FATOS NANO: «Our political struggle must also be transplanted into Parliament; therefore, we must return there» 28.08.93 We will go to Parliament to mark a new phase in the political struggle to defend democracy Speech delivered by the party’s deputy chairman NAMIK DOKLE Yesterday, under the direction of Servet Pëllumbi, deputy chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania, a joint meeting was held of the party’s General Steering Committee and its MPs. The agenda included an analysis of the recent political situation and the determination of the party’s political-struggle course. In this context, the meeting considered the future position of its parliamentary group. The first to speak was the SP deputy chairman and head of its parliamentary group, Namik Dokle, who, on behalf of the party leadership, presented an overview of the country’s current political and social situation and outlined several possible courses and forms of the party’s struggle in the future. In his speech, on behalf of the party leadership, he presented the arguments and counterarguments concerning the parliamentary group’s future position, namely… Comrades, Recently we have been meeting more often and have carried out several political analyses of the situations the country is going through. This has been right, because the intensity of the attacks against the Socialist Party by the machinery of power has increased and grown more vicious. It is a misfortune—[?] for us, who represent the alternative of the European left in Albania—that the instruments of this machinery, which served the extreme factions during the years of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, are adding new forms of privatization, almost on the same scale and of the same dimensions. This is hardly noticeable among those ordinary people who suffered the ordeal of the class struggle, but it is evident among those who did or did not suffer that ordeal and are now in power. Highlighting the suffering caused by dictatorship is both just and humane. But turning that… These attacks had clear aims: to eliminate the real opposition in Albania and maintain an opposition that served as a fan for the authorities, to be used at home and especially abroad, adding to the world’s rhetoric the delegations that come and go. But thanks to the wise activity of our Party and the open political struggle it wages, thanks also to some mature actions by other political forces such as PUK, PAD, PSD, PER, etc., which at certain moments, in keeping with their programmes, exposed or opposed the troubled government of the Berisha–Meksi–Arbnori group, and especially thanks to the popular resistance against the establishment of a new dictatorship, these attacks were withstood. It is evident that the Socialist Party has emerged from the political struggle waged to date stronger, more consolidated and clearer in its programme of action. It now enjoys such massive support as we could not even have imagined a year ago. It is worth recalling or noting the 36-minute videotape we have of the 30 July rally in Tirana, as well as many other similar actions in the districts. Perhaps [the situation?] has awakened somewhat to open the curtain on a new situation in the political struggle now taking shape in Albania. Its central theme is the political elimination of the Socialist Party. The whole council must be of one mind. But judging by concrete actions, it is clear that there are forces inside and outside Albania that want, contemplate and plan such a thing. Indeed, they do it with great malice, describing our activity as “destructive, hostile, anti-national” and “adventurist,” or as an “attempt to seize power so that the communist system can be swallowed up,” while using police means and attacks to prevent… (Continued on page 4) …Others are: Rarely, if ever, has a party in 17 months achieved what the PD did with its programme. Why is the President right? The PD crowned its victory after total destruction in every aspect of political and economic life, aspects of which the people now know very well. General psychological terror has spread into every cell of the country’s life; arrests and imprisonment have become the basic methods for the PD to preserve its present power. Investigators, prosecutors and courts have been turned into partisan tools of the government. Legislation and propaganda have returned to the scene and, by coincidence, the first people sentenced under this law were the President’s political opponents. Eliminating democratic alternatives has now become the PD’s sole objective, to which it has devoted all its energy and strength. The country’s foreign policy, devised by the party in power and left in the hands of amateurs, cannot find its direction; and when it does move, it only makes mistakes. Our current policy in the international arena has not adopted a predetermined platform even on our national question. The President is right because it is rare—perhaps only in dictatorships—that human rights are trampled as they are here, and that so many innocent people are arrested simply because they protest injustice. The PD has indeed done something exceptional, because nowhere else has the economy been brought to such levels; all factories and plants were closed in the name of the PD’s economic reform. It is truly rare that in two years not a single brick has been laid to provide housing for the homeless, while the homeless have remained homeless, the unschooled have remained unschooled, and the hungry have remained as they were. Mr President, although you may find this hard to accept, it is a fact that people are going hungry. Of all the countries where such transformations have taken place, ours alone has attracted no serious company to invest, and