Hospitals, places where protection from crime is lacking ON PAGE 5

“We do not agree with the strike, but we can...” ON PAGE 5

The condition of the creditor strikers is very serious. The Tirana branch of the National Association of People Whose Money Was Left in Ponzi Schemes informs all creditors that a protest rally will be held today at 10:00 in front of VEFA headquarters in support of the strikers.

The police override the Court’s ruling. Those detained in Milot are kept in prison

Expanded meetings of the PD in Vlora and Lushnje. A technical government is being demanded ON PAGE 2 Lushnja: The government is mired in

Rustem Gjata unlawfully dismissed Parliament violates the constitution again The People’s Assembly has no right to dismiss the President of the Constitutional Court ON PAGE 2

European parliamentary delegation of the Council of Europe at the PD headquarters Council of Europe parliament members, MPs Van der Linden and Soletura, and Council of Europe member Mr. Hartlan, the rapporteur tasked with monitoring Albania, at their meeting with PD leaders commended the Democratic Party’s participation in parliament, which they said had continued during their visit to Albania. At this meeting, the Council of Europe delegation expressed its interest in learning the PD’s views on the situation in Albania: the political situation, the state of human rights and freedoms, freedom of the press, developments in Kosovo, and other issues. The crisis, Prof. Dr. Berisha stressed, is deepening, and the factors behind it are linked to the governance of the left-wing coalition, the arrests of opposition members for political purposes, the fight against a free press, massive government smuggling, and organized crime. All these, Berisha said, are major problems. We returned to parliament, Berisha stressed to the Council of Europe parliamentarians, in order to fulfil our obligations regarding the recommendations of the European troika, whereas the government has not fulfilled any of the recommendations addressed to it by the European troika. These, too, are among the mechanisms driving the crisis in Albania deeper. As for the situation in Kosovo, the dramatic developments in Drenica clearly demonstrate, PD leaders said, that Millosheviçi is determined to carry out the Bosnia scenario in Kosovo. We have welcomed the Contact Group’s swift response. We consider the presence of NATO and BEP troops very important for protecting the 2 million defenceless Albanians in Kosovo. We greatly value the position of the USA and consider it very important that, together with the EU representative Mr. Felipe Gonzales, the representative of the USA also take part. The Council of Europe parliamentary delegation showed particular interest in recent developments in Shkodër, the state of public order, and the constitutional process, and valued the opinions and views of the Democratic Party leadership.

Brojë, 90 residents of Drenica held hostage Serbian police killed two more Albanians in Kosovo, while keeping the villages in the Drenica region west of Prishtina surrounded. Residents of the affected villages are in a desperate situation, without electricity, food or medicine, the Albanian Human Rights Committee reported yesterday. Witnesses say that snipers opened fire on defenceless villagers, while 28 Albanian women and children are being held hostage by police in the village of Brojë, Albanian sources in Prishtina report.

