THE GOVERNMENT MEKSI’S “GIFT” As reports from Albanian Radio and Television inform us, at the meeting held the day before yesterday it was decided to increase the price of electricity used by citizens. The increase will be one and a half lekë per kilowatt-hour for electricity consumed beyond the permitted allowance during the period April–October of this year, and three lekë per kilowatt-hour for the period November 1993–March 1994. This is the “gift” the Meksi government gives workers three days after the May Day holiday. This measure is being taken to fill the government coffers with the increased price of electricity. Particularly worrying is the increase in the price of electricity for the coming winter period. In any case, the government is notifying its citizens in good time, so that during the summer they can take measures to buy kerosene stoves and not be caught unprepared next winter. Correspondent of “Zëri i Popullit”

In such a situation of violence and pressure, the entire parliament is completely unsafe and unprotected. Let us hope and strive to emerge from this situation and for those responsible to receive the punishment they deserve.

FATOS NANO DECLARES: This mess, cooked up in anti-Albanian kitchens and by the lobbies connected to them, which use Çela as a tool and people used by this hall as the soldier Svejk, can do nothing but stink; but, unfortunately, it has not been swallowed by Mr. Çela alone. Mr. Speaker! Honourable colleagues! It would be normal for me to begin my speech by thanking you for giving me the floor. But to tell

Statement by the MP Statement by MP Shkëlqim Cani Honourable colleagues, I thank you for the opportunity you have finally given me to speak about several matters raised in the material read by Mr. Blerim Çela. The issues dealt with in the material concern events and activities I carried out two years ago. In order to understand them on the basis of the original documents, I immediately took the necessary steps, submitting a written request to the Presidium of the Assembly to make these documents available to me. Some of the materials have not been given to me. In view of the above, my nature would prefer calm and a reply based on documents. But the periodic provocations every two months by Parliament, the government, RTV and the newspapers on the same issue, but with a worsening and staging of facts and interpretations, and with an intensity that keeps increasing in these provocations, compel me to debate. As I understand it, my efforts to know and accept Albanian reality as it is, to avoid inciting extremism, understanding that tomorrow and the bloodthirstiness will bring matters before us with reason, and the discussions and concessions I have made with a measure of understanding, have not been understood. On the contrary, they have been taken as signs of weakness. No, gentlemen. With my silence I warned you not to provoke me, since I have not harassed you over matters that I thought could be put right or were the result of ignorance. I took many things to be evils of the transition we are going through. But apparently it was not to be, because some people, burdened by the guilt complex of the dictatorship of the proletariat, are trying to make me part of the democratising element of a part of this community. And the cleaner [?]. Even without seeing the source materials to which Smerdimi i [??]të refers, and although other materials may exist but have deliberately not been taken into consideration, I declare before the Assembly and public opinion that at all times, honestly, country. I state with conviction and authority that there is not a single stain or dark corner in the work I have carried out, and in the work I have carried out, honourable colleagues! Before I go into explaining the specific issues directly connected with my work as bank director and deputy prime minister, allow me briefly to mention two matters in which our work was successful. First, not to justify the faults of anyone, but to provide a realistic and impartial account of everything in the circumstances and conditions in which events unfolded on the ground being analysed, one would need to recall several moments from the period February–May 1991. Thus, we must not forget that three governments were formed, an election campaign was faced, strikes were uninterrupted, the ports and transport as a whole were almost paralysed, the exodus was the order of the day, and thefts were on such a large scale that at every meeting we discussed assigning a police officer to guard every vehicle carrying food, wheat or aid. At that time the party struggle had been taken over (Continued on page 3)

After a week-long blockade, the Albanian parliament began its work late Wednesday afternoon in a plenary session. The plenary session was chaired by Mr. Pjetër Arbnori himself. For a week, the PD mill, with all its grinding stones—RTV, RD, numerous meetings and gatherings—had been grinding that crop of lies and had thrown Blerim Çela into it. For a week, the PD group, the “champion” of the defence of human rights in Albania, had left no means unused in its effort to silence Fatos Nano and Shkëlqim Cani. The PS group was resolute in its rightful demand that Fatos Nano be given the floor. Ali Spahia and Co. were equally determined to violate democracy in parliament. Nevertheless, the session began. Mr. Pjetër gives the floor to Fatos Nano, who, with a file under his arm, heads for the rostrum. After a brief hesitation, Mr. Pjetër allows Fatos Nano to speak at the rostrum as he wishes. We look towards Ali Spahia’s group and, strangely, see no reaction, no serious objection. When did these people become so meek and tolerant? Until then they had not wanted to let Nano speak before the Assembly at all. F. Nano’s appearance at the rostrum is greeted with applause from the Socialist MPs, while the opposition remains silent. What F. Nano was thinking at that moment, we cannot say; it is that he was not at all sure he would be given the floor. What could they do? They had received their instructions from someone else. As is known, all military regulations state: “The superior’s order is the law for subordinates.” Everyone knows that most PD MPs act on orders coming from forces outside parliament. The latest incident is not merely a fresh confirmation of this reality; it also shows who the true authors and scriptwriters of Blerim Çela’s plot are. Fatos Nano’s taking the floor at the rostrum of the People’s Assembly was a victory not only for the PS parliamentary group but for the entire Socialist Party in its struggle for democracy. This was achieved thanks to the cohesion of this group in defending a just cause, and the broad support and encouragement of the entire party grassroots and the country’s healthy public opinion. However worthless and baseless the material presented to the Assembly may be, B. Çela and those behind him should be thanked wholeheartedly. They have accomplished quite a lot by shaking the Socialist MPs’ group, the party leadership and the entire party out of its lethargy, even if only a little— (Continued on page 3)

Mr. Speaker! Honourable colleagues! It would be normal for me to begin my speech by thanking you for giving me the floor. the floor. But to tell the truth, I find it difficult to thank you, especially Mr. Malasi, who for almost a whole week has turned the Albanian Parliament into a hall of the most monstrous slanders and accusations, violating the law and the rules, culminating in the military, violent and shameful usurpation of this temple of democracy. All this while denying me the floor as an MP, as the chairman of a party whose weight you know, and as a person, immediately after the law on fundamental human rights was passed. Does that seem at all abnormal to you? What human rights can the Albanian people be guaranteed under these conditions? In such a situation of pressure and violence, not only am I, but those responsible to receive the punishment they deserve. Honourable colleagues! I stand before you and have insisted on taking the floor in order to speak the truth in response to a series of pseudo-accusations and the vilest slanders, which for almost two or three weeks, and especially in Mr. Çela’s so-called interpellation, have been levelled at me, the Government I led, and the Socialist Party that I legitimately lead. Therefore, from the outset I must declare before the Albanian Parliament and, through it, before the entire people, with full personal, civil, civic and political responsibility, that the pseudo-accusations and slanders presented in Blerim Çela’s material and by his company are nothing but a politically and electorally staged set-up, with malicious and base aims: to liquidate and restrict the political and even physical freedom of the PS, its chairman, politically, and the genuine opposition in today’s Albania, whose electoral support has grown undeniably. I therefore call on those involved in this plot to calculate things correctly to the end. lobbies connected to them, who use Çela as a tool and the people used by this hall as the soldier Zhevjek, been swallowed by Mr. Çela alone. With political and professional ineptitude [?], Blerim and his team unleashed the smoke bomb of “Nano’s corruption” and that of his government. In official declarations by the national governing bodies of the PSSH, at press conferences, and today before you, I repeat in the name of the Socialists that neither I nor the Government I led for three months, from 25 February 1991 to 4 June of that year, are implicated in any kind of corruption, including that connected with the handling of Italian emergency aid, for which I again express my gratitude to the Italian people and state. Therefore, I say to you face to face, and to the people, to Blerim Çela and anyone else: Do not slander, do not deceive, you who have been deceived, because you will answer for this and you too will soon have to give account. I am here, more responsible than ever for the fate of Democratic Albania. If you have a fact or a document showing that my comrades and I stole, come forward, Blerim, and produce it here—but you have nothing, because we have never been involved in such vile acts, for which shame will cover you and your comrades, who will abandon you tomorrow! This is why Mr. Çela suffered the first failure of this pseudo-accusation in only three days, just as he has suffered it over dozens of other shameful scandals of his; so he was instructed. Therefore, as it has been put, you have filled your trousers and are trying to move from pseudo-accusations of corruption to pseudo-accusations of negligence and failure to perform your duty, as you did last night on the television roundtable, on the orders of the PD’s phantom council and Mr. Selami. I repeat, to you and the other adventurers, declaring before the people that the Government I led, which included many devoted and respected figures of the Socialist Party and its parliamentary group, true Albanians, worked through very important and difficult political, economic and social moments connected with the overthrow of the old regime; the beginning of political pluralism, the popular revolt, the general strikes, the mass exodus, and the paralysis of the basic structures of the economy and of people’s supplies. The fundamental characteristic of its work was honesty and sacrifice, to ease as much as possible the hardships at the beginning of the transition, administering things with the greatest possible correctness (Continued from page 2)

From the day’s work at the police The night before last, through television, we learned that the Minister of Public Order (Muçara) was awarded a foreign decoration. This decoration, for what [?] is known, is awarded for special merits. In this particular case, for our minister, «urundi» should be thanked for such merits. The first reason is ...

NATIONAL LIBRARY TIRANA

On Friday, May 7, 1993, at 18:00, a peaceful rally will be held in the Square in front of the «Dinamo» Stadium in the Capital to protest against the Government’s measures to place the burden of the economic crisis on the backs of the underprivileged sections of the people. Members and supporters of the Socialist Party, trade unionists, young eurosocialist men and women, women, students, workers engaged in work and production, employees receiving assistance, those without assistance, the unemployed, private-sector workers, freelancers, pensioners, and other citizens are invited to attend. The Steering Committee of the Socialist Party of the city of Tirana May 4, 1993

On May 8 at 10:00, the National Conference of Eurosocialist Student Youth will hold its proceedings in one of the halls of the Palace of Congresses. It will meet to discuss the following three main issues: - Modernization of the university education system. - Students’ economic and social problems. - Eurosocialist youth and the alternative of democratic socialism. The conference is being organized by the FRESSH Presidency. Representatives from all the universities in the country, as well as members of the FRESSH KD, will take part. Intellectuals renowned in the fields of education and culture are also invited. FRESSH spokesperson