. Soon, the law that will fight the mafia. PAGE 2

. 27 ships to be placed under immediate investigation. PAGE 2

Baby trafficking, an Italian-Albanian case file . KOM... LIBRARY [?] TIRANA. PAGE 2

. The Socialists: The DP should also contribute. PAGE 3

. Çela: The OSCE and Everts should keep quiet. PAGE 3

By Erion BRAÇE. A stream of concerns persists, constantly accompanying many Albanians like a nightmare, as a consequence of the insecurity that has become a characteristic of life. And how could it be otherwise, when within two weeks, in Durrës alone, a dozen people pile up on top of one another. Killed in ambushes or in exchanges of gunfire among themselves. No one has been caught, except for the corpses collected by the police. Among them, it finds people it was looking for over crimes, but whom it finds before it among another group of killers. The result: more corpses. Perhaps the police happily crosses names off the most-wanted list, adding: “That one’s gone too; he was a born bandit, he had killed this one and that one.” But does anyone think about who is growing stronger, and when this “tough guy” will put an end to the river of blood that he controls, letting it flow to prove that he is the boss there? Perhaps there is an answer, perhaps there is no answer. But in Durrës, people answer faster than the police; indeed, they identify the killers before it does. Not because the police cannot do this, but because it cannot act, since an unwritten, silent compromise is in force: “Don’t bother us, we won’t do anything to the state.” But beyond the state’s failure to strike, the river of blood between the two criminal organizations that have divided the port city’s spoils in two continues to flow; beyond the state’s absent response, the armed war between these two organizations for control and supremacy in the illicit trafficking continues. The state is absent, and it is also a striking force, entrenched in guarding a few buildings called the municipality, the prefecture, the district council and, quite pointlessly, the court, the prosecutor’s office, the bank, or further afield, a policeman directing the traffic of the killers’ Mercedes cars. I say pointlessly, because I am convinced that the structure of criminal organization has reached the Sicilian level, but with a Durrës accent, of “baco la mani” [“I kiss your hands”], addressed to the powerful leaders of the rackets. And now this man is behind everything. He is hiring people, investing, making a big show in the city while doing good. Let us take this man: he is the state in his own way; the state or the police, and perhaps at some point this status of his is expressed in the standard phrase: settling accounts. No! It must not be this way! The state must settle accounts with them. It must thoroughly destroy everything they have—their illegally acquired property, their extensive trafficking—and cut off their source of funding. Without mercy. Otherwise, very soon the gun will be pointed at the state, in Durrës, Vlorë and everywhere... Then, once again, as every month, we will find ourselves scrambling for the bare minimum of attending the funerals of police officers killed, and for outrage at the criminals, who are openly based on the boulevard.

A river of blood in Durrës; two young men killed again . POLICE COLLECT CORPSES

THE PROSECUTOR OF DURRËS: I am concerned by October and early November, with the increase in the number of murders

. Two gangs are fighting to divide up the spoils of the port city. PAGE 6