By Prof. Dr. Hazbi M. Shehu
Free in life as well as in prison
Memorie.al/Nature caresses, embraces, but not infrequently, and enrages people with its seasons. Through the fall she warns her sons to protect themselves to prevent the disasters brought by the cold winter. Whoever studies and understands nature, passes the winter shocks and storms in peace. The autumn season prepares the human body physically, while the brain opens the doors of optimism to await the harsh winter. Man, gradually loses laughter; his body craves heavy winter clothes and he himself unknowingly turns to pessimism? On the road, one has to think carefully before throwing the leg because it slips and breaks the head?
The approach of the cold climate forces Medicine to stand on its feet. Autumn is a simple, charming and warning ‘jacket’ for the approach of heavy winter coats? In this season the axes are sharpened to cut the winter firewood. Do people locked in their dens discuss what they have and seek what they do not have?
Autumn, oh dear autumn! How sorry you are for your sons!
The storms and cold of winter are mostly felt by poor people. Why didn’t the political leaders of our country think about the people; how does nature think of her sons?!
Geological specialists of the Institute of Geological Research of Oil and Gas, during the dictatorial regime have felt only the shocks and storms of the winter season. During the winter they tightened their body clothes and waited, in turn, to go to the main and secret prison road. When one of the Institute’s specialists thought about spring and how he began to undress that the weather was warming up on his head, the hammer fell to remind him that there is only winter for you. Thus, the winter life in the Institute continued until democracy came.
Sometime before the infamous meeting that took place in the hall of Patos, March 1975; on the way I met my colleague, Thanas Naston. I said, “Let’s sit down and have a coffee.”
He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Get away from me.”
“You are shaking, what do you have?” I told him.
“I have a fever,” he replied.
“Wherever you ask for a fever, go home and drink some tea and lie down to calm down,” I replied.
“I am shaking for you”, continued Thanasi, “I am afraid that you will get this fever, because they are very strong and I do not know if you will be able to cope with it”.
“I do not understand you,” I said, “let me accompany you home.” “Go away, go away and say goodbye.”
“O Thanas, stop joking and tell me what is happening to you.”
“You’ll understand me later,” and left in a hurry…!
Indeed, after some time, the meeting held in the hall of Patos, clarified the ‘fever’ and the expressions of my colleague, friend and friend Thanas Nastos. There our co-workers were declared “saboteurs and enemies”.
After 1990, people began to move, express and discuss freely about the past. My colleagues came out of prison crippled, but with hope for the future. But until now, after about 30 years of living in a democracy, people continue to live in poverty. Unemployment stands!
One day talking to my friend and friend Ing. Beqir Alia, who lives in Moscow with his family, said: “Here in New York, you meet people of all countries, races and colors of the world. But neither speak nor speak, only when you collide with them “Sorry (sorry)”. In New York, I have no co-workers, no old friends or acquaintances. and far away from your country without the friends and comrades with whom you have worked and spent all your life, you are bored.But when I remember the sufferings of my honest colleagues who were imprisoned being completely innocent I say to myself: “Take an example from them ; be patient and go on living as it comes. ”
“Dear Hazbi, our suffering was terrible for the period from the arrest until the final sentencing by the court”, said Beqiri. “At this time, we were shaking and suffering, but not so much from the physical beatings, but from the spiritual destruction for the families and especially, when we remembered our children, in exile. After the sentence, we were placed in prison cells and went into a state other spiritual, because what the executioners had to do, they did.We collected our minds and passed into a (relatively relative) calm, as much as you our colleagues who worked at the Institute, would be “envious” of us, because it had come end of torture. While you were sitting in a “silence” on the thorns of endless torture. It was a period of ironic time, because you weep for us, and we thought about how you lived in endless torture. Better a prisoner, but ” calm “because we knew our end; rather than” free “, but living anxiously waiting for prison every day.
