The Socialist Party Chairman Fatos Nano responds to the provocative decision by the DP and Berisha The Socialists do not answer threats with threats On this basis, the prime minister, with the consensus of the parties that make it up and with the support of the opposition, Vranc-ki and other international actors, returned to negotiations and to all efforts to establish a law and an infrastructure of their own that would secure everyone’s consensus, rather than a situation that has divided the parties. — Mr. Nano, the President of the Republic is to decree the dissolution of Parliament today and has meanwhile announced the election date; the law has also been approved. Will the elections be held under this law? I understand that the President of the Republic will go to the extreme[cut off at the bottom of the page] of abusing his institutional power. I know the Constitution well and am convinced that there are still ways to return to the point of consensus, which is closer than the extreme the president has reached. — So the Socialists will forget their threat not to stand in the elections? The Socialists do not answer threats with threats, and they have not yet said that they will not take part in the elections, since we hope the process will be normalized. (BBC, 14.5.1997)

A chilling testimony from the pyramid of state crime: Further proof of the criminal involvement of Berisha’s Deputy Minister of the Interior. The plan aimed at the physical elimination of Socialist leader Fatos Nano and his fellow... Further proof of the criminal involvement of Berisha’s Deputy Minister of the Interior. The plan aimed at the physical elimination of Socialist leader Fatos Nano and his fellow[the text continues beyond the image boundary]

The Democratic Party and its leader Berisha carried out another attack against truncated democracy by secretly approving in Parliament what was supposedly a draft law for the upcoming elections. This maneuver, whose authors are Arbnori and Spahia, two of the most loyal figures still remaining to the head of state in his inglorious final days, places the entire parliamentary group of this party in the position of a preparatory game, al[the text continues beyond the image boundary]though the voting result by which the law in question was approved was pitiful in terms of attendance, at a time when the other parties had abandoned Parliament. The approval of this law is Berisha’s final challenge to the international community, which is greatly interested in restoring normal conditions to the processes of building democracy in our country, as well as to all the genuine democratic forces in the country. With this step, Berisha and his clan show that they have made political adventurism a way of behaving, through a politics of bluffs, forgetting that Albania and democracy are not equivalent to a game of poker. This spectacle, staged in the DP’s monochrome Parliament, came immediately after Berisha’s belated appearance in public at a press conference. Insisting on his declared, obsessive positions, he sought to convince himself and others that he and his party, Albania and Albanian democracy had faced a great danger—a communist rebellion—which, unfortunately for its author, nobody believes. Sensing this unfavorable climate, [continues beyond the frame] (Continued on page 2)

Fatos Nano and, along with him, all the other prisoners. The file on the criminal operation against southern Albania, devised at the summit of the pyramid of state crime, has been reopened. This time, however, it is not about the person who ordered the bombing of the Mifol Bridge, nor the bombings of Delvinë, but the bombings along the Turan-Bënçë route, denounced during the parliamentary interpellation with Defense Minister Vukaj. This time, and not by chance, one of the most deeply implicated figures is the protagonist: Berisha’s Deputy Minister of the Interior, Agim Shehu. According to information held by the Ministry of Justice, the general—whose stars were added after every crime he committed—ordered the bombing of Bënçë prison in the first days of March. This shows just how far the shamelessness of these people goes: even in their most difficult days, their minds were on the next crimes. Certainly, such a case is unprecedented, especially considering that the target of the possible bombing had been identified as Bënçë prison, nicknamed the high-security prison. And this choice was no coincidence. Socialist Party Chairman Fatos Nano was serving his sentence in Bënçë prison, having been sent there unjustly through the mafia machinations of Berisha and his people, so that the chieftain would find it easier to steal from him[?], to

The policy of the Government of National Reconciliation is a policy of sincerity, not a policy of betrayal. Berisha will listen to us and we will find another solution Page 2 — What was your first impression after speaking with Prime Minister Fino? I met a calm, cheerful and committed prime minister, quite serious about bringing [the country] into the process of preparing for the elections. — Mr. Nano, the prime minister has threatened that if a decision is not made on the date he has set, he will resign? The prime minister, as well as the parties that have secured consensus—that is, the nine parties at the government table so far—are being threatened by the fait accompli tactics pursued by the parliamentary majority. But the executive headed by the prime minister, and the ten parties that make it up, are an unstable and highly uncertain factor in preparing the elections on the basis of a legislative framework that will secure the consensus of all sides.

I urgently appeal to President Berisha to do everything within his responsibility to facilitate a solution to this problem on the basis of consensus. Page 1