Our Albania is moving forward resolutely along the socialist road. The essential thing is that it is a free and independent country, a country with a solid internal situation, where the people are masters of their own destiny.

. We who typeset the newspapers every day. We are three typographers at the «Bashkimi» printing house. Our job is to set in type the wishes, joys, and concerns of our people. Naturally, we rejoice and our hearts swell with pride when we typeset newspaper articles by our contributors that speak of our powerful transformations. And there have been many such joys... A few days ago, we happily typeset Comrade Ramiz Alia’s speech at the meeting he held with the workers of the «Enver Hoxha» Automobile and Tractor Plant. We began talking among ourselves about the line, about the courage of our Party. We also talked about the slanders and fabrications cooked up in TANJUG’s «kitchen». We have known for years how shameless the Yugoslav press is, but this time we said, all outraged: «How low they have sunk against...», «Keep slandering, keep slandering, and you’ll end up eating your own heads...». We typographers join our voices with those of all the people who speak and write indignantly about the hotheads among the Serbian chauvinists who have fallen to our lot as neighbours; we join our voices against all those who take the fairy tales for truth. And when we learn of these tasteless fabrications, we are both outraged and amused, but at the same time we set ourselves a task: «to work and remain vigilant». The press of our Party is as pure as sunlight. Together with our newspapers, whose journalists are militant publicists and upright citizens, we will work harder every day to preserve this purity, which opens the eyes of the people and blinds our enemies. We will work so that the Party’s word reaches as quickly as possible the worker in the factory, the soldier at the border, the shepherd on the mountain peak... The truth is precious to us, too, and we defend it with our sweat, but, if need be, also with our blood, with our lives. We are made unyielding by the great cause for which we poured lead into the linotype—the cause of socialism that we are building and defending. IBRAHIM BRAHO EDMOND DUKA ILIR ALIMEMETI, typographers

— DIBËR — The day before yesterday, in Peshkopi, when we went to visit a family, something unusual happened with the head of the household, Ramadan Doci[n], a worker who has spent his whole life working on the construction projects of socialism: Ramadan cannot sleep; he is troubled. Yet, on this particular occasion, he wanted to speak, to talk at length. And so that we could better understand what he wanted to say, he got up and brought a letter, which he had written to Beqir, his eldest son, who is on duty in Tropojë. We asked him if we could publish part of it in the newspaper. «All the better,» he replied, «let my daughters in Tirana read it too, along with my grandsons and granddaughters—anyone who wants to.» Among other things, he writes: «I called your younger brother, Ali, and I’m writing you this letter because those slanders we heard have angered us greatly. Two comrades came to visit us, Ramadan Uka and Ahmet Laçi. We talked for a long time. Here in Dibër we are used to the lies and slanders of the chauvinists, who want to see us as they please. They have made themselves a laughingstock. Anyway, whatever they say, they cannot divert us from our righteous path. You remember the Krraba tunnel, Vau i Dejës, Kruja, Kopliku, Seta—all those places where I worked with my comrades and friends. The sweat we shed became the source of our well-being and prosperity. Once again, we are following this road with the Party, and once again we will raise our country higher.» I looked for Haziz Ndreu these past few days. He wasn’t here. I thought we could sing together that song about Hajredin Pasha. He with his voice and I with my heart. He left 12 thousand soldiers on the field of Gjorica back then, the enemy. You know the song of Elez Isufi, and of Suf Xhelili, and all the other tales of bravery. You know the history even better, since you learned it at school. Don’t forget that where you are, at the border, both songs and history are loaded rifles for the homeland. I mentioned these things because I wanted to tell you something else. A writer came to our house a few days ago. We also talked about the slanders being spread about Albania (Continued on page 2)