You were predisposed to fall to the ground; while we were lying in prison cells and at times laughed as a result of anecdotes told by fellow prisoners; while you were not allowed to laugh at anecdotes, because whatever your laughter would lead to our cells. You, not only did not dare to laugh, but neither did you cry. Because they would ask you why you cry? The party has provided you with all the benefits. You and when you talked to your closest friend you trembled with fear, that during the conversation you inadvertently uttered a word that could distort the reality of your “beautiful” life. “So dear, we were formally in prison, when in fact you were suffering in prison.”
“I mean you were better off in prison,” I asked Beqiri!
– “Yes, for that regime it was like that. In that regime spring prepared the cards to burn us in the hot summer, while in autumn, the cards were written to ‘freeze’ us in the harsh winter. They laugh at you in the spring to ‘ you ‘burned’ in the summer season and petted in the autumn to freeze you in the winter.The spring and autumn seasons used the investigators; while the hot summer and harsh winter, belonged to the judges.And the seasons of nature had no rest in that “beautiful” dictatorial regime. The most horrific tortures were when the investigators retaliated against the family, especially the children. In that regime these were the only tortures to hand over the prisoners. To trap them. physical tortures, usually prisoners and endured, but it was the spiritual tortures that hurt so much that you lost your mind, perverted, and the investigators did what they needed to do to achieve the lower goals and What kind of future did he expect? pulli by that regime, when they tortured the children to raise the cake prepared with the blood of my innocent colleagues. ”
“Dear Beqir, thank you for our warm conversation, as colleagues, friends and unforgettable friends.”
It was Sunday, a beautiful, sunny day; the phone rings. The woman answers and asks “Hello, who are you?”.
A voice responds “I am Thanas Nasto.
How are you lady?
Is Hazbi there?” I pick up the phone.
“You are not Thanasi,” dear friend.
“Ore Hazbi, you still call me an enemy”?!
“Now I believe you are Thanasi. But where did you find the phone number?”
“Beqiri gave it to me,” Thanasi replied.
Then we started talking and among other things, I say to him: “O Thanas, I miss you very much, for our unique society, for your beautiful and inexhaustible jokes that enlivened all the friends who loved you so much “I want to have constant connections, so send me your e-mail, because talking on the phone does not express everything.”
Thanas replied: “I do not use the computer, but I have a daughter, Tatiana, who will help us connect.”
“O Thanas, I want you to send me your memoirs, impressive jokes and everything to remember about our society, as I am finishing a book and I think I will publish your memoirs in this book.”
“I will try to carry out your fraternal and social message.”
Among my classmates and work at the Institute, Ing. Thanas Nasto has excelled in our society. With his pleasant jokes, beautiful at times and biting, he enlivened society. Pure in spirit, honest, sweet with his interventions even when they were stinging they did not shock, but watered our souls laden with the fever of designing wells for the search for oil and gas. I never saw Thanas upset, cursed or offended; he just smiled. His smile caressed our company. He was imprisoned, but even in prison, he continued with his joke to keep alive the souls of fellow prisoners. When he came out of prison I asked him, “Why were you handcuffed and imprisoned dear Thanas?” He replied: “As it seemed or is understood that I needed the prison to keep my innocent colleagues alive with jokes!”
Should the singer be imprisoned because he sings, the pigeons why they fly, or Thanasi why he made his work colleagues spiritually smiling, to take away your boredom?! When I think of my colleague, friend and colleague Thanas Naston, I tremble and feel spiritually joyful because I remember our clean, honest, hardworking and hopeful society for the future. Despite the beatings, imprisonment, family and social upheavals, Thanas remained the same as he was: smiling, sweet, pure in spirit, and honest with society. He now lives in Moscow with his family and two smart, hardworking, beautiful girls who love him so much. Thanas is very far away and we miss him, but I and all your colleagues love him and will always love him. We love his written memories and jokes because reading them makes us feel like we are with him.
People thought and discussed that: my colleague and work colleague, Koço Plaku who worked in the Cabinet of Generalizations and Design of Wells for the search of new oil and gas fields of the Institute, together with Thanas Naston, Milto Gjikopulli, etc., was shot like Panayot’s brother. Why was Milto Gjikopulli shot?
