An attempt to calm down a racist voice

By Mero Baze

Mr.Domenick G. Scaglione!

I got your letter, very nervous, misunderstood and hostile. It was appropriate to receive an answer from Mr. Granoff, if this letter had been so disturbing to him. It is a practice that subordinates often write on behalf of the Chiefs and this is probably the first case when heads write on behalf of subordinates.

I do not know who translated the article to you because I have published it in Albanian and I see a lot of evil and unnecessary arrogance on things I didnt say. I am not an important person in this country to meet, but when you created the Fund, I have been the Voice of America reporter and I remember I did a report for you, one of those routine reports that nobody needs.

I am clarifying your remarks one by one:

Im not writing for your benefit, because from the tone of your editorial I can see that you dont care to learn and accept what is the real truth. I write for the benefit of the readers that you have totally mislead in letting them believe what you have invented and which is worthy of the group of traditional washwomen.

I have nothing against your negative consideration for an editorial of Tema newspaper. If it was something not worth it, your anger seems a great luxury for a “washwomen” and I feel respected even if you write so badly. Be sure that the paper I lead has qualified readers, people who know how to read better than a “washwomen”. Usually, people who want to hide something, become so nervous on us. People who have shot me later and wanted to eliminate me physically have spoken and written on me slightly softer than that. I wish you do not have similar trouble with them in this anger, without sense for what has been written.

Thats what you write further:

I guess the hate you demonstrated in your editorial will not allow you to publish what Im writing. Im doing it simply to test if you care to pass on the real truth to your readers.

Michael Granoff is known in Albania since 1995 when President Clinton selected him as the Chairman of the Albanian American Enterprise Fund. This is not correct! President Clinton selected Domenick G. Scaglione as Chairman and Mr. Granoff as a member of the Board of Directors. Years after the Fund was in operation, due to my illness, Mr. Granoff was elected by the Board of Directors to be Chairman while I remained as Chairman Emeritus, and I am still very active as a member of the Board.

Im surprised to see that you acknowledge the fact that the AAEF was a venture proved to be successful and is still active in Tirana. It is thanks to the AAEF, a good will of friendship from the USA, that Albania expedited its pace toward progress in every field.

The American Bank of Albania, born under my Chairmanship, was the best bank not only in Albania, but also the best in the entire Balkan region. It created employment to feed more than 600 families. It helped the local industries with billions of dollars of loans, and it offered ultra modern services never dreamed.

Of all you list as mistakes, there is only one technical error, when I refer to Mr. Granoff as Chairman of the Board of the Fund, while he was a member. For these I am ready to apologize to the readers because he does not need that. Your prejudice that I will not publish this reaction of yours, without ever known me, is a problem that you should reconsider in your personality, not on me. I am a journalist who fights for my freedom of writing and thinking in a country in which I have paid for it with physical violence, unfair penalties, with physical elimination efforts by killers of the Prime Minister and his wife, who you worship, and with a more than physical terror to my family. You are not obliged to share these concerns with me, but I dont allow you to qualify as values the violation of my freedoms and my colleagues freedom in this country.

You are free to talk about the value of Lek currency in this country, but not for the value of freedom that we, who live here, are missing.

I am surprised that for half of the article, you become nervous because I commend Mr. Granoff as a master and your fund as successful. I have no explanation for this paranoia. Try to find a specialist in the field that explains paranoia to clarify it for you. I appreciate Mr. Granoff as a leading master of the Fund and as I said in that article, consider the Fund itself as a successful venture. The fact that you have done business with people in Berishas circle does not compromise you, it simply adds to doubts about the “second job”, undeclared job of Mr. Granoff in favor of Mr. Berisha. If you want names, I can send by e-mail because I do not want to defame the businesses in which you are a partner. For convenience, I can tell you that in one case I was surprised when it turned out that in the building of the factory of Gerdec, which caused 26 deaths, a senior manager of your fund was participating with 40 percent and he is still having the same duty. The surnames of the two other partners of the company were Delijorgji and Balliu. But I want to focus particularly on a paragraph that someone with an evil intention, has translated wrong to you, and if you did not understand this, I forgive all your nervous reaction. You write that I have offended you as an American citizen because I have offended the American government.

As a proud American citizen, I am very much offended by your statement about my Government, a government that creates daily problems for its irresponsibility towards its citizens and the scandals of corruption and justice Apart from being an ingrate for all that this irresponsible government has done for your country, you are also offending the most friendly helping hand Albania has ever had. It is truly said that only dogs bite the hand that feed them. I demand an apology from you. An apology to my Government, the greatest friend Albania has ever had. From what you have written, I can see that you are completely ignorant of the meaning of international relationship and friendship. And this is what you preach to your readers?

Mr. Scalione. I have not written this paragraph for the U.S. government, but for the Albanian government and I refer to what Mr. Granoff is doing for the Albanian government in Washington as written in the headline of the article and in the content of the paragraph that someone has translated wrong for you, or that you wanted it translated wrong. The article has been published in Albanian and the original is still online, you can translate it again. So I do not want to make any comments about your racist outburst, comparing the help you have given to the Albanian people as food thrown to an ungrateful dog. I myself have never worked for you and I dont feel a disloyal dog to you. I worked for two U.S. government radios, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, but even they did not employ me for mercy and I do not respect them for charity. We were doing a job together. Your racist and contemptuous outburst against an Albanian journalist really shows how much inconvenient it was for you when you stayed in this country and with how much outrage you helped us, if you did.

If even worse, you give yourself the excessive luxury to s

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