Whenever the Albanian people have refused to submit to imperialist and chauvinist powers, and have defended with determination and courage their freedom, independence and national sovereignty, their enemies have unleashed upon them a barrage of the most unprecedented slanders and fabrications, similar to those being undertaken in our days by the propaganda organs of Belgrade and certain Western countries. Serbian chauvinists and chauvinists from other countries called Albanians savage, barbaric and primitive in their propaganda even when, in 1878–1881, they rose up under the leadership of the League of Prizren to defend their native lands from partition, to establish a national and independent state, and to set out on the road to progress and European civilization. In the name of the struggle to “protect” the Christian peoples of the Balkans from Albanian abuses, the monarchs of Serbia, Montenegro and Greece committed the most barbaric and monstrous crimes against the Albanian people during the Balkan War years (1912–1913), crimes difficult to find even in the darkest centuries of the Middle Ages; they tried to liquidate the Vlora government and the Independent Albanian State. The Albanian people also emerged victorious in the face of new enemies, the neighboring imperialist and chauvinist powers. History’s annals record the Serbian army’s retreat from the Albanian coast in 1915, leaving behind, besides burned villages, the graves of Serbian soldiers and the hatred of Albanians toward Serbian chauvinism. In the face of the Albanian people’s passionate love of their Homeland’s freedom and independence, and their determination to defend their national identity, language and culture, all the chauvinist schemes of Serbia’s Pashiqs, Karadjordjevics, Čubrillovićs and Andrićs to liquidate the Albanian state and denationalize the Albanian population of Kosovo and all of Yugoslavia were defeated. It is not easy to defy the history of peoples. Although it belongs to the past, it serves their present and future. Only the Miloševićs, blinded by Greater Serbian chauvinism, refuse to learn lessons from history and from Albanian-Yugoslav relations. How can one change things today by relying on slanders and fabrications that continue the long-standing positions of Serbian propaganda, by openly distorting the reality in the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, and by diverting the Albanian people, who have become masters of their own destiny, from the path of socialism, independence and national sovereignty?

- SHKODRA - Indignant at the slanders of Belgrade and Titograd, Shkodra expresses its anger in its own way—with seriousness and hard work, and with wise, thoughtful words. We discuss this with playwright Fadil Kraja, who tells us: “We are the people of this land; we are Tarabosh and Maranaj too. All our lives we have fought for freedom and independence, and faced the treachery of the Serbian kings and Greater Serbian chauvinists. We have never tolerated their evil, even when the homeland’s borders were being shifted. We stood up to them when Albania was threatened with centuries-long enslavement, when ‘Shkodra was battered by a raging storm, the song, and all the more so was scor-’ (Continued on page 2) “Don’t block my ray of sunshine, or it will scorch you,”

Yesterday in Tirana, the protocol on the exchange of goods and payments for 1990 between the Government of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Government of Romania was signed. For the Albanian side, it was signed by Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade Altin Ylli, and for the Romanian side by Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and International Economic Cooperation Stefan Stanku. The Romanian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to our country, Gheorghe Pop, also attended the signing ceremony. The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania will export chromium ore, ferro- (Continued on page 4)

Albania’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muhamet Kapllani, will visit Ankara on January 24. On this occasion, he will hold talks at Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the friendly relations existing between the two countries and their further development. They will also discuss issues of Balkan cooperation, as well as other international problems. (ATSH)

During his stay in our country, Italian Senator Xhulio Orlando, a member of the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, was received by Farudin Hoxha, Chairman of the Committee for Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries. They discussed trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. The Italian senator visited historical and cultural sites in the cities of Tirana and Berat. He then left our country. At Rinas Airport, he was seen off by Prof. Sofokli Lazri, Director of the Institute for the Study of International Relations. (ATSH)

Yesterday, a regular Korçë–Istanbul passenger bus service was inaugurated in the city of Korçë. This service operates under the Road Transport Agreement signed between the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Republic of Turkey. It will serve to transport citizens and tourists from Albania to Turkey and vice versa. The first bus carrying passengers traveling from Istanbul arrived in the city of Korçë. On this occasion, the Executive Committee of the People’s Council of the Korçë district hosted a reception attended by local authorities, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Transport, and other comrades. Also present was Turkey’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Tirana, Teoman Sür. A similar ceremony was held in Istanbul, attended by journalists, Turkish citizens, and Enver Zeneli, Consul General of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania in Istanbul. (ATSH)

Last night, the ballet company of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet gave its first performance of the ballet «Giselle» in the hall of the «Sme- Last night, the ballet company of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet gave its first performance of the ballet «Giselle» in the hall of the «Smeraldo» Theatre, as part of the tour it will undertake in Milan and Pavia. Among the 12,000 spectators filling the theatre hall were also many figures from the arts and culture in Milan. (Continued on page 4)

THE MACHINERY ASSEMBLY BRIGADE AT THE FIER BRIDGE FACTORY. (Photomontage by Niko Xhufka) THE MACHINERY ASSEMBLY BRIGADE AT THE FIER BRIDGE FACTORY. (Photomontage by Niko Xhufka)