Nine months after the regime’s execution of the Leader of December, Hero of Pluralism and Tribune of Albanian Nationalism, Azem Hajdari In remembrance of the ninth month since the regime’s execution of the Leader of the December ’90 Student Movement, Hero of Pluralism and Tribune of Albanian Nationalism, MP Azem Hajdari, on 12.06.1999, at 20:00, the branches of the PD will organize the lighting of hundreds of thousands of candles in the main squares of the country’s cities. Albanian Democrats and nationalists, the PD invites you to light a candle in the main squares of your municipalities, both to honor the immortal hero of democracy and the Albanian nation, Azem Hajdari, and to demand that the organizers and perpetrators of the ugliest political crime against the Albanian nation be brought to justice.

The increase in crime, insecurity and mafia activity in Albania is sponsored by state sectors. The aim is to destabilize the country, strengthen the mafia’s ties with those in power, further rehabilitate criminal gangs, traffic people, reduce the punishment of protest, and create conditions for smuggling, corruption and theft at every level of the administration. Over a period of three days, several murders have taken place. Two people were killed on one of the roads in Krujë, two were killed in the center of Tropojë, one was killed inside a venue in Kavajë, one was wounded in a café 50 meters from the office of the Minister of Public Order, six were wounded in the center of Korçë, and two were taken hostage at Kakavijë, one of them another [sic] at the home of the Prefect of Shkodër; and, if we look further back, there were other murders in the middle of Tirana, while the killers’ car, after the murder, took a drive beneath the police director’s window. In Tirana the name of the murdered person is hushed up and the situation shifts from a state of alarm to normality; in Shkodër, when dynamite goes off, police radio communications are shut down, criminals greet the police as they arrive at the scene, while no police roadblock is set up in the cities, even though the murder has taken place. Most often they seem to be caught in the act, yet the authorities act as if everything is normal, but never against those who have it written on their foreheads that they are bandits. After two years of left-wing rule, the law-and-order situation is just as it was in ’97, with no change, except that now the bandits have been legalized; everyone knows who they are, how they are protected by the state, and that they represent the state in all the crimes they commit. Such murders would never happen if the state were not linked to crime, if important government officials and other levels of authority did not protect the bandits. Crime has spread even among the police themselves. A trader who was arrested a few days ago was shown a recording, while the one who went there was his brother [passage unclear]. The perpetrator was a non-commissioned officer in a police unit in Tirana. These days a number of rapid-response police officers were fired, but no further measures were taken, as they are suspected of having made several threats. But no police officer would commit such an act if he were not inspired by the actions of his superiors. If he did not see that the police act at different speeds for different people, that some bandits are supported and guarded by the police, while others—and dozens of people—are politically persecuted, and that if members of the opposition become victims of crime, nobody has time for them. During the PD government there were never such cases of revenge involving bandits as there are today, while Meidani visits in hospital one of the most powerful men in a southern district, when bandits who are MPs are people who have been in prison for ten years, when MPs themselves are part of the old police contingent, when the Speaker of the People’s Assembly intervenes in drug trafficking to secure the release of the Vlora gangs, or when former Socialist Prime Minister Fino becomes a millionaire as mayor, or former Prime Minister Nano, from prison, lives in his Paris villa, or former Minister of Greziqa. Not to mention that PS MPs who until ’96 were [unclear] with the committee of Berat now have children driving expensive [unclear] along Tirana’s boulevards. This is crime; these are the murders of ordinary people. This is where the state’s concern for people ends, and the state’s revenge against them begins.

Hundreds of Serbian shells in the district of Kruma. Kishaj, Pogaj, Dobruna, Kruma, Golaj, Cahan(i), Vlahna, Perollaj, Bardhoshi, Plana, etc. bombarded ON PAGE 2.4

Agreement signed between NATO and the Serbian army ON PAGE 2

Serbs have carried out ethnic cleansing throughout the entire border belt along the Albania-Kosovo border 15,000 Albanian refugees in their own country ON PAGE 2

How the OSCE, GTZ and UNHCR failed with the NGOs “Failure is the result of the fact that humanitarian aid coming from abroad is being sold on the market, disrupting it,” the producers say ON PAGE 5

The President of Kosovo says Serbia will not retain control over foreign and defense policy ON PAGE 3

Opposition parties in Shkodër accuse the left-wing coalition and police structures of an increase in criminal acts Bushati said that local police structures in Shkodër must undergo reforms as soon as possible, to remove from the ranks of the blue uniforms the criminalized, corrupt and incapable elements that have taken over the police stations ON PAGE 3

China appears set to block international efforts in the Security Council to end the war in the former Yugoslavia by using its veto. A resolution expected to pass at the UN, drafted by the G8, providing for the withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo and the deployment of an international force, does not look likely to pass easily, even though China had previously said it would abstain. China’s reaction on the Balkan political front is particularly inappropriate. The ties between the two peoples, economic and trade exchanges, and good state-to-state relations between the two countries do not justify such a position for Albanians; it places China on the side of the aggressors, those who committed massacres over the years in Kosovo and crimes of ethnic cleansing. Everyone should know that the Republic of Albania has stood by China in the many problems it has with a number of states over which it claims sovereignty; does it deserve to be confronted with this ingratitude that China is now showing? The two million Albanians of Kosovo deserve what the international community should provide them, and China will not be able to prevent the realization of the Albanians’ rights. If ideological ties between China and Serbia form the backbone of Chinese policy, that is another matter; but humanity is not moving toward such ties and relations, much less toward relations that disregard the shared values of civilization and harmony among peoples and respect for the legitimate rights of oppressed peoples—the cause of the Albanians of Kosovo. SH. PEPOHASI

Tirana City Council honors the former American President who served from 1945 to 1953 The proposal by former President of the Republic Sali Berisha to name a square in Tirana after the founder of NATO is approved ON PAGE 2

Berisha and Pollo offer condolences to the Kaçani family in Bulqizë ON PAGE 2

Bandits drenched “Lëndina e Loteve” in blood; among the wounded was a child ON PAGE 4

Agricultural University drenched in blood A hail of bullets takes the life of a young man at the Agricultural University of Kamza ON PAGE 4

Automatic gunfire in the central neighborhood ON PAGE 4

The second book by publicist and poet Mujo Buçpapaj is launched ON PAGE 8

Today, 272 days since the murder of the Leader of December 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, which leaves the criminals who took the life of the Leader of December free and undisturbed, shows Albanians that it has been and remains on the side of the killers, who have names and identities but are untouched by those in power. Democrats and all Albanians feel that this is the failure of the left-wing government, and they can in no way tolerate this fact. The government must either finally bring the criminals to justice, or publicly declare that it itself committed the murder of Azem Hajdari.