After Çaushi's killing, the Çole neighborhood under a hail of gunfire ON PAGE 4

Albanians mistreated by Greek police and their documents torn up ON PAGE 4

By Lazër STANI The story of the Albanian Aleksandër Pangramësisë, Albanian driver of a Greek bus, has ended tragically. At daybreak on Thursday, bullets did not spare the life of the young Albanian, who had held seven Greek citizens hostage for 38 hours. The young man, as was reported by the media in the final hours of Thursday, had embarked on this adventure to right the injustices done to him: physical abuse and the withholding by a Greek bank of the money he had earned over nine years of work. No further details have been provided for now. This is the second case in recent months in which Albanians have taken buses carrying Greek passengers hostage. Both cases ended tragically, with the deaths of the hostage-takers. There is a history behind the Albanian hostage-takers, if we do not question any of the information officially disseminated by the public media. This is understandable: no one in Albania supports such punishable acts. Terrorism must receive the response it deserves, regardless of the terrorists' nationality or identity. But the fact must be examined: why are Albanian citizens in Greece so inclined to commit such criminal acts? The truth is that for years the Greek media have manipulated Greek public opinion by portraying Albanians as terrorists, criminals, bandits and thieves. The Greek media and politicians have tried to generalize individual cases (such elements exist in every people), turning them into supposed characteristics of Albanians. In this climate of malicious, fundamentally anti-Albanian propaganda, Greeks fostered Albanophobia and primitive racism. For nine years, hundreds of thousands of Albanians have worked in Greece for low wages, without any kind of insurance or support from the Greek state. For nine years, Albanians have been mistreated by Greek employers; their hard-earned money is often withheld, and they are rarely registered by the Greek police, solely because they are Albanian. No other community of emigrants working and temporarily living in Greece has been insulted, humiliated and mistreated like the Albanians. Albanians are forced to change their names to obtain a visa and, consequently, a job in Greece; their valid documents have often been torn up and they have been turned back at the border, beaten and mistreated, treated as if they were not human beings. Such an attitude by Greece toward Albanians could not fail to stir opposition in Albanian hearts. Today it is difficult to find an Albanian who has worked in Greece for several years and feels even a little sympathy for that country. Negative emotions even go so far as contempt for and rejection of Greeks. This has been the result of the attitude of the media and politicians toward Albanian emigrants—people who went to that country to secure a somewhat better standard of living for themselves and their poor families in Albania. The mistreatment of Albanian economic emigrants has been the only policy pursued by Greek governments over these nine years. During these nine years, whenever Athens was displeased with the policies of the official Tirana government, the refugee card was played. During the five years that the Democratic Party was in power, the Greek police periodically carried out the so-called “Broom” operations. The economic-emigrant card was used cynically to exert political pressure on Tirana. By inventing problems concerning the so-called “Greek minority” in southern Albania—a Greek economic community settled in the south in the previous century, on the lands of Albanian landowners—they pressured Tirana over legitimate minority rights. They did not seek rights in order to create problems for Albania, taking advantage of its integration into Euro-Atlantic structures and its strong ties with Western institutions. A certain myth about the Greeks, created among Europeans by the authority of ancient Greek culture—which today's Greeks often have only weak ties to—also played a role here. Albanians have undoubtedly been in the right in all the conflicts they have had with Greeks. But they have not always had sufficient means to defend that right. The Greek minority in Albania has not only never been persecuted, but has been privileged. Even when Albania was ruled by the harsh dictatorship and persecuted Albanians, while the people of Kosovo were viewed with suspicion and imprisoned and intellectuals were persecuted, the Greek minority remained the privileged community in education, administration and standard of living. (Continued on page 2)

The US Ambassador in Tirana again at the PD headquarters. The chairman of the Democratic Party also meets with the American ambassador to the Vatican ON PAGE 3

“Union for Democracy” reiterates its demand for a political solution . “The scandal of a Greek company that bought a government department under Majko for 500,000 dollars shows that corruption in Albania is apparently legalized. ON PAGE 3

Former PS chairman attacks the opposing clan again ON PAGE 2

Today, 301 days since the murder of the December Leader . The government protects the killers of Azem Hajdari. 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 successors in the shocking crime that has shaken the entire Albanian world. The government of his collaborators and Albanian world. The government of his collaborators, who took the life of the December Leader, show Albanians that they have been and still are killers, that they even have proper names, but are untouched by those in power. The government must either declare guilty those who carried out the murder of Azem Hajdari. [Part cut off at the end] Photograph of Azem Hajdari

Delegates and guests of the Special Assembly are hereby informed that the Assembly will be held today, 17 July 1999, at 10:00, in the hall of the Opera and Ballet Theatre.

The Tirana Municipality is drawing up lists of people who will receive homes through the housing loan program . Tirana: 1,200 people are waiting for the homes they lost. ON PAGE 5 Tomorrow, exclusively in “RD”, the lists of people who will receive loans for homes lost through the pyramid schemes

. Customs, a breeding ground for corruption Angjeli speaks about customs in the old tone

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Polls predict the rise to power of the “Pole of Freedom” Polls predict the rise to power of the “Pole of Freedom.” The Italian right on course to win the election. ON PAGE 6