it is a fact that some of those that have come have had only one aim: to rob us. The relationship between wages and prices is now beyond the state’s control, and inflation is not zero, nor is it as declared, because bank statistics show a different reality. The reform being carried out in the Albanian army is unparalleled in other countries: people have been dismissed from their jobs for political reasons, and no professional specialist has ever been appointed. Whether the President of the Republic and the Democratic Party like it or not, Albania’s present reality is much bleaker. And the only ones responsible for this situation are the PD and those who act according to its programme. Whether or not you take up the defence, Mr President, does not matter much, because such words fall on deaf ears, while the people are bearing the consequences of what you rightly said no other party had done. ARDIAN MYSLIMI …on behalf of the party leadership, struggle in the future. In his speech, he presented on behalf of the party leadership namely its participation in the new session of Parliament. The PDSH answered questions put by participants. A broad and open debate on these problems took place at the Committee meeting, with the participation of a large number of members of the Steering Committee and the parliamentary group. The first to speak was Dritëro Agolli, a member of the SP leadership. In his speech he gave arguments for the return of the SP parliamentary group to Parliament. “If we continue not to go to Parliament,” D. Agolli said, among other things, “it will mean leaving all the power to the extremists and revanchists. When we left Parliament, the revanchists had only just begun their charge; after our departure, this revanchism turned into a gallop. To return to Parliament means strengthening the political struggle, but it also shows that we are tolerant.” He also spoke about the need for flexibility in the party’s political struggle. MP Mëkhlom Zego said: “I agree to return to Parliament, and this is a completely moral action for us to take. Leaving Parliament is a tactical manifestation of the party’s struggle and must never be turned into a strategy,” he said. SP leadership member Bashkim Zeneli informed the meeting about the work done by the SP leadership to inform and sensitize foreign public opinion about the unlawful imprisonment of the Socialist Party chairman, Fatos Nano, for political reasons. Mr Mano, … Tir Zela presented arguments for the parliamentary group’s return to Parliament. “In Parliament, the party can gain at least something in its political struggle,” he said. “In Parliament, not only the chairman is defended, but also all the other sections of society that support the SP and defend their new rights.” He also spoke of the need to raise the SP’s unity to a new level in terms of organization and more effective action. The chairman of the District Council of Vlora … the party’s action is entirely moral for us to undertake. The chairman of the SP in the Tepelena district said in his speech that, as for Parliament, at the time of its birth… power has increased and become more aggressive. It is perhaps European left in Albania, that the instruments of this machinery have worn out so quickly, its lines have rusted and its grinding can be heard from the bend. Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant, because the roads of democracy have narrowed considerably and this aggressive machine has taken it into its head to crush its opponents. Moreover, Albania’s situation has reached a crossroads. Instead of passing through the transition with as little pain and conflict as possible, with human solidarity and without political revenge, the opposite has happened here. The country is experiencing a comprehensive political, economic, moral and psychological crisis. There are half a million unemployed; wages are very low, prices very high, political conflict is at the extreme, the rule-of-law state has been paralysed, and everything operates according to the orders of the party in power and the factional struggles within that power. The revanchist faction is particularly active, attacking diversity within the PD itself and every political action by the opposition. We recall that, at the beginning of the establishment of democratic order, the people believed in the principles of justice, the rule of law and political pluralism. But the political class that contributed most to overthrowing the totalitarian order was pushed aside, and people politically connected to the old and new dictatorship came to lead the state, with those groups, those interests and those experiences from whose stage Albanians had departed in 1944. These brought political entanglements and revenge to Albania, taking shape as class revenge… The chairman of the District Council of Vlora … The chairman of our parliamentary group … …the reasons for our temporary departure and our temporary refusal. The districts of Tirana, Korçë, Delvinë, Kuçovë and Berat are better placed in this respect. G. Ruçi presented arguments for returning to Parliament. SP leadership member Fatri S. … joined the debate and, agreeing with a return to Parliament, said that explanatory work with the masses, members and sympathizers was necessary to clarify the need for such an action. The chairman of the District Council of Përmet, Tahir Koloçi, reported on the work done by the party in this district at the recent meeting of the General Steering Committee. The number of signatures on the petition exceeds … (Continued on page 2) …of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, adds dimensions.” This hurts most not the but is both just and humane. But turning it into a “trump card” for all kinds of charlatans, fraudsters and