For Milton, there was no whispering among the people, why was he shot, but only silence…?! The shooting of Milto Gjikopulli has remained an enigma! Milto Gjikopulli was a simple, hardworking man, skilled in the profession of geologist and smart. He was generally funny in society, liked jokes, rarely used irony, but in a sense of humor and not to underestimate others. Miltua studied a lot. He liked the science of ideology. I worked with Milton from 1963, in the Design Cabinet, in the General Directorate of Petroleum in Kuçova and later in the Petroleum Geological Institute based in Fier until March 15, 1975, when he was arrested as a saboteur together with his colleagues. other cabinet.
But was it possible to sabotage Miltua or his colleagues in designing wells for oil or gas exploration? No one at that time dared to express what he thought, to tell the simple truth, not only in society but also in the family. Since I worked in the same cabinet with Milton and other colleagues; today in democracy not only do I have desire, but I have sorrow in my heart and I am spiritually obliged to express and argue the truth.
The Generalization and Design Cabinet had several working groups, which were engaged in the preparation of the material for the assignment of the well design point. Any wells proposed for design had to be discussed in the working group, argued and convinced by the group. The relevant group would then submit to the Cabinet the relevant material for the design of the well. So Miltua or any other member of the group, if he were to propose drilling wells, in a non-prospective oil region; had to argue the perspective of that region. Was this possible?! Let’s assume he convinced them. This material would be passed for discussion and approval to the Cabinet, where the best geological specialists of the oil industry were located. All members of the Cabinet, who knew very well the geological construction of our country, had to be convinced. They had worked in all regions and knew in detail the stratigraphic or tectonic problems.
Thus, it was impossible for the Cabinet to accept a fictitious material that did not present the exact geological construction and that was not a prospect for oil and gas. However, let us assume that the material for drilling the well was also accepted by the Cabinet. After approval by the Cabinet, the material had to go through two other links to be discussed and approved. They were the Scientific Council of the Institute and that of the Ministry.
Then logically, there are two variants of explanation: or a) we acknowledge that all the geological specialists of the Cabinet, the Scientific Council of the Institute and the Ministry were incompetent; or b) they should all have been participants in the sabotage. In conclusion, not only logically, but also practically, my colleagues from the Cabinet of Generalizations and Designs: Milto Gjikopulli, Koço Plaku, Thanas Nasto and any other specialist, even if he wanted to sabotage the design of oil wells, it was impossible. theoretically and practically. So according to the argument given above the “saboteur” decision given by the courts as servants of the party leadership was an invention and fabrication of the senior leaders of the dictatorial regime.
There were and still are whispers among the people, that my colleagues: Koço Plaku, Milto Gjikopulli, Thanas Nasto, etc., were imprisoned and condemned by the ruling regime of that time. These expressions cover and justify the crimes committed by the leading politicians of that time.
The regime is built by the people who run the state and the government. It is the opinions, the sayings of the politicians who run the country, written on paper that express the relevant laws and regime. As the leading politicians are and think, so will the respective regime. To serve the people means to think of the poor; but who loves the poor?!
The common people fought for the liberation of the country from foreigners and joined the partisans against the occupiers. After the liberation of the country, the slogans “freedom, equality” for all the people, disoriented the common people. They did not know the world ideology, they did not know what communism, capitalism, etc. were, and they withdrew from the expressions “We will live in abundance and all alike.”
My colleagues who were imprisoned and shot are martyrs as they worked with conscience, passion and honesty to explore and discover new oil and gas fields; while the leading politicians of the dictatorial regime, condemned them with the bloody sword of infidelity. These leaders not only shot them, but do not have the courage to show even the place where they were buried. Family and blood people, rightly ask; did they bury them? They want to at least know where to cry and place flowers, as for all the loved ones who have passed away as a sign of love and remembrance. This shows that the political leaders of that regime do not dare to show because they were afraid, but they still have their crimes against the common people?! Not only people of blood, but also us their colleagues who shed sweat and worked together with them to have the opportunity to place a bouquet of flowers in memory of our pure society.
In unforgettable memory
With respect
Colleague Ing. Geologist
Prof. Dr. Hazbi M. Shehu
