By GJON KAÇAJ
Memorie.al / I, in my capacity as the Vice-Chairman of the Association of Former Political Persecuted of Albania, together with Eva Bllaci, head of the economic department at the Institute of Political Persecuted, arranged for the taxi driver Gjon Hasani to take us to and from Tirana – Titograd for a working meeting with representatives of former political prisoners living in Belgium. During our return, getting acquainted with the taxi driver Vojvoda, from Ulza of Shkopet, who resides in Tirana, led to my interview after he declared that he had been a former guard at the prison during the revolts; Spaç 1973 and Qafë Bari 1984. My question for Gjon Hasani:
What do you know more than what is said and written about the violence exercised during the revolts in Spaç and Qafë Bari?
“Never has what we specifically experienced been said or written, supposedly in the name of security, without mentioning what is known publicly. Even today, I carry a sadness: – Military trucks arrived from Tirana, covered with tarpaulins. They brought generators and compressors.
Special engineers made the installations and ensured the hermetic closure of the entrance gates to the tunnels, where two border guards were locked inside. They conducted a general test, removed the air from the tunnel and then opened the entrance door. The dogs had died.
Then we were instructed on how to act once a second order from Tirana arrived and the security measures that would be strictly implemented during the time we would bring the prisoners into the tunnel, with knowledge of reading the daily press…”!
Testimony of the former political prisoner, Imer Lani, from Grizha, Malësi e Madhe
After suffering for 29 years in captivity, I found him in 1993, in the shell of dynamite that had been used before the nineties, for opening trenches, bunkers, fire centers, tunnels, etc.
It was 3 by 3 meters, wide and long, with one door and a four-meter surrounding fence with concrete posts and barbed wire. From a humanitarian center, I brought a bed, mattress, blanket, clothing, food, and some breathing pumps, as he suffered from asthma, a gift from the Burrel prison.
I asked Imeri: – “Can I take an interview with you?”
– “For you, or for me,” – he replied.
– “For you and for me,” – I said.
– “For you,” – he said kindly.
– “May I label it; my interview?”
His lips trembled, and the corners of his cheeks were wet as tears filled with pain and pride trickled down. He kissed me and challenged me: – “My name is Imer Lani, I have suffered 29 years in the prisons and concentration camps of Albania. I suffered; but I am not repentant.”
On a white file, the same statement was written three times.
“I am not with Enver Hoxha. After he died, I feel happy…”!
Testimony of the former political prisoner, Pavllo Popaj – Kamicë, Malësi e Madhe
Almost the same age as me, but even though he had suffered for 25 years in the Burrel and Qafë Bari prisons, he looked composed, proud, and steadfast. He came to our house with his sisters, having come especially from Belgium.
He arrived on a day of mourning, after the death of my brother. They consoled us for the untimely death and introduced themselves appreciatively, perhaps having been fellow sufferers, but we too, in a show of respect for our shared suffering, as a human duty, simultaneously expressed an obligation by stammering:
“I have come to pay a debt after death. – I was 15 years old when I was sentenced to 25 years and in rags, from the dungeons, I was thrown into the room of the sentenced.
My eyes darkened, the room spun with all those giant men, shaven and mustached, as I imagined how I would serve those 25 years – a child – but I could not, they would imprison my brothers or my father. A two-meter-tall man called me …… Little one ….. and grabbed me by the arm. How long were you sentenced? – 25 I replied…!
He told me; I have served 30, and five more remain. I will be released healthy and well, and without letting go of me, he pulled me to his bed, for which I owe my life, I owe it to him.”
With Pavllo, we bonded, and one day with good humor, we reached my interview:
– Pavllo, how did you experience the Spaç Revolt of 1973 and that of Qafë Bari in 1984?
“Spaçi remains a symbol of anti-dictatorship resistance by men who did not compromise, who suffered with dignity. From May 21-23, 1973, the revolt erupted. We climbed onto the roof of the prison. We raised the flag of Skanderbeg. Outside the perimeter, there were more gun barrels than we were prisoners.
Aside from those I do not wish to repeat, four were sentenced to execution….! Skënder Daja, Pal Zefi, Dervish Bejko, and Hajro Pashai, and eight others were proclaimed re-sentenced, each with 25 years.
But what about Qafë Bari?
Even that, in May 1984, with over 500 prisoners, we could no longer endure being exploited in three shifts, at a depth of over 2000 meters. The persecutors, from the experience of ten years prior, mercilessly crushed the revolt with fire and iron! The military forces shot at the prisoners who dared to move from their spot.
Sandër Sokoli, who couldn’t hold on, was paralyzed, then they placed his crosses on a round trunk until they broke him in half, using force as leverage. Tom Ndoja and Sokol Sokoli were executed. The re-sentenced ones, who heard their names over the loudspeaker, were kept outside stripped, bound hand and foot.
I will conclude with my brother’s interview, Luigj Kaçaj:
“I was arrested on the charge of being an ‘enemy of the people’ because I had given bread for two nights to my father, who had come from hiding, with the aim of drawing our family together. I accepted this knowingly, as my father had fed me for 20 years, until the day he escaped after being sentenced to execution. After accepting the charge, I was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
They called me for retrial, asking me to admit and declare that my father had killed two border guards at the Tunnel border post. After I spent 9 months under special investigation, bound hand and foot in the prison bathroom. For three days, they brought me dry food.
I only asked for water to drink. On the fourth day, the cleaner entered and dropped a bucket of water near me and left. I managed to crawl and drink all the water from the bucket without realizing it was salted, and after a while, I started shouting: ‘I’m bursting here… Water, or I’ll burst…’!
I panicked because I had drunk the cleaner’s water, and I was bound hand and foot, in a position where I could not move any part of my body. My body was filled with white worms, with tails…! I tried to remove them from the openings of my nose, ears, and eyes, with my breath, shaking my head back and forth, left and right.
Call to former political persecuted and prisoners!
Why has today’s degraded “human” conscience been poisoned, and why do you trust fables more than the truths you experienced with pain? Albanian politicians have achieved their goal, using every dishonest means, never once looking back at the past, eclipsing the present, and killing the hope of future generations.
Some of the once suffering individuals have dulled their awareness by accepting the electoral script as a shield, defaming their dignity, believing that the “red lice” are behaving like guardian angels, perhaps they have also drunk blood for survival.
How many died shackled in their cells, how many were tortured, how many lost their mental abilities, how many of them were thrown from the heights of the cells, thanks to their resistance to not aligning with the irresponsibility of their criminal fathers, who today you sign the authorship of their descendants as co-sufferers and co-perpetrators, licking the plague, like a Rebirth.
Have you forgotten the Baltovinat of Tërbuf, those of Maliqi, the canal in Beden of Kavajë, or the clerics who sawed your legs and arms with a wooden saw, or those drowned in the pit of feces in the prison of Koplik, or the priest whose tongue was nailed to the table with a knife while he was alive?! At least read the testimony of Cardinal Ernest Troshani, before the Pope in Tirana….! Memorie.al
