

Six opposition parties represented in Parliament support the demands of the lawyers on hunger strike