From Agim Musta
Part twenty eight
Memorie.al / On the fourth anniversary of the passing away of the well-known historian, researcher, writer and publicist Agim Musta, (July 24, 2019), former political prisoner, his daughters Elizabeta and Suela, gave him the right to exclusivity for the publication, by the online media Memorie.al, of one of the author’s most prominent publications, such as the ‘Black Book of Albanian Communism’. This work contains numerous data, evidence, facts, statistics and arguments unknown to the general public, on communist crimes and terror in Albania, especially against intellectuals, in the period 1945-1991. The publication for the first time of parts of this book is also the realization of one of the bequests of the historian Agim Musta, who, from the beginning of 1991 until he passed away, for nearly three decades was engaged with all his powers, working to raise collective memory, through book publications and publications in the daily press. All that voluminous work of Mr. Agim Musta, concretized in several books, is a contribution of great value to the disclosure of the crimes of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha and his successor, Ramiz Alia. A good part of the publications of Mr. Agim Musta, is also translated into English. Thanking the two daughters of the late Musta, who chose Memorie.al, to commemorate their father, from today we are starting the publication, part by part, of the “Black Book of Albanian Communism”.
Continues from last issue
(1945-1991)
The anti-communist demonstration of Shkodra, January 14, 1990
Shkodra, as the most anti-communist bastion in Albania, paid the biggest tribute to the Enverian dictatorship. Thousands of its inhabitants were arrested, tortured, imprisoned and killed. Hundreds were able to escape outside of Albania. Those who survived in misery and poverty and lived in all anxiety and fear gathered in their breasts, a dormant hatred, for their oppressors and exploiters. The old ones, who had experienced the teeth of red wolves on their backs, could barely drag their feet through the narrow streets of old Shkodra.
Not a few of them took out the tambourine, telling the young people the horrors of the communist terror that Shkodra had suffered during 45 years. They listened attentively and with clenched teeth, asking themselves questions: “This is how we will always live”?! Years passed and no one had the courage to stand up for the collapse of the cruel regime.
The impetus came from the brave Timisoara, where Magyars and Romanians bravely clashed with Dictator Ceausescu’s mercenaries in December 1989. The dictatorial couple, Nikola and Eleni Ceausescu, was executed like rabid animals by a military squad. All of Romania erupted like an erupting volcano. Those events also shook the leaders of the Albanian Communist Party, encouraging the Shkodra youth to go on a demonstration.
On January 14, 1990, with the initiative and encouragement of brave young people such as: Ded Vneshta, Viktor and Ler Martini, Ndoc Liqejza, Paulin Shtjefni, Pjerin Veli, Gjovalin Zefi, etc., the anti-communist demonstration broke out, which shook Shkodra like a 9-pronged earthquake. . The night before the demonstration broke out; the security arrested some of the instigators and beat them barbarically in the Security cells. This did not stop the demonstration, to gather with thousands of young men and women, in front of the Higher Pedagogical Institute. They called on students to join them. Not a small part, joined, others liked the role of magicians.
Demonstrators addressed the Party Committee, throwing slogans, “Down with dictatorship”!, “Down with communism!”, “Freedom, democracy”, etc. One of the leaders of the demonstration, Ler Martini, without batting an eye, entered the Party Committee, where the leadership of the district had gathered, huddled like wet chickens. Leri, after throwing the dictator’s torso to the ground and pulverizing it, warned them that they would have no place to enter if they ordered retaliation to the demonstrators.
Demonstrators went to the main monument of Enver Hoxha, but due to the way of organization this time too, its demolition failed. Frustrated at not reaching their destination, some of them broke the windows of shop windows on the main street of the city, giving the robbers a chance to loot whatever they could.
Despite the unwanted epilogue of the demonstration of January 14, 1990, it will remain as an extraordinary event, not only for the city of Shkodra, but for all of Albania. The 45-year-old communist dictatorship was crumbling. The exhausted and deranged Albanians were gaining the long-awaited freedom.
