By Bashkim Shehu
The third part
Memorie.al publishes an open letter written by Bashkim Shehu, the son of the former Albanian Prime Minister, Mehmet Shehu, which he sent publicly to Nexhmije Hoxha, the widow of the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, on April 2, 2004. , where through the newspaper “Korrieri”, he reacted to the book “Friendship Betrayed”, which Nexhmija had just published at that time, and parts of that book were published for 15 days, by the newspaper “Sekulli”.
Only two days after Bashkim Shehu’s letter addressed publicly to Nexhmije Hoxha, on April 4, 2004, the USA reacted for the first time, where Mrs. Silva Turdiu, the famous former volleyball player of the “Dinamo” team of Tirana and also of the Albanian representative, (former fiancee of the second son of Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, Skenderit), who with facts and arguments, answers the accusations that she had written in her book, Nexhmije Hoxha.
On April 5, 2004, Mr. Bashkim Shehu has responded to the interest of the press by giving an interview to the daily “Koha Jonë”, where the well-known writer, publicist and translator reacted again against the book with accusations of the widow of the former communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Nexhmija. ,
Continues from last issue
“NEXHMIJE HOXHA LIES”
Mehmet Shehu’s son comments on Enver Hoxha’s widow’s book, “Betrayed Friendship”
“Only a credulous person buys the book, to see how the author has gone astray”
Interview in “Koha Jonë” about “Friendship Betrayed”, by Nexhmije Hoxha
Interviewed by: Anila Prifti
It’s been a few days since the “Sekulli” newspaper has been publishing parts of Nexhmije Hoxha’s book, “Betrayed Friendship”. Have you followed these?
Yes, I followed them. Judging from the title, I thought she has given up on the agency option. But no, it adheres to the variant that; Mehmet Shehu was an agent before joining the party and the “National Liberation” Movement. If this is the case, then Enver Hoxha was the subject for whom Mehmet Shehu was ordered to work. So credulous is Nexhmije Hoxha that, to think that there can be friendship between agent and subject?
Or is this a publicity stunt of hers, to sell the book? Based on the contents of the book, it could more or less be titled: “The Career of an Agent in the Top Party Leadership.” But, with this title or something similar, no one buys her book, only someone who is curious to see how far she has gone astray, or someone who has leaked it all, or someone, for some non-historical study.
Therefore, Nexhmije Hoxha chooses the title: “Friendship Betrayed”, to address the emotional side of the reader. But, either Mehmet Shehu was an agent of the American and British Intelligence Service before entering the movement “of the Yugoslavs and the Soviets. It is later and then, it is not a question of friendship and he did not even have the opportunity to betray a friendship that did not exist) , or he was not an agent and then it can be about friendship, betrayed or not betrayed and by whom.
Nexhmije Hoxha says: Enver Hoxha met Mehmet Shehu only three times during the war. Do you know anything if this is the case?
Yes, it is true that Nexhmija says that; throughout the War, Enver Hoxha met with Mehmet Shehu, only three times, the first time in Labinot, then in Vithkuq and then in Përmet, at the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Congress. What does Enver say?
“I went to Çorrush to Mr. Mehmet Shehu’s house, where I was going to stay for a few days. I was met by his father, Sheh Ismaili, and his mother, Sultana. I answered with pleasure to Sultana’s mother, and from then on I formed a close friendship Mehmet’s dear mother, whom I loved very much, but she also loved me very much. We had just had breakfast when Mehmet came. We hugged. Mehmet and I talked for a long time about the issue of the War and the situation in Mallakastër. After lunch, he also came Hysniu”.
Nexhmije Hoxha doesn’t know this? They are written in “When the Party was born”, written by Enver Hoxha, (first edition, pages 422-428), removed in later editions. Or does she think that there is some magical connection between Enver Hoxha’s works and real events, since he erases them from the works, like with a machine, with which you can go back in time and undo the events themselves.
She can even add the meeting in Çorrush and pretend that it is forgetfulness. But when there is inaccuracy in such easily verifiable events, what guarantee is there for the accuracy of other events or explanations which are difficult to verify? And inaccuracies in dates and explanations, there are others, in what I read in “Sekuli”.
In the materials that Nexhmije Hoxha has published in her book, she also mentions a letter that Mehmet Shehu sent to Major Ivanov there at the end of the war, with many accusations towards the leadership of the Party, the General Staff and Enver Hoxha himself. . What do you know about this letter?
In the investigator, I also got acquainted with this letter. It was typed. I remember the expressions: “He is not even a miniature Tito”! (For Enver Hoxha), “they are a clique, Enver, Liria, many have paid with their lives for the opposition they have made to them”. It is about Liri Gega.
Then I was told that; this letter came to the Party there from the beginning of the 60s, after the break with the Soviets, but the Party leadership did not believe it, considering it a provocation by the Soviets. Now I became familiar with the circumstances in which this and several other documents that accompanied it fell into the hands of the Party leadership.
Logically, the question arises: When these materials were misjudged, in the mid-60s, when the Party leadership was not under any pressure and could judge with a cool head, “at least by their standard), or in December of 1981 when he was under the pressure of the motivation of declaring Mehmet Shehu an enemy?
