By Dashnor Kaloçi
Part Four
Memorie.al/ On November 5, 1975, exactly 49 years ago, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of Albania, Aranit Çela, through a letter marked “Top Secret,” addressed to the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, enclosed a copy of that court’s decision, with a summary of the indictment for the death sentence by firing squad, of the three former generals and highest leaders of the Ministry of Defense: Minister Beqir Ali Balluku, Chief of the General Staff of the Army, Petrit Taulla Dume, and Director of the Political Directorate, Hito Shaqo Çako, as well as the sentencing of Rrahman Parllaku, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army, in the Ministry of People’s Defense, to 25 years in prison.
Their trial, held from October 25 to November 5 of that year, in an improvised hall on the premises of Unit 313 in Tirana (otherwise known as the “Old Prison” or “Kaushi”), where they also underwent the investigation process and remained isolated and under strict security measures since the period of their arrest on December 6, 1974. The arrest of Balluku, Dume, Çako, and Parllaku came after a period of approximately six months of meetings, active sessions, and plenums, held with the highest cadres of the Ministry of People’s Defense, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labor (PPSH), and the Politburo, where Enver Hoxha personally assisted and directed the majority of them.
The attack on Beqir Balluku, who for years held the position of Minister of People’s Defense and First Deputy Prime Minister in the government led by Mehmet Shehu, as well as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PPSH, began in June-July 1974, with the expanded meeting of the Army Active, held at the former “Zog’s Villa” in the city of Durrës. That meeting was directed by Mehmet Shehu and Hysni Kapo, where Balluku, for the first time since 1945, was not on a meeting presidium but in the hall, where he was forced to answer dozens of questions posed by his subordinates. Everything that was happening there in that hall, and which would continue until the day of his arrest, was prepared based on a meticulously crafted scenario by the main leaders of the high leadership of the PPSH, such as Mehmet Shehu and Hysni Kapo, conceived and personally orchestrated by Enver Hoxha.
After that Active with the highest cadres of the Army, Balluku was also analyzed in the meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PPSH, where Enver Hoxha first gave the orientation for the attacks against him, accusing him as: “the head of the putschist group in the Army” and “the greatest traitor Albania had had until that time.” Following those Politburo meetings, Balluku was also analyzed in the Fifth Plenum of the Central Committee of the PPSH, held on July 25, 1974, where he was attacked by the majority of the plenum members.
At the end of that meeting, Balluku was expelled and dismissed from all party and state functions, but, unlike many former high officials and personalities of the high communist leadership (who had been struck and punished years earlier, and were arrested and handcuffed as soon as they left the meeting hall), he was allowed to go home! Where after ten days, along with part of his family, he would be interned in the town of Roskovec, in the Fier district, where he was arrested on December 6, 1974.
By now, all these and other facts about Beqir Balluku, the former Minister of People’s Defense and First Deputy Prime Minister of the government led by Mehmet Shehu, who until 1974 was considered one of Enver Hoxha’s closest collaborators and most loyal men, are very well known, as dozens and dozens of testimonies and archival documents have been published since the 1990s, shedding light on his life and career, from the period when he was the main leader of the Tirana Guerrilla Units and commander of the Second Assault Brigade of the National Liberation Army, as well as the entire period at the head of the Ministry of People’s Defense, until July 1974.
What remains an almost unsolved and unknown mystery, which is still being debated today after almost five decades, are the main reasons and causes that compelled Enver Hoxha to strike Balluku and the two main leaders of the Ministry of Defense, Petrit Dume and Hito Çako, sentencing them to death as: “The Heads of the Putschist Group in the Army”! Along with this mystery, which may never be solved, the archival documents containing the minutes of the meetings of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the People’s Republic of Albania, where the requests and pleas for pardon from the three main former leaders of the Ministry of Defense, Balluku, Dume, and Çako, were discussed, are almost unknown.
Based on this, Memorie.al is publishing in several issues these archival documents, which contain the discussions of all members of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, starting from its head, Haxhi Lleshi (Chairman), Rita Marko (Deputy Chairman), Telo Mezini (Secretary), as well as members: Jovan Bardhi, Muharrem Sefa, Naunka Bozo, Nuredin Hoxha, Spiro Moisiu, and Zinja Franja.