The anti-communist movement of Kavaja
Kavaja, a city in the center of Albania, enjoyed a good reputation for the well-being and generosity of its inhabitants. Turkey, watermelon and Kavaja yogurt, had become symbols throughout Albania. For the sake of truth, it must be said that; the kavajas were apolitical people and less affected by the communist terror. The city of Kavaja itself had turned into a ghetto for hundreds of families from all over Albania, expelled from the main cities by the communist regime.
I have not heard any of the members of these families, who do not speak respectfully about the Khawajas. By the end of the 1980s, the economic noose was getting tighter and tighter around the kavajas’ throats. Extreme poverty had conquered Kavaja. Talking about meat was like talking about politics. The only way to survive was to steal. He stole from state enterprises, he stole from village cooperatives, he stole from shops, and he stole everywhere.
Prisons for ordinary crimes were full of kavajas. People kept their eyes and ears on RAI Uno and “Voice of America”. They were anxiously waiting for everything to happen. On January 1, 1989, the first anti-communist tract circulated in Kavaje. The tract was signed by the “Committee for the Protection of the Rights of the Albanian People”. In January 1989, anti-communist flyers were posted in Synej village and Enver Hoxha’s portrait was torn with a knife at the Machine-Tractor Station (SMT). The events in Romania also ignited Kavaja’s wet gunpowder.
The first to engage in the anti-communist movement were young people. In the middle of the night on January 29, 1990, brave young men, Gëzim Çelhysa and Çezar Petja, entered the city gymnasium and covered the classroom walls with anti-communist slogans. The government alarm was extraordinary, but the writers of the slogans were not discovered.
The youth of Kavaja decided that on March 25 of that year, when the football match “Besa”-“Partizani” was to be played in the city stadium, in the 80th minute, anti-communist slogans would be thrown in the stadium and to start the demonstration. On the night of March 24, a tract was distributed with the call: “We have lived like rabbits enough. Let us wash the steps of the stadium with our blood, to become a symbol of freedom for generations to come”! The government bodies that became aware of the tract that same night took extraordinary measures at the stadium and the demonstration failed. Two young men: Safet Beçerri and Ilir Rrugëja, who threw anti-communist banners in the stadium, were arrested.
On March 26, Selaudin Cara and Ago Dalipi were arrested as organizers of the failed demonstration. When the news of the arrest of two young men spread around the city, a crowd of 200-300 people gathered in front of the police station, shouting slogans: “Free our comrades! Down with the Dictatorship”, and throwing stones broke the windows of the station of the police severely damaged the portrait of Enver Hoxha, placed at the entrance of the building.
Demonstrators then marched into the center of the city, chanting: “Come gather here, here, here.” The demonstration was dispersed peacefully, without police intervention. The local and central authorities, afraid of the demonstration, urgently sent the member of the Political Bureau, Muho Asllan, the general prosecutor, Rrapi Minon, the deputy minister of the interior, Zylyftar Ramiz, etc. to Kavaja.
All night they discussed how they could keep the situation under control. The panic-stricken dictatorship had lowered its ears. It was decided not to make mass arrests, but to arrest the organizers of the demonstration one by one, without fuss, in secret. In addition to kurbaç, “kulaçi” was also used (making some improvements in economic life).
This caused the situation to calm down to some extent until July 4 of that year, when the second mass demonstration broke out with the participation of over 3,000 people. The demonstration started at 23.00, after the end of the World Championship match, England-Germany. Demonstrators filled the streets of the city, waving slogans “Freedom, democracy”. “Germany is ours”! “Down with Nexhmije Hoxha”! etc. Numerous police forces from Tirana and Durrës rushed to Kavaja.
On the 10th of July they started beating for no reason, all the young people roaming the streets to panic the people. Near the church of Shënkolli, some young Kavajas who were attacked by the sampists, called them “the children of Nexhmie Hoxha”. That’s all it took and one of the sampistas shot young Josif Buda with a revolver, causing his immediate death. The murder of Josif Buda was the revenge of the dictatorship against Kavaja. This murder caused all of Kavaja to stand up as one body.
