By Caf Jonuz Çulaj
Part fourteen
Memorie.al/June 1947. Two and a half years had passed since the communist government was established. The State Security had spread its claws everywhere in towns and villages. People were insecure about the next day. The security also managed to operate within a family. Only a small village nestled deep in the mountains remained untouched by this state organization.
In that village called Ulnikaj, there were neither Security collaborators nor Party members, (how is this surprising ?!) For the Security this situation was unforgivable. Something had to be done. In place of grace, inadvertence was placed (i.e. that the issue be resolved by force).
Gjeto Voci, a poor but honest villager and respected by all, was targeted. One day he was called to the local offices and the mayor told him to wait outside. He waits about 4 hours. “Why am I here?” He thought to himself and waited in the yard. At 12 o’clock in the afternoon in the office were introduced Deputy. The head of the Internal Affairs Branch, the area operative and two police officers.
The villagers who had jobs in that office went outside. Gjeto is called and as soon as he enters the corridor, he is handcuffed and taken to the damp basement of the local offices. For Geton this was lightning, in the clear sky. Everything started to spin. “Who am I and why am I here.” Then after he collected himself, he remembered his life full of worries. “It will surely be a misunderstanding,” he said and calmed down somewhat. Wait not a little, but 10 hours. During this time, he was reminded that in prison, the culprits enter. But why was he here, when he knew no guilt. He remembered that many people had been shot without guilt and that they had been good people and had not committed any crimes.
Like Dom Luigj Pici, Tom Ded Sina, Gjokë Bajraktari, Idriz Kadria, etc. He recalled that many people were imprisoned in vain. He did not even know how he spent the last hours. At 10 o’clock in the evening he is taken out of that catacomb. Although he had handcuffs on his hand, he was tied with a rope to his body, the corner of which was held by one of the police officers. It was not enough that they were putting a sack on his head. The group of 6 people was put on the street. The officers of the Shkodra Branch of Internal Affairs and Gjeto himself was the sixth together with them.
The policeman pulled over, and Gjeto walked and did not know where. The road was bad and he often crashed. At one point he shouted, “Where are you taking me? I did nothing.” “The Party knows that,” they replied. After two hours they stopped in a desert forest, called Kolatat e Dukës near Rrjollit. They remove the bag from his head and release the handcuffs. I immediately communicated to you, “you are accused of treason, this trial is final and will end immediately.”
The trial panel was then notified. Chairman (Deputy Chairman of the branch), members two police officers, Prosecutor (Area Operative), and lawyer (Mayor of the locality). I found out, he was not finding out if he was in a dream or in reality, although the muzzles of the machine guns fired by him, cleared him.
The floor was taken by the “Prosecutor”. You are accused that when you graduated from the Military Academy in Italy, you were in the service of SIM. You are accused of having had the rank of lieutenant in the Albanian militia in 1943, when you were mayor in Istog of Peja and recently, you cooperated with the German secret service.
After these words, the “Prosecutor” demanded the death sentence, which was immediately accepted by the “Judge”. “The execution will take place immediately,” he said. The last word was asked. “Do not take me in vain, confuse me with another, because I do not know how to read and write and not to continue school abroad. I know my village, the surrounding villages and to some extent Shkodra. I am poor and I see my work. “What you are saying is just slander.” So, he spoke and was silent.
At this moment, the “defense lawyer” spoke the mayor of the locality, who said: becomes a collaborator of the State Security “.
Gjeto had kept his mouth shut. What he said, what he did. They did not give him time to think, but gave him instructions on the work he would do in the village. Any information he would collect, he would communicate once every three days, to the mayor of the locality in the village. After this “trial” he was released and told to go to the village. As in the dream, he set off home at a slow pace. It was white, but he did not look at the villagers wishing him good morning. “I have two ways, he thought, to cooperate with the Security (God forbid) and embrace my villagers (impossible). I will kill myself then and destroy the family.”
Tue approached the house, reminded him of a solution, to behave like crazy. With these thoughts, he entered the house. His wife was waiting for him in the yard, because he did not speak to her, they left her with her mouth open. Ear compressed as it was, lay down on the mattress. Three days and nights without food. Sometimes he laughed out loud and sometimes he cried. The news spread immediately and everyone was sorry for the illness he had contracted. They came to visit him, but he could not open his mouth and looked at them in astonishment. A doctor was called but to no avail. Kaluen 16 months. In November 1948, the First Congress of the CPA was held, where Koçi Xoxe was convicted. All the crimes committed until then, we put on him. The “unreasonable” party did not cry out to the people and apologized in some way. Such a meeting was held in Ulnikaj as well.
To everyone’s surprise, Gjeto had left the house. It was the day of “healing.” After the words of the delegate, Gjeto, he stood up. He was the one he had always been. He exposed the inhuman methods of Security with the facts of his troubled life. Thread everything. He stated that it would be better for the children of the village to bring him in than to hug people in vain. He talked and cried. With him cried the villagers, who shook his hand for the manhood shown. Life later revealed that one Koc was sidelined and another Koc in Tirana, with the crimes he projected passed on to Nero and the former Timurleng. /Memorie.al
