By Nafi Çegrani / former UDB official
Part Two
Memorie.al / Immediately after World War II, by order of Josif Broz Tito, the so-called OZN (Organ Zastite Naroda) was formed on May 13, 1944, and a year later, the VOS (Vojna Obavestajna Sluzba ‘JNA’) Military Intelligence Service of the Yugoslav People’s Army. By the end of 1946, these services were reformed and merged, forming the UDB and KOS, (Uprava Drzavne Bezbednosti) State Security Directorate and (Kontra obavestajna Sluzba) Yugoslav Counterintelligence Service, which was subordinate to the Command of the General Staff of the Army, which were led by Aleksandar Ranković, nicknamed “Leka” and Slobodan Penezić, nicknamed “Kercun”.
Continued from the previous issue
Disappointed Albanians also went to the war fronts, to partisan formations, such as the Albanian VII Brigade on the Srem Front, etc. Since then, the statements of Josif Broz Tito and others like him, that Albanians would live as a people in “Brotherhood-Union” with other peoples in Yugoslavia?! They were disappointed in 1945, 1966, 1974.
The ethnic cleansing and physical disappearance of Albanians continued even after Tito’s death, the Pan-Slavic goals and thanks to the notorious followers Čubrilović and Milošević, reached their peak in 1981. Who were they and why did some Albanians collaborate with the UDB, or rather I should say that the UDB had such a great interest in bringing into its ranks selected Albanians, as officials or engaged in the network of espionage and collaborators.
The goals, objectives, interests and preoccupations of this notorious service were great, but also cunning and perfidious, to break the national dignity of the Albanian and to make a mockery of his moral and pride. In many cases, when it was a question of a boy from a tribe with tradition, or the son of a famous ballistics player, with a name in our history, in order to compromise him, UDB operatives have sat close to him, raised a toast and greeted him on the street, when they met him they would grab him by the arm in order for the people to see him and advertise him as if he were James Bond, or a close person, or even their collaborator.
The UDB’s compromising method has also been used among Albanians in America, or in the ranks of Albanian emigration, introducing distrust and strife, division and revenge, developing various combinations, traps and intrigues. And the Albanian, always hot-blooded and explosive, a flag-bearer and a caparisoner, with a gun in his belt and… people look like ants to him, he did not understand that behind all this, there is something else, something that the UDB has kept in real secret, “burning” what it does not like, what muddies the waters, it burns the “spy”, to protect and keep secret the real SPY.
Therefore, the espionage service and the activity of the spy are extremely specific, and for such things, tricks and fabrications, the UDB has great experience, like a strange machine that for decades has speculated with the Albanian and to the detriment of Albanians, killing them with each other. This is also a part of our history and tragic fate as a people and as a nation….!
Why is that?! You are surprised by the fact that out of hundreds and hundreds of files and names coded and recorded in the UDB sectors from among Albanians, both in Macedonia and Kosovo, approximately 60 percent of them are included as collaborators of this Yugoslav intelligence and counterintelligence service.
Hundreds of Albanians have fabricated files of several categories, such as; some of them are recorded as regular collaborators, some are of the DL (dosie za lice) personal files category, and PPR (“predmet u prednimom radu”) which means files of previously processed cases.
The UDB possesses the majority of such individual files, but in its steel and armored safes there are also hundreds of voluminous files for the leaders and various Albanian immigrant organizations from all over the world, and in particular those from America, France, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Canada, Turkey, etc.
There are also strange files for imams and priests, for professors and doctors, for teachers and engineers, for immigrants and farmers, for the elderly and the young, for pupils and students, etc., etc. And all of these, according to the strategy of these communist services, are of great importance for the UDB’s espionage system. But in what way and how is the recruitment and contact of the “selected” persons as collaborators carried out, which as a process develops according to identical and specific methods that the Intelligence and Counterintelligence service has in practice and applies.
As collaborators of the UDB and espionage among Albanians in Yugoslavia, of the category of “internal enemies” and “external enemies”, we are talking in particular about the activities of members of this service among Albanians in America, as well as the connections of some sold-out people in the Yugoslav diplomatic and consular secret services, both in Chicago and New York and in several other European countries, or even across the ocean, who act as infiltrated persons and spies in the ranks of the leaders and leaderships of Albanian immigrant organizations, we find a series of names of Albanians sold-out and who blindly worked and are working against Albanians.
The Yugoslav UDB has used secret agent operations and trained agents against Albania for decades and years. From all sides of the Albanian border, the KOS and the UDB have sent entire groups of saboteurs and terrorists, unfortunately choosing them as the most trusted from among the Albanians themselves, whom they trained in special and secret camps for such armed espionage activities, and sent them to the mountains, some crossing the slopes of Mount Vllaj and Korab, some from Vraca e Sharrit and Restelica, others from the ridges of Peja and Gjakova and, up to the sides of Ulcinj in Montenegro.
The list of their names is long, for example, from Macedonia they set off as saboteurs; some groups from the village of Frëngovë, led by Koço Popović, Elisie Popovski – “Marko”, Arizan Nesterovski- “Marçe”, Lazar Mojsovi, Koço Bitoljani, Boro Çushkar etc.
But in this direction, Shibrit Kica from Veleshta in Struga, who was later interned in Veles and Gevgelija, also acted. Meanwhile, Murteza Shatri, entered the network of recruitment informants. In particular, with the directives of Lazar Mojsov and Marçe, Mahir Zherovjani, under the pseudonym “Majeri”, developed agent activities across the border.
Moreover, also stories through events of this nature have, in particular Shaban Braha, Stafe Lleshi; even Shaban Zejneli, Xhafer Hasani, Bal Beqiri, Memet Zeneli, Riza Kadriu, Qebir Mustafa, Hashim Toplica, Azir Jakupi, Ajet Ameti, Zilbear Qazimi, Sadik Sinani and several others…
I am giving just one example to illustrate the way in which the UDB secret service blinded the Albanians. It targeted those Albanians who were considered leaders, and who had the state organ as their “wing”, not only for a sense of revenge but also for various other purposes. The group of saboteurs from Struga who were thrown into Albania was denser and was organized by two party functionaries and leaders of the UDB or Yugoslav KOS, such as Koço Popović and Koço Bitoljani.
In the village of Frengove, which also served as a center for the departure of saboteurs, they also had a big feast, drinking raki and eating roasted lamb. In the house of Xheladin Dauti and Ali Poška, in the “Gjyluas” guesthouse, they boiled coffee and sugar raki. From here, Ali Poshka also set off from the mountains, while Zenulla Tusha, set off from Dobovjani, but all of them were under the command of those who controlled them, including Elisie Popovski-Marko and Arizan Nestorovski- “Marce”.
On the other hand, the “State Security”, which was well organized in terms of intelligence and counterintelligence, as a strong espionage and surveillance