More than 20 thousand people participated in the funeral ceremony. In the center of the city, slogans were thrown: “Down with the government”, “Enver-Hitler”, “Revenge-revenge”. The windows of the Party Committee and the main shops were broken. At night, a tank division was deployed at the main intersections of Kavaja. For the first time the dictatorship was using tanks to protect order. But even the tanks could not save the hated communist regime from being overthrown. Kavaja, like all of Albania, gained freedom, a large part of its population immigrated to Italy for a more prosperous life.
The state border of communist Albania, the grave of hundreds of innocent Albanians
Before the Second World War, the state border of Albania was open, calm and without problems. Except for some minor smuggling, no one tried to cross it illegally. The then Balkan governments had created all the facilities for their citizens to go to any country in the world. After the Second World War, different social systems were established in the Balkans. In Greece, the capitalist system was restored, while in Albania and Yugoslavia, power was taken by the communist parties.
The Albanian communist government returned the Albanian-Greek land border, 150 km. length, in a hot, forbidden and dangerous area. During the years 1945-1950, the Albanian-Greek border was crossed only by the Greek EAM-ists and the Albanian Security forces that fought alongside them. In many valleys, such as that of Devolli, Vjosa, Drinos and Konispol, the border was mined as a precaution to prevent its passage. The mining was carried out by Albanians. At the border, numerous troops of the Albanian communist state were deployed, who also built military fortifications.
There have been many Albanian citizens who, in an attempt to cross the Albanian-Greek border, have been killed or captured by the Albanian border guards. In this period and in the following years, several hundreds of families of Albanian citizens who lived near the border were forcibly evicted, even all of them, such as the village of Perdhikari, in the district of Saranda. They were forcibly settled in Central Albania, without giving you any compensation for the displacement and the damages suffered. In 1950, the Albanian-Greek border was reinforced not only with new troops, but also surrounded by fences and barbed wire over 4 meters high.
Only birds could cross the border without danger. Hundreds of citizens lost their lives and were killed by the border forces. Hundreds more have been captured and tortured by border dog bites, ending up in prisons and forced labor camps. The Albanian-Yugoslav border, until June 1948, when Marshall Tito’s Yugoslavia was announced by the information bureau as the “Trojan Horse”, was open to the Communist bloc and could be crossed without problems.
After June 1948, even on the Albanian-Yugoslav border, with a length of 250 km., the same measures were taken to strengthen that had been taken on the Greek-Albanian border. In attempts to escape to Yugoslavia, during the period 1949-1990, more than 600 people were killed. Of these, over 60 people have died while crossing the Buna River and Shkodra Lake. In addition to these, several thousand others have been caught and sentenced to heavy prison terms and confiscation of property. From the rugged mountainous terrain on the Albanian-Yugoslav border, there have been several hundred deaths from falls through abysses and freezing from the cold.
It is enough to mention the death of 21 women and children frozen by the cold in the mountains of Tropoja, in 1951. The state border of communist Albania, for half a century, has become a symbol of freedom, or death. Whoever crossed it gained freedom. Whoever was killed, his corpse was burned with a bucket of oil, without opening his grave. Whoever was caught, torture and the protracted ordeal of prisons and forced labor camps awaited him. Even in the last throes of his resistance, the communist regime, by order of “Jago”, Ramiz Alia, issued a decree in 1990, where the attempt to cross the border was not punished with death, but with 5 years of imprisonment.
This decree was a ploy to trap several hundred sons and daughters of Albania. Lied by this cynical decree, in 1990, many young men and women headed for the border, hoping to gain freedom and find well-being. The leadership of the communist state, in addition to the decree of August 1990, gave verbal orders to the border departments to execute on the spot, without trial, all those who were caught trying to cross the border. Not only were they killed, but their corpses were dragged by tractors with steel axles, in the border villages, to terrify the residents and their relatives. During an 8-month period, over 100 young men and women were executed in the border zone.
