No one is being detained in Krujë for fuel smuggling ON PAGE 4

Shocking incident in the district of Skrapar ON PAGE 4

EU again sets conditions for the Albanian government ON PAGE 5

War just a few kilometers away. Serbs resume airstrikes on the eve of the Contact Group meeting

Cassation responds to Dokle: Courts and police work together only under dictatorship “The judiciary, in carrying out its function, cannot cooperate with any other branch of power” ON PAGE 3 No conditions for action The Contact Group's meeting today should shake off from itself any attempt at dialogue and begin—the international community's—considered ridiculous sig- ...

The OSCE Legal Office finds that the Nano government has violated the rights of elected officials If the elected officials are not reinstated in their duties, then all that remains is to say that the findings of violations of the law only further intensify the violation of elected local institutions and councils ON PAGE 2 The opposition calls for a tough stance toward the Belgrade regime, Rugova: First... The Contact Group

Bode and Vejsiu, meeting-consultation with the former owners of the Vlora district The DP’s alternative on property is welcomed ON PAGE 2

ON PAGE 3

The opposition calls for a tough stance toward the Belgrade regime. regime. The Contact Group decides on Milošević Nano in Bonn, opposition skeptical. “He’ll do more harm than good” ON PAGES 3-6

Parliament announces changes to the “McCarthy” commission ON PAGE 3

Campaign by the Journalists’ Association to unblock the phones of the Enter Agency The Journalists’ Association of Albania announced a solidarity campaign on Tuesday to compel the Albanian government and the National Intelligence Service to unblock the phones of the independent news agency Enter. The Journalists’ Association of Albania announced a solidarity campaign on Tuesday to compel the Albanian government and the National Intelligence Service to unblock the phones of the independent news agency Enter, after ten days of deliberate blocking. The Journalists’ Association calls on Albanian citizens, starting Wednesday, to call every ten minutes the phones of Albania’s highest-ranking state officials and ask them to connect them to the ENTER agency. To help citizens, the Journalists’ Association is publishing the phone numbers of some of the country’s most senior public figures. Prime Minister Fatos Nano, office 28210, home 28399; Deputy Prime Minister Bashkim Fino, office 35937, mobile 0382023901; Minister of State Kastrati Islami (the person who ordered the press phones disconnected), office 28425, mobile 0382030006; Neritan Ceka, office 35397, mobile 0382023014; Fatos Klosi, head of the National Intelligence Service. These are also the National Intelligence Service numbers that connect to its press service: 0382020489, 0382020491, 0382020492, 0382020493. If the phones are not unblocked by Wednesday, we will make public the mobile phone number of Prime Minister Nano, President Meidani and the OSCE ambassador in Tirana, Daan Everts, whom citizens can call without identifying themselves and ask to be connected to the Enter agency. In its solidarity campaign, the Journalists’ Association of Albania draws the attention of pro-government press organizations, such as the Association of Professional Journalists, the Albanian Helsinki Committee, the Human Rights League (Elsa Balaj) and several other opportunistic organizations: if they do not speak up for journalists who have been cut off from phones and electricity for ten days because of the government’s irresponsible actions, then their phone numbers too will be published alongside those of the senior National Intelligence Service officials carrying out the orders of the Albanian state.

The dollar reaches 165 lek The lek’s freefall does not stop Deposits lose value every day and citizens’ pockets are emptied The lek lost another ten points yesterday, showing that its slide is now unstoppable. On the currency exchange market, one dollar was exchanged for 165 lek, compared with 164 the day before. The depreciation of the lek, which the state media is trying to portray as panic over counterfeit dollars, is the result of the political and economic crisis, lack of production, shrinking businesses and declining consumer purchasing power. The government’s policy of raising wages after a month is proving to be yet another deception by Nano, as the national currency undergoes catastrophic depreciation. The lek’s slide, and no one knows when it will stop, resembles the economic situation in Bulgaria, where the communists in power impoverished the country into complete economic misery and were forced to leave after mass anti-government protests in the streets of Sofia and other Bulgarian cities. The depreciation of the national currency is expected to cause a further decline in purchasing power, rising prices and the collapse of businesses, deepening poverty and economic misery in the country. In the freefall engulfing the lek, one cannot rule out government maneuvers through the Bank to devalue deposits by further increasing inflation. The lek’s continuing loss of value against the dollar and other currencies is a severe blow to Albanians’ bank deposits, which are heading toward total ruin. The government coalition’s policy of dollarizing the economy is bearing fruit by emptying even the pockets already torn by the poverty that the government brought upon Albanians after emerging from the merely acceptable June 29 elections. D.Xh.

Unionists set fire to the streets; party activists are hired ON PAGE 3

The Club Party, fearful of the failure of left-wing governance ON PAGE 3

Përpali, to the municipalities: 132 employees should be laid off ON PAGE 5

“cooperate with no other power” No conditions for action Today’s meeting of the Contact Group must shake off the Bosnia syndrome. It is essential for peace in Kosovo, the Balkans and beyond that its decisions toward Serbian President Milošević be tough and unequivocal. During the ten-day period he was given, he has done none of what the Contact Group requested at its London meeting. To make his defiance of the West even clearer, and with an arsenal of heavy weapons, including helicopters, he has attacked villagers along the border with Albania, shelling and destroying houses, while hundreds of residents have begun leaving their homes to move to safer areas. Various sources report many dead and wounded. If, in the face of their own massacre, the Albanians first put forward the mass movement and then signed the agreement to have the school buildings vacated by the Serbs, this is no justifiable sign that Serbian military repression will end. Nor is the signing of the agreement a sign that it might ever be implemented by the Serbian side. The agreement was signed with great fanfare a year ago, and Milošević had not taken even the smallest step toward fulfilling it. During these ten days Milošević has not withdrawn a single military unit from Kosovo; on the contrary, he has reinforced them further and pushed deeper into Kosovo’s territory, very close to the border with Albania, in places such as Gjakova, Peja, Prizren, etc. Meanwhile, bombardments continue and the villages of Drenica remain surrounded; the hostages in Broje have still not been released. Serbian police arrested six Albanian Red Cross workers and subsequently took them out of Kosovo, and prevented a group of American senators and congressmen from observing the March 22 elections. He has made no attempt at dialogue, and his initiatives have been deemed ridiculous even by the international community itself. The dispatch of a delegation to Prishtina led by a Serbian deputy prime minister was a bluff by the Serbian president and showed no real commitment to beginning serious Albanian-Serbian dialogue, as the international community had understood it. Milošević has not accepted the OSCE mediator, Gonzales, and has still not expressed a position on direct Prishtina-Belgrade dialogue in the presence of an important international representative. His stance shows that he has not the slightest willingness to make a peaceful agreement concrete; on the contrary, he is showing his teeth more and more to a peaceful people. In recent days, international diplomacy has made major consultative efforts concerning a solution to the Kosovo problem. Despite the fact that serious signals have come from the USA to Milošević, no comparable level of response has been seen from some European countries. This is no longer the time for diplomatic language, but for direct language. Faced with the innocent children and women massacred two weeks ago, diplomacy must find the right response. Otherwise, Bosnia will be repeated, but this time on a larger scale. The Contact Group has the opportunity to rid the Balkan region of a dictator, terrorist and criminal who is directing a new military machine against the freedom and lives of other peoples who are not Serbs. Everyone expects the Contact Group tomorrow not to turn back, but to take direct action aimed at bringing peace to the region and ending the rule of Europe’s last dictator. To act—that is diplomacy when faced with military forces sent to massacre and shell a people such as the people of Kosovo. S.N