thieves is as unjust as it is inhuman. It is inhuman because collective human suffering is insulted when it is used to inflict the same collective human suffering, solely so that some can remain free to be corrupt ministers, swaggering generals, mafia-like heads of associations bearing honourable names, traffickers of every kind, bureaucrats of Russian extraction [?], and fraudulent customs officers. This usurpation is turning the Albanian political landscape into a scheme for the entrenchment of old cliques, attacking new groups—in other words, revanchism is emerging as a political instrument for retaining power. That is why efforts are being made in Albania today to attack the diversity of alternatives, in defiance of logic. It is for the same reason that this diversity was first attacked with unprecedented ferocity within the PD itself, eliminating its original leaders and leaving only one of them (and perhaps even him only temporarily): Sali Berisha. Then the attack continued with the same ferocity, but on a pan-governmental scale, against the Socialist Party, especially after the elections of 26 July. The culmination of this attack was the arrest of our party chairman, Fatos Nano, an act preceded and followed by numerous other political arrests and trials, brutal police actions, and violations of the rights of the opposition and the individual, of the independence of the judicial bodies and of the free press. …how is this whole process connected? Our political refusal and our political opposition—we must proceed along the path of illegal party interventions, as in elections and in legal institutions. In it, … on a new phase of be seized”—using police means and attacks by PD firecracker-throwers to prevent our legal activities in many… (Continued on page 4)

From the press conference Unintentionally, the President told the truth about his beloved party. At yesterday’s press conference, among other things—which will be the subject of other articles—he said: “Rarely has any its programme.” But aspects the people now… The entire population has been made unemployed; the streets everywhere are full of unemployed young men and women, because all the PD’s economic reform. But one fact is truly rare: for build homes for the homeless; they have remained homeless, and those without schooling have remained without schooling—

At the head of the committee for political expulsions is the music teacher and “biologist” (a biologist for genocide), the political chief of the village, Sali Dardha, chairman of the independent education trade union. On 24 August 1993, the Berat Education Directorate, by decision of the Democratic Party’s education committee, announced the political expulsion of teachers who were Socialists or Socialist sympathizers, assigning them to villages in the district regardless of their family circumstances, postgraduate qualifications, professional ability, years of service or medical reports. Teachers from the town were assigned to villages, and those from municipal centres to the most remote outskirts of their municipalities. This is therefore contrary to government decisions on transfers from one district to another, which require a decision of the district council, and on transfers within a district, which require the approval of the municipalities. Has any government, better than the present one, ever carried out such a transfer of personnel? Neither Vidi’s, nor Zog’s, nor Mustafa Merlika’s. About 400 teachers from the town and the countryside were affected by this political-expulsion decision. And they are carrying out this expulsion by… (Continued on page 2)

Letter from the Bulgarian Socialist Party WE ARE COMPLETELY CONVINCED OF FATOS NANO’S INNOCENCE General Steering Committee of the Socialist Party Dear comrades, We learned with great concern, through your official documents and other sources of information, of the catastrophic situation and general political crisis in Albania, as well as the extremist actions of those in power, who are using terror and unjustified arrests, including the lifting of parliamentary immunity and the arrest of Fatos Nano, chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania. All this is painfully familiar to us Bulgarian Socialists from the conduct and actions of our political opponents. We are deeply convinced—and practice confirms this—that all of it is a clear demonstration solely of the inability of those in power and the parliamentary majority to resolve the problems of the transition. With the aim of diverting attention from the difficulties and failures of governance, the extreme right escalates the political struggle to the point of brutal confrontations. It launches slander campaigns, exercises repression and deprives political opponents of their freedom. All this speaks only of their end, which they are now experiencing. The Bulgarian Socialist Party condemns this vile conduct by political opponents. It is contrary to every moral and legal norm and is severely condemnable also internationally. It is essential that both our societies, yours and ours, firmly uphold the democratic principles and universal political and legal norms of civilized states governed by the rule of law. Otherwise, the objectives of the transition will never be realized. Both our parties have been intermediaries and steadfast supporters of the tasks of the transition. Please convey our warmest greetings to chairman Fatos Nano, whose innocence we are completely convinced of. We wish you success in your just struggle for the democratic transformation of Albanian society. Nora Ananieva Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Group of the Social Democrats Jean Videnov Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party Sofia, 18.08.1993