It will never be accurate, how many Albanians have been killed at the border, how many others have been executed without trial, how many have lost their lives falling into abysses near the border, how many have frozen in the snowy mountains exhausted from fatigue?! No one has been punished for these crimes, no one has apologized and no government has taken the trouble to bring them to the light of day.
The death of the Dictator and the fall of the monument
In 1973, Enver Hoxha was struck by the first hemorrhage in the brain. The dictator has always had very serious health problems, which were kept secret, not only from the public, but also from the high communist nomenclature. His friend and personal doctor, Fejzi Hoxha, has stated that; as early as 1946, Enveri suffered from diabetes.
During the years 1960-1985, the dictator was visited by a large number of world-famous doctors such as: Amalia Fleming, Japanese professor Tokusuko, etc. The former minister of health, Llambi Zeçishti, executed in 1982, has stated that in 1979, Enver Hoxha, an operation was performed on his right hand, in his villa, by two French surgeons, without his knowledge Llambi, since that time, was the Minister of Health and a member of the Central Committee of the Party.
Despite the extraordinary measures taken to preserve the conspiracy regarding the Dictator’s health, it was whispered from ear to ear that Enver Hoxha had died biologically and his death was quick. Only one English professor, who visited Enver Hoxha in the late 70s, declared to the doctor accompanying him, Servet Shamet, that the dictator would not die quickly, but his nervous condition would being burdened and woe to those who would be near him.
Time fully confirmed the correct diagnosis of the English professor. With all the extraordinary efforts made by the Nexhmije-Ramiz clan to keep the dictator alive, he died on April 11, 1985. There are rumors that the dictator died on April 7, but the official announcement was made on April 11, after the chords were completed in the Nexhmije – Ramiz clan. The dictator died, but even after his death, instead of fading away, his cult took on terrifying proportions.
A gigantic monument was erected in “Skënderbe Square” in Tirana and a magnificent pyramid of this 20th century pharaoh was built (with colossal sums) in the center of Tirana. Over 1 million Albanians were brought to Tirana, like cattle herds, with tears in their eyes and scratched cheeks, to pay homage to the dictator who had turned them into slaves. The Albanians, although the last to overthrow the communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe, erupted like a volcano, after the events in Romania, at the end of 1989.
On February 20, 1991, more than 200,000 people, not only from Tirana but also from the surrounding districts, gathered in “Skënderbej Square” to overturn the monument of Enver Hoxha, who for 45 years had humiliated and impoverished Albanians, as no people and, scared to the core, had ordered that several hundred special forces, armed to the teeth, be placed in the square, to prevent the collapse of the monument. Above the square, two military helicopters flew menacingly over the crowd, which had started fighting with the red mercenaries.
There were also fire engines that drenched the revolted crowds with colored water. The monument resembled an ancient Egyptian fortress, attacked from the four points of the horizon and fanatically defended by the Pharaoh’s loyal guard. Attacks and counterattacks continued for more than 2 hours. At 2:00 p.m., a steel noose was thrown around the dictator’s neck, which was quickly pulled by a “Skoda” truck. The monument was ripped from its plinth and fell to the steps of the pedestal with a deafening crash. The joy of 200,000 people was indescribable.
The echo of this noise was heard up to the foot of Dajti Mountain. The dictator’s monument was dragged away to be given as a “gift” to the striking students. Dozens of young people urinated on him, to “take revenge”, for the indignities he had done to the Albanian people, who suffered a lot. When darkness fell on the streets of Tirana, the Security forces kidnapped more than 15 young people, most of them from the districts, and disappeared without a trace in Malin me Gropa, in the District of Tirana.
Their corpses, after being executed, were thrown into abysses untrodden by the foot of man. After 7 years from the fall of the monument, the Dictator’s widow, Nexhmije Hoxha (Xhuglini), declared to a Dutch journalist that the most painful day in her life was the day when the monument fell and not the day of Enver’s real death. Hoxha. Memorie.al