(Now Enver Hoxha’s regime has fallen, what is written in the letter sent to Major Ivanov “whether this is authentic or not”, are true and I am proud to say that; the letter was written by me. But, based on these (according to the explanations given by Nexhmije Hoxha, it is most likely that this letter presented to us here was not written by him.)
I did not see Nexhmije Hoxha explain how the authenticity of the letter addressed to Ivanov and other materials found with him was not proven, nor during the investigative process, I have not seen such proof, even if it was formal. Or were these materials opened, read in Enver Hoxha’s office, as Nexhmija says, and their authenticity was automatically proven?
Other details, whether Mehmeti wrote this letter with or without the guidance of any of the “English, American or Yugoslav” discoveries, whose agent he should have been at this time or, with the guidance of all three together, if he wrote with or without the knowledge of any of these discoveries or all three together, if he wrote it by hand, like all the letters of this period or by machine and, for other details, we will leave them to discuss when the authenticity of the letter is proven.
Nexhmije Hoxha also mentions the events of 1948 and makes Mehmet a Yugoslav?!
– Yes, she refers to the 8th Plenum, which her Party has called the “Black Plenum” and the events immediately after it. And what did Enver say on the day that Mehmeti was declared an enemy at the meeting of the Central Committee on December 18, 1981? – “Mehmet, in this case, took a good stand, but I, as much as I could, stayed in very difficult conditions.” (“Korrieri” newspaper, Supplement, July 22, 2001). So Enveri took a stand no better than Mehmet, but as much as he could… And he says this on the day that Mehmet is declared an enemy!
Nexhmije Hoxha pauses and analyzes in detail an event from 1953, when Mehmeti was in trouble because of some mistakes he had made. Can you comment on this?
This is an event that best illustrates how the mechanism of Enver Hoxha’s arbitrary and unlimited power worked, which can take you to the last point of despair and then tell you: “Hey Mehmet, lead Albania for a couple of weeks I will leave it for a few more days, after the holidays”!
But that is another matter. Nexhmije Hoxha brings this event to prove that Mehmet was an agent; otherwise there was no way to explain all that excessive reaction of Mehmet. Nexhmija analyzes Mehmet’s self-criticism in detail and gives evaluations about this self-criticism. What is the importance of how an agent self-criticizes; only Nexhmije Hoxha can know?! But apparently, Nexhmija has two stratifications in her brain, one before the fall of ’81, where Mehmeti is not an agent, and a later stratification, where he is an agent, and she could not build a coherent version of these!
But not apparently, there is also a section in the archive of the house or in the brain, just in case Mehmet came to power. From there, she mistakenly took out the tab she used when describing an incident with the Greek delegate, at the 4th Congress of the Party. Regarding this, she says: “The Greek delegate became undesirable, ‘persona non grata’. How would he be told? Mehmet Shehu was sent. Only Mehmet could find the way to tell him and he did “.
Such compliments were not given to Mehmet, not even when he was at his peak, but it seems that Nexhmija would have done it and had done the tab as well. But is there logic in accepting that only Mehmet could say this to the Greek?! But Nexhmija says this and Nexhmija is a reliable source. It’s a good thing that they didn’t find out in ’53 that the Greek would remain in the congress!
Nexhmije Hoxha publishes some materials that, according to her, prove that he was an agent of the “Intelligence Service”. There he appears under the pseudonym “BAB-008”. Are you familiar with these materials before?
Yes, I was introduced to the investigator and I was surprised that he had it like that, “008”, because in terms of seniority, he should have had no more than “006”. And when I saw how all those “BAB”-agents were talking here, I thought that; maybe even that expression: “How are you, BAB”? it may not be so innocent, but it is possible that with this “BAB”, the agents, would get in touch.
But history can’t be made either with the jokes that Nexhmije Hoxha makes, or with what I say. Nexhmija, throughout the book, confronts Enver and Mehmet in order to reevaluate Enver and settle accounts with Mehmet once and for all. But this effort is futile. They have been public figures, very well-known, whose activities have been closely followed by people for 40-45 years.
It is very difficult to change the reputation of a dead person. Those who had both embraced a vicious ideology that, with or without Enver, would pierce where it pierced, “with more or less excess”. But, for many of those who supported Enver Hoxha, his being at the head of the Party, it was not without consequences. Many of them paid with their lives for this support.
And here you can’t help but think of what is written in the letter that it is said that Mehmet wrote to Ivanov that during the War, many people paid with their lives for the opposition they had made to the leading group and Enver Hoxha. In peace, a lot pays with life and support.
An acquaintance of mine who had gone among a group of cadres in Mallakastër in the summer of 1981, to explain the hostile activity of Mehmet Shehu, told me that when he was alone, face to face, with an old man from that province, he said to him: “More, if this country had been sown with some treachery, it would not have produced so many traitors”!
Yes, it was not the work on the land that produced traitors; it was the work on the owner of the land. At that time, he had a plot of 28 thousand square kilometers, he mined in 28 thousand square kilometers, now he has two dynym, and he mined in two dynym.
Can we ask you one more question?
– No, now you’ll excuse me because I’m going to that night club where Iliri and I used to go when he was or came to Stockholm. It has now become a bookstore. Memorie.al
