PSSH Chairman Fatos Nano meets with Greek Foreign Minister Pangallos WE HIGHLIGHT The President Among the Bombs Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, while commenting on the government crisis in a weekly program on the "VEFA" television channel, if someone had not understood what was happening in Tirana, could have given the impression that in the capital, outside that television and that building, peace reigned, with a swollen administration and civil service, and with the orderly line of state business. But there was no peace. It was not a time of peace. Tirana had never been closer to the horror of guns, bullets and bombs than on Monday and Tuesday of this week. And while he spoke in his familiar tone, citizens were hearing the explosions. In the center of the capital there were wounded, there were dead, there were frightened people who did not know where to take shelter. The way reality was presented on that screen was a challenge to common sense. At a time when public order had almost collapsed, when central institutions seemed powerless, when the new government was trying to breathe, the former prime minister kept speaking as if nothing had happened. And that is what shocks most: the gap between political rhetoric and the real drama of citizens. This is not the first time Berisha has appeared in this way, but at this moment the weight of responsibility is much heavier. He is no longer head of state, yet he still behaves as if he were and seeks to influence the public and the new institutions. This makes it even more necessary for the prosecutor’s office to act, to investigate, to question, to bring out the truth. If there is political or criminal responsibility for the events, it cannot be covered up by television rhetoric. In Tirana, people saw broken glass, damaged facades, destroyed premises, traces of blood and fear. That is the true picture. Not that of a program in which someone speaks as if the country were normal. From this point of view, to say that the president was among the bombs is not a literary figure; it is the closest definition of the drama that the capital was living through. (Continues on page 4) Socialist leader Nano and Greece's foreign minister Pangallos (Photo: A. BABANI)