By Bardhyl LONDO Since humanity’s infancy, there has existed and continues to exist a law which, though unwritten, is more powerful and has greater force than all the laws approved so far by the parliaments known to world history. Whenever human life has been put at risk, opposing sides have always raised the white flag, set aside the enmities that until that moment seemed irreconcilable, and helped one another. Even in the world wars, those wounded in these human slaughterhouses were not executed, but sent to hospitals for treatment. For more than 20 days now, in the events surrounding the hunger strike on the premises of the VEFA company, they have raised the white flag and surrendered themselves to death. In defiance of all the rules of age-old humanitarianism, the Albanian government officials continue to treat them as enemies. Not one of them will look at the white flag of the peaceful hunger strikers. Not one of today’s officials has taken the trouble to cross the threshold of the door where the hunger strikers have barricaded themselves and do the very least a person can do in such circumstances: try to save dozens of human lives. They are 80-year-old men, men aged 40–50, women, children. Does a gram of compassion for their peers count for nothing today? Anyone who undertakes a hunger strike is understood and will always be discussed on two levels: as a government official, but also as a human being. In their nine months in government, today’s rulers have shown exactly what they are capable of: Albania has become a field where the bitter fruits of hunger strikes have sprung up. History knows of a Cambodia of merciless popular genocide; it seems it will also come to know an Albania of hunger strikes. But the greatest evil is that today’s rulers have also been exposed on moral grounds. For them, the line of hunger strikes runs through Pjetër Arbnori, the jurists, the former political prisoners, and now the VEFA creditors, all of whom have died or are dying. And while bad governance comes and goes and is paid for through the mechanism of free elections, there is no river in the world that can wash away unjustifiable human genocide (isn’t it genocide when you do not even take the trouble to go and explain things to the hunger strikers where they lie?). The current cabinet is already sitting in the dock of moral accusation: Pjetër Arbnori invited them to meet with him, and they surrounded him with soldiers; the jurists tried to talk with them, and they left them for more than 20 days in the Sahara of indifference, until their faces turned green from hunger and suffering; the former political prisoners tried to deal with the government, and it surrounded them with the most banal accusations and slanders. Now old people, women, and children are on the brink of death, while the officials revel in their cynicism. Who will be next after these victims? Anyone can ask a question: whom do the government officials meet with if they refuse to listen to those on the brink of death? With each other, and perhaps with their militants? What should the rest of the people do? Die, the government’s actions say. But history has its own verdict on rulers. And history offers a great lesson in cases like these: if, in the eyes of the rulers, the people consist only of their own militants, then the people must choose another government. It seems that the “philosophy of inclusiveness,” a phrase that has just crossed the prime minister’s lips and that all the ministers are now repeating like parrots, in most cases without knowing its meaning and thus making themselves ridiculous, means for most Albanians a philosophy of inclusion in death, oblivion, contempt, and moral genocide. And all this is very easy to prove: all you need is not to be of the same colour as the government, all you need is not to be one of its militants. Thus, the VEFA hunger strikers, like those before them and those who will come after them, are as good as dead to today’s rulers. The latter have no intention of crossing the threshold where those people, who have fallen into the cold arms of death, are barricaded. The philosophy of the new democratic government has been fully laid bare. The central tenet of this philosophy is: death for everyone who is not one of my militants, for everyone who dares to suggest that they oppose me.

PD spokesperson: The government manipulates Berisha’s words Commenting on Blushi’s statement and then Meidani’s in Elbasan, as if Berisha had supposedly urged foreign investors not to invest in Albania, the PDSH spokesperson stated: This statement displays the pattern of fabrication and slander that Blushi represents with great dignity; as always, posing as an ordinary person who falsifies even the statements of Prodi and Vranicki, he demonstrates his complete lack of scruples by attributing nonexistent statements to the opposition leader. As for Meidani, he proves once again that he is nothing more than a second Haxhi Llesh. For clarity, we quote here Mr. Berisha’s statement in Parliament. “Finally, I wish once again to declare here that the privatization process in Albania cannot continue without recognizing and respecting the right to property, the state’s debt to former owners, former persecuted persons, former kulaks, former overthrowees, religious institutions, and holders of securities. Therefore, let us take this opportunity to engage in a constructive dialogue to draft, by consensus, a strategy signed by all parliamentary parties and beyond. This would truly be a major contribution to halting the collapse of Albania’s economy and stabilizing the progress of the market economy. If you do not agree, I must declare that the Democratic Party in power will consolidate every transaction involving the sale and purchase of national property, national property, as null and void, and will seek compensation from other government assets, and will violate the rights of Albanians. [The sentence in the source is garbled.] The future of Albanians must be based on a platform accepted by all parties, or at least by those parties that do not reject the recognition of the suppression of the human and animal rights of the Albanian people.”

Chief Prosecutor Rakipi and police chief Ceka warn of political killings of judges

pyramid schemes ON PAGE 2 Lushnja: The government mired in corruption

Strong American warning ON PAGES 6–7

Striking creditors, public appeal against the government ON PAGE 5

PD calls for the release of political prisoners. Political arrests in Shkodër, political revenge Political and psychological pressure against Edi Paloka, journalist for “RD”, must stop PD calls for the release of political prisoners. Political arrests in Shkodër, political revenge Minarolli: The opposition under state terror Political and psychological pressure against Edi Paloka, journalist for “RD”, must stop ON PAGE 3