The power gangs get their fellow fighter Myrteza Çaushi out of prison Police vans to ensure the life of Vlora’s gang boss. Skënder Gjinushi orders the protection of Myrteza Çaushi ON PAGE 4

Berisha: Our alternative is the alternative of national reconciliation. We will establish the rule of law instead of clan rule; we will establish the law and rights for Albanians instead of gangs, the mafia and crime organizers. We will rebuild the market, freedom, democracy and the future The March ’92 rallies return to “Skënderbej” Square to commemorate the victory of the DP. 100,000 Democrats call for the removal of the failed government New elections, salvation from left-wing rule New elections are now a reality for all Albanians. They are the only hope—the only hope for all people—as the sole opportunity to escape the left-wing bandit-smuggler rule. Yesterday Tirana resounded with the calls of thousands of citizens to stop the country’s slide, return to the democratic springtime and finally escape the roçë rule that has engulfed the country for two years. New elections must be held because left-wing governance is sinking the country into corruption, smuggling, crime, trafficking and violence. Left-wing governance gave the country the bad name of state and common banditry; it built and maintains political and gangster gangs in order to preserve its rule through violence and terror against others. Left-wing governance ON PAGE 3 turned the country into a political appendage of the regional mafia and today is one of the mechanisms of the Albanian mafia of smuggling, trafficking, narcotics, clandestine migration and prostitution. Left-wing governance made Albanians poor, took away their hope and desire to stay in the country and work for it. Left-wing governance stripped Albanians of their dignity, abused them by every means, and scattered them, putting gangs over their heads as the only state, kept in place by the secret police since March ’97. Left-wing governance left half a million Albanians unemployed, shut down more than 2,000 foreign and domestic businesses with its gangsters, and killed thousands upon thousands of people, most of them young people, businesspeople, foreign investors and honest citizens. That is why new elections are needed: to remove from power the government officials whose hero is the Vlora bandit, Zani Çaushi, who get the gang boss out of prison and set him on the innocent. New elections must remove from power Zani’s mentality, Zani’s methods, Zani’s political police, his political prosecution service, and Zani’s parliament, the largest office for mafia traffickers in Europe. New elections are for hope and for the country. The thousands of people who protested in Tirana, too, are only a part of the great anger Albanians feel toward the worst government they have ever known. In condemnation of 22 March, everyone called to mind the euphoria brought by the festival of democracy to the great states. Everyone remembered that the government of the Democrats brought opportunity, happiness, peace and order, security and prosperity. No one wanted to continue living happily under the socialists, while the left, armoured in the “Alliance for the State,” turned the country and all the achievements it had made over the years of freedom upside down. Elections must be held as soon as possible. The calculation is simple. People want prosperity for themselves instead of security for gangs; people want peace for themselves instead of peace for criminals; people want to live happily themselves instead of giving happiness to smugglers and state corruptionists; people want opportunities for themselves instead of opportunities for traffickers, thieving ministers and bandits. New elections are the only symbol of hope for Albanians. No one has the right to close off this opportunity to them, to save them from the hell into which Albanians have been plunged. Albania and Albanian democracy. People today have one opportunity. It is elections that will restore hope to everyone.

Thousands of police surround the capital. Petro Koçi orders Democrats tortured at police stations Police officers and commandos were positioned with antitank weapons and machine guns on the rooftops of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Presidency and the Ministry of the Interior... ON PAGE 3

Strict police measures accompany Democrats after the rally Police vans kept arriving at Police Station No. 3 in Tirana. Trashesigim Abazi ...

$200,000 in fictitious sales and purchases of gasoil and bitumen from the “VEFA” company The oil director and Ylli Bufi steal together The signature and seal of the former head of the VEFA company have been forged ON PAGE 5

Korça and Elbasan in celebration and protest ON PAGE 2

Today, 191 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 its successor in the grave crime committed against the Albanian people. The government of the former communists, who are free, and the unpunished criminals who took the December Leader’s life, show Albanians that they have been and remain on the side of the murderers, whose identities are known but whom those in power leave untouched. Democrats and all Albanians who loved and honored Azem Hajdari can never accept this fact. The government must either capture the criminals and bring them to justice, or publicly declare that it itself carried out Azem Hajdari’s murder.

The prefect of Vlora, Hamo, and police chief Koçiu guarantee the trafficking The head of the Saranda police station, Edmond Kule, has been forced to admit, saying that it is the police from Gjirokastra and Vlora who come to Saranda and escort the trucks from the port toward Gjirokastra and beyond..... ON PAGE 4

Top criminal Myrteza Çaushi was released from prison yesterday and set off, escorted by police vans, for Vlora, the city victimized in 1997, where he committed some of the most heinous crimes. With the decision to release Zani from prison, the Albanian justice system submitted to the most shameful act in its history, also setting its own record for submission to political power since June 29, 1997. But if the prosecutors and judges will bear forever the stain of collaboration with the symbol of crime in Albania, the government officials who ordered Zani Çaushi’s release and their government will answer to the Albanians as the instigators of the crisis that has swallowed thousands of lives. By now, no one can have any illusions about the officials of the left-wing coalition, who have been running the country for almost two years. They are no different from Zani Çaushi, not least because senior leaders of the Socialist Party have used heroic terms to describe the gang leader. If Dritëro Agolli, the idol of most Socialists, says that Zani Çaushi is a ballad character, and Spartak Braho, Zani’s counterpart in the SP, calls him Robin Hood, that does not make the former’s heavy drinking or the latter’s criminal nature any less evident. With Zani’s release, all those who run the state are stained—from Skënder Gjinushi, his comrade-in-arms in March 1997, to the last Socialist admitted to the SP after Fatos Nano’s resignation. Zani Çaushi is now a hero of the Socialist Party and its allies, not only because Dritëro Agolli called him one, but because he has now become a symbol of the times we live in. Zani Çaushi’s release clearly shows all Albanians once again that those who killed, robbed, and burned in March two years ago are the heroes of those who deserve their masters’ gratitude. By releasing him from prison, this government publicly accepts the accusation that it came to power through the violence of armed gangs, the most notorious for its barbarity and cannibalism being Zani Çaushi’s gang in Vlora. The released gang boss is not only a symbol of the 1997 rebellion in Vlora, but also of the Socialist Party’s two-year rule since June 29. Those who are looking for some explanation for the thousands killed and the failure to restore order in Albania now have before their eyes the example of Albania’s grave case file, the example of criminality reaching every last cell of the state itself. What can those who have fallen prey to bandits and live in fear of them expect from a chief who lets the best-known top criminal in the country go free and escorts him to Vlora in police cars to ensure his safety? Zani Çaushi’s release from prison is also a statement to those Albanians and parts of the justice system who are serious about fighting crime, but above all it is more than a disappointment to the three million Albanians seeking to restore normality in their country. Given that Zani Çaushi has now become a hero of the Socialist Party—not only because Dritëro Agolli says so—the only way to save the country from the clutches of state crime is to overthrow this government, whose roots and trunk lie in the gangs of March 1997. “RD”

Yesterday, in Skënderbej Square