National Dam Committee sounds the alarm: Waters of the artificial lake threaten the capital ON PAGE 5

Today, a large rally in the center of Tirana Today, 12 March, marks six months since the criminal murder of Azem Hajdari! The tribune of nationalism, the symbol of pluralism, the hero of democracy, Azem Hajdari, lives on in the mind and heart of every Albanian. For six months, the government has continued to protect Azem’s killers! Today, 12 March 1999, at 17:00, Albanians from all over Albania will gather in “Skënderbej” Square to honor the memory of the immortal hero Azem Hajdari, holding flowers and candles in their hands. The rally is being held with police permission. Everyone to the square for Azem! Azem is alive! Azem is among us!

On the eve of the Socialist Party congress, the prime minister reveals corruption files on his rivals. The “Apostoli” file is sent to the prosecutor’s office ON PAGE 3 Majko has chosen the Apostoli file because the theft of millions of dollars by Nano’s clan can be proven at any time on the streets of Tirana. This case is also Majko’s best campaign to take the position of chairman of the Socialist Party and punish Nano

Commemorative events begin on the six-month anniversary of the murder of democracy’s hero, Azem Hajdari Azem Hajdari, the three-month-old son of the legendary MP, symbolically opens the door of the office where his father had worked, until just minutes before his murder, for democracy and the freedom of the nation ON PAGE 4

By Alban BALA Six months after the murder of Azem Hajdari, year after year the cold-blooded seizure of power in the center of Tirana [the text is unclear]; hopes of finding and prosecuting Hajdari’s real killers have now almost faded. Citizens still have dust on their clothes and shoes

PD denounces the plot of the politico-mafia clan Gjinnushi-Rakipi-Çaus...

The political chief prosecutor threatens subordinates who did not take responsibility for the “Hajdari” case Rakipi’s devilish maneuvers are intended to prevent the DP’s draft law from being approved—a law to appoint an independent investigative team to find the killers of the Democratic leader ON PAGE 2 The former Speaker of Parliament is pessimistic about solving the murder of MP Hajdari without a special law Arbnori: A law for the Hajdari case is absolutely necessary “If the investigative team tasked with solving the ‘Hajdari’ case depends on the Prosecutor General, there will never be a clean and proper investigation into Hajdari’s murder”... ON PAGE 2

Seeking Azem Hajdari, and a year after that cold-blooded assassination in the center of Tirana, hopes of finding and trying Hajdari’s real killers have now almost vanished. Citizens still have on their clothes and shoes the dust of the roads of the year that has passed, from painful demonstrations and protests. His memorial stands cold and silent beside the Democratic Party, which lost a tribune and gained a hero. A child unconsciously bears his name, and this is the only ornament of this tragic axiom, into which the Crucifixion, Sainthood and Resurrection of an ordinary man were woven—a man whose courage turned him into a myth. As in a biblical tale, Azem Hajdari escaped repeated assassination attempts, challenging death from an early age and turning it into a game of mirrors. Now that he is gone, his killers remain unaccounted for; they cannot be found, they hide, they are afraid. Azem Hajdari had no enemies while he was alive. He had only killers. Like few Albanian MPs, he hid from no one and never hesitated to shake everyone’s hand and answer everyone. In the parliament café, he sat with everyone; even Gafur Mazreku bought him coffee one day before the short man from Has came up behind him with a revolver and shot him five times. Because Azem Hajdari had no enemies; he had only killers. The fact that these killers have still not been found, even today, six months after the crime, proves that those who set the assassination squad in motion on that dark night of September 12 are more cowardly and more anonymous than the killers themselves, who fired their treacherous shots. The failure to find Azem Hajdari’s killers (by first and last name) incriminates everyone who shook hands with him as an opponent, and this incrimination is broad—several times broader than the circle of those who chose not to confront his mental and political strength. This incrimination reaches such an extent that it may continue to cast a shadow over subsequent Albanian administrations, which pretend to be indifferent while protesting their innocence of the crime and their political innocence. In fact, Azem Hajdari brought down two dictatorships: the old one and the false one. Azem brought down the real dictatorship with his life; the false one, with his death. He defied his movement by becoming a Hero, while exposing its leaders by showing them that his worth was like that of a precious stone: the farther away you keep it, the more it shines. Nevertheless, Berisha, a wise German man, writes in an early play that when Galileo Galilei was setting forth the theory that the Earth is round, he was confronted by a demand from his own leading student, Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who would accept being burned at the stake for the truth. He tells him: “Woe to the nation that has no heroes, maestro!” The wise old man, Galilei, gave this smile: “No, my son, no! Woe to the nation that needs heroes!” Azem Hajdari proved precisely this intimate paradox to us, and with a double meaning: that for some time yet, Albanians will not have the luxury of avoiding self-destruction. This is Azem Hajdari’s great message, from that boy who will continue for a long time to appear on the rally platforms amid cheers, reminding us that nothing can be tarnished or extinguished, and that we have paid dearly for everything—more dearly than any power or need could warrant.

The prosecutor Rakipi’s hypocritical excuses—he has filled the prisons with opposition politicians—do not absolve him of direct responsibility for withdrawing the charges against Zani’s gang and implicating himself in the criminalization of justice ON PAGE 3

Constitutional expert Gjata explains the draft law proposed by the DP concerning the “Hajdari” case ON PAGE 2

Today, 182 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 his successor in the crime that shook the entire Albanian world. The government of the former Communists, deeply connected to and shielding the criminals who took the life of the December Leader, is showing Albanians that they were and remain on the side of the killers, whose identities are known but whom those in power leave untouched. Democrats and all Albanians who loved and honored Azem Hajdari cannot tolerate this fact under any circumstances. The government must either capture the criminals and bring them to justice, or publicly declare that it itself carried out Azem Hajdari’s murder.

They demand to be paid 10 percent of Italian workers’ wages The women workers at the shoe factory in Krujë have been on strike for five days and refuse to return to work until their low wages of 75 thousand lek are increased ON PAGE 5

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Tirana and Moscow seek greater closeness in political relations. Meidani in Moscow ON PAGE 3

Deals between prosecutors and lawyers in defense of crime Former investigative officer Prodan Rrokaj, now appointed deputy prosecutor at the Tirana military prosecutor’s office, had found his victim a defense lawyer ON PAGE 7

Mrs. Hajdari with little Azemine in the studio of the December Leader

The “December ’90” Group informs the former students and lecturers who were protagonists of the student movement that on Friday, 12/3/1999, to commemorate the six-month anniversary of the execution of our hero, Azem Hajdari, the following activities will take place in Tirana: 9:00 a.m. – tributes at Azem Hajdari’s grave. Departure will be from the memorial dedicated to the leader of the student movement. 10:00 a.m. – visit to his family 11:00 a.m. – protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office. The press and electronic media are kindly requested to cover these activities.