Yesterday, an interpellation with Prime Minister Meksi about the police cordon around the Court of Cassation Chronicle While the day before it had been stated that Prime Minister Meksi would not come to Parliament to provide explanations about the police attack on the Court of Cassation requested by the opposition (because the government was supposedly busy with flood problems), yesterday morning the news came that Mr. Meksi had changed his mind, and was therefore ready for the question session. The real reasons for this sudden turn are not known, but in Parliament it was said that it might have been some phone call from Mr. Arbnori from Strasbourg, or that Meksi wanted to leave the government “without command” in the work of reducing the damage caused by the flood. Meksi appeared before the deputies to answer questions raised by the parliamentary groups of the PS and PSD. But, just as the Prime Minister responded, it would have been better for his image not to have appeared at all, even without any reason. The explanations Meksi gave (the public also learned of them through Television) were, first of all, an insult to his own person, and then also to Parliament and the Albanian public. “The Court of Cassation has never been surrounded by police,” the Prime Minister declared without answering (!) Regarding what happened at the Court of Cassation and what will be remembered as the greatest shame of the Meksi government period, the Prime Minister pretended ignorance, blowing the same pipe into the same hole as he has done before. It is understood that he “shot down” the other questions one by one in five minutes as well. For this gentleman, who is at the head of the PD, nothing has happened, nothing, nothing, nothing (!) The sensitization of public opinion about this event by the opposition media after Albania’s admission to the Council of Europe, the reactions within and outside the country to the abuse committed against the highest judicial body are, for Meksi, nothing more than something invented, a deliberate politicization. “For me everything is clear,” said the Prime Minister, “this is an irregular kind and it is detrimental to democracy.” That everything is clear for the Prime Minister is easily understood by this public, but what astonishes it is how the Prime Minister considers the abuse committed against the Court of Cassation, solely in order to keep the Chairman of the largest opposition party, Fatos Nano, in prison, to be a “kind detrimental to democracy.” His argument, (continues on page 2)

- After the People’s Assembly approved on 22.09.1995 the law “On genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Albania during communist rule for political, ideological and religious motives” and after this law was decreed by the President of the Republic, the PSD parliamentary group, in one of its meetings, decided to address the Constitutional Court for the declaration of unconstitutionality of Article 3 of this law as well as its repeal, the spokesperson of this party announces. The PSD parliamentary group considers this article unconstitutional because, according to it, this article “removes the right to choose” for a number of persons, announces the spokesperson of this party.

Meksi’s attempts to become Alexander

- Speech by the chairman of the Socialist parliamentary group, Namik Dokle Three weeks ago we requested Prime Minister Meksi before Parliament to provide explanations for the serious act against the Court of Cassation, which on 6 November found itself surrounded by police. Our questions sought to clarify: - Who ordered the police forces to surround the Court of Cassation and some of them to enter its territory by force? - Is the minister of public order aware of this event? If not, who directed the operation? - What is the role of SHIK in this event and by whom was it ordered? - Why was this police operation carried out only 6 days before the announced Plenum of the Court of Cassation on the Nano case? - If this action was undertaken because of the suspension of court decisions, what actions have been taken against ministries and other state bodies that bear the seal of the request concerning 60 percent of unimplemented decisions? - If the prohibition on entry by employees of the Court of Cassation was imposed because, as a judge, he has capital sentences, why is a similar measure not applied to the President of the Constitutional Court, who has acted in the same way as well? Regardless of the labels attached to this request, regardless of the efforts to hide or distort the truth already known in Albania and abroad, a real discussion and a civic concern of all in Parliament over this issue would at least partially save the honor of the three powers in an effort to build something good. Naturally, if such a will exists. But Meksi’s failure to come to Parliament today as well, and the government’s other actions with the help of the presidential police, led by R. Gjata, laid bare a scenario drafted in the dark corners of Berisha’s power (continues on page 2)

Written by German researcher Hans Peter Rullman Serbia had fewer than it had more than 900 thousand inhabitants, while Albania had 1 million and 600 thousand. In the middle of the past century there were more Albanians than Greeks, and twice as many Albanians as Serbs. But Albanians have been systematically exterminated by the Serbs. Page 12

Written by the German newspaper "Badishe Cajtung" With freedom came economic decline as well. When, 5 years ago, Albania was freed from the communist dictatorship, from one day to the next the economy, which was already rotten anyway, collapsed completely. Since then factories and granaries have been continuously destroyed, canals have been filled in again, and the wells that used to produce oil now stand largely silent... ...Hundreds of thousands out of the 3.5 million Albanians are trying to find their destiny in foreign countries, most of them attempting to reach neighboring Greece. Engineers and doctors harvest watermelons in the fields of Greek peasants... Page 3