Continues from the Previous Issue
ARCHIVAL DOCUMENT WITH THE MINUTES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY MEETING OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY, WHERE THE DECISIONS OF THE SPECIAL MILITARY COURT REGARDING THE DEATH SENTENCES OF BEQIR BALLUKU, PETRIT DUME, AND HITO ÇAKO WERE DISCUSSED
MINUTES
Held at the extraordinary meeting of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, on Wednesday, November 5, 1975:
The following comrades participated in the meeting: Haxhi Lleshi (Chairman), Rita Marko (Deputy Chairman), Telo Mezini (Secretary), Jovan Bardhi, Muharrem Sefa, Naunka Bozo, Nuredin Hoxha, Spiro Moisiu, Zinja Franja (Members).
Another thing those vagabonds had, after the issue of Beqir was unmasked and uncovered, was that Petrit, taking advantage of the fact that the Defense Council requested the material, used this and gathered the cadres who had supported the theses and who had made remarks, and told them to change them. At the same time, he took new material and made his remarks, even making remarks as if he were Enver Hoxha himself. He called them vileness, anti-Marxism, everything. We started asking him how this had been done, and the person who had made the material was found. He said, I got it three days after the Politburo meeting ended.
What was this material like, whose was it, what format, from whom did you get it?! From Ollga. We quickly called Ollga. Yes, the other one said, when I received it, I received it clean, when I took it back, I took it with all these notes and with a black note, to Comrade Sadik. When I took it to the archive, Ollga did not accept it and told me that she had given me the clean material. Finally, I told her, talk to Petrit Dume. We took Ollga, because Petrit didn’t accept it; “No, it shouldn’t be like that, I don’t remember.” Leave these, Ollga said, we talked about this material, I remember exactly what you wrote. Then he lowered his head. He had become a great schemer.
-In the field of fortifications, we also found the most important damage that emerges from all the materials. What have they done: They have focused all their attention on making various objects, rear areas, opening points, but the first line, the defense line, in these fire centers, the fortified points, only 17 percent of the material has been used for them? They have left the first front line very poorly. The vilest method they have used.
-In the field of state organization and management, in relation to the laws, there was sabotage. Here also emerged that theory, a state within a state. All the main regulations and instructions were contrary to the laws of the state. Based on the Constitution, the Minister of Defense has certain competencies, and only he gives certain orders and instructions. The Ministry issues decisions and ordinances. They had given the right to each directorate to issue orders and instructions, as they pleased one or the other. All of them were contrary to the government’s rules and the laws. There is a list, and among them, 28 main acts were found to be blatant.
The problem of prices in the state was regulated differently and differently in the army. The problem of cadres, or any other, was regulated differently, and they regulated it differently, based on other norms, completely contrary to state laws. Why so?! “The army has its own specific features.” How so?! The laws of the state are the same. They performed all the functions themselves; they were the lawmakers, the Presidium, the Assembly, all by themselves. They changed salaries as they wished. For example, a corps commander would go to the Pedagogical Academy. The pedagogue has his salary, no; give Vaskë Gjino the salary of the corps commander. But there are laws, how are you going to do this? That pedagogue receives 8-9 thousand leks, while the commander receives 16 thousand leks. Well, we thought that these people should have high salaries.
You think so, but what does the law think? Even in the economy, they had committed numerous schemes, damages, and they had given the military material to Koço Theodhosi. They had given quite a bit of material, they admitted it themselves, important material from the rare materials that came for the army, such as shells and for these others, which means they used this material for pickaxes and shovels. They also broke the machinery that was meant for these, because they were needed to make good things. They had taken a lot of material, and Koço Theodhosi had given it to them contrary to the government. They took from state reserves, pipelines and everything they could for their needs, to build stadiums and gymnasiums.
PILO PERISTERI: They didn’t care at all about these economic things.
ARANIT ÇELA: No, they did whatever they wanted there.
CHAIRMAN: Then there is the cooperation of Beqir with Koço Theodhosi and Abdyl Këllezi.
ARANIT ÇELA: They said that the army has its own laws.
PILO PERISTERI: They even stole a transformer from us once.
RITA MARKO: Eh, how much timber have they stolen, from sawmills and elsewhere?!
ARANIT ÇELA: Regarding the hostile activity on the ideological front. Here was what came out in the plenum, but here the things are more calculated, because they are with documents. The documents proved that there was a competition as to who could translate and distribute more revisionist material. From a check made by the government, and we took the results to the court, up to the first 6 months of 1974, the Intelligence Directorate had distributed 39,000 copies of books from capitalist and revisionist countries, in addition to which there were 176,000 copies of distributed books. 90 percent of these materials belong to the publications of Soviet revisionists, after ’60.
PILO PERISTERI: Albanian or Russian?!
ARANIT ÇELA: There were all those translations. When you say it like this, it looks like a theory, but if you look at them, they are proper books.
CHAIRMAN: Millions of leks have been spent.
ARANIT ÇELA: Yes, millions. Entire sacks of translated books, regulations, all Soviet revisionists.
CHAIRMAN: The main thing was that they were educating the new generation in the army with bourgeois revisionist ideology.
ARANIT ÇELA: Beqir Balluku would send a letter to the units and tell these translating chiefs: “Look, The Psychology of the Soldier, a Soviet book translated into Albanian, is an excellent book.” How dare you… for that book to be read, it must have been truly vile. Even if they were not revisionists, they still have their own psychology. They have over 200 million (people), and what business do we have with them?!
CHAIRMAN: What do these say?!
ARANIT ÇELA: They say we did it according to our concepts, there is an absolute truth related to these issues, which is common to all states. Petrit, in the middle of the trial, defended this by saying; “My opinion, Your Honor, is that first and foremost, an army is military education.” How so, military education?! That is, first and foremost the rifle, because; “the war is fought with a rifle.” But the rifle is used by man. An entire debate there in court with Petrit Dume, around this topic. He said it openly. For him, military education came first, not the head. Completely hostile.
-The issues of theft also emerge. Many things have been stolen, very minor things. What hasn’t been stolen? Baklava came all the way from Qafëzez in Kolonjë, to Pogradec. He wanted cakes, but what kind of cakes. When Petrit was unmasked, I went to the Plenum of Kolonjë, I also assisted in the army active, to gather data. What finally burst out was that the local elite there, with Kristaq in opposition, but the others burst out in that plenum. There, the head of the food enterprise also emerged; he was a bit of a clown, and I remembered this coming up in court, and he told me there; “Comrade delegate.”
“But when Petrit once asked me for a cake, and what a cake, with sifted corn flour and 1.5 kg of butter, and in the end, the butter was left unpaid for.” There were things like that to laugh at, as much as you want. He came as if it were his father’s property and took things. That director of the Officers’ House in Pogradec told me: “What could we do, the lamb was there and bleating, and Petrit said; grab it and slaughter it, because we will eat it tonight. But many people gathered to eat, and he said; take the other one and slaughter it. And what was I supposed to do?!” He was a son of a bitch, what could he do?!
PILO PERISTERI: That’s why his stomach hurt, and he wanted to go to Paris for treatment.
ARANIT ÇELA: They took clothes and shoes from the “Partizani” club as if it were their father’s property. When they were asked, did you take them?! “Yes, we took them.”
RITA MARKO: What about money for the children?!
ARANIT ÇELA: No.
RITA MARKO: They took food, because they played with “Partizani.”
ARANIT ÇELA: They took as much food as you want. A document was even found, made by this director of the Central House, a son of a bitch, Pirro Lena that they ate without paying anything at all, and came here with their whole families and ate and drank. There were plenty of these. Beqir alone had half a million leks come out for theft and embezzlement.
RITA MARKO: He must have eaten more.
PILO PERISTERI: But these others were they not sentenced, or are they later.
ARANIT ÇELA: We stopped the process, because it is almost ready to be judged, because this trial was done so that the people would not hear those small things, without judging these main ones. That trial will be next week. In general, that was it.
RITA MARKO: You told us everything.
PILO PERISTERI: We all knew this vileness, but you told us very clearly.
ARANIT ÇELA: The Plenum made it very clear. In terms of substance, we didn’t do any philosophy.
CHAIRMAN: The facts were recorded; they are documented, meaning their treason is clear. All their hostile activity, from the beginning to the end, that they were connected with the Yugoslavs and the Soviets. They also made pleas, Comrade Pilo, because you arrived a little later, all three of them admit their treason. We must congratulate these from the court, for the work they have done.
PILO PERISTERI: And let’s congratulate those investigators.
CHAIRMAN: That’s right. The documentation was important, that we proved their treason with documents.
PILO PERISTERI: We as the Presidium, Comrade Haxhi, should cut them down with an axe, since…
RITA MARKO: Yes, that’s why we gathered, to give them the axe.
CHAIRMAN: To death, as the court decided.
RITA MARKO: We fully agree with the Supreme Court.
TELO MEZINI: Then their request for pardon should be rejected.
It is decided that the request for a pardon for Beqir Balluku, Petrit Dume, and Hito Çako, sentenced to death (by firing squad) by the Special Military Court, be rejected. Memorie.al
The meeting is adjourned
Tirana, November 5, 1975
SECRETARY OF THE PRESIDIUM
Telo Mezini
To be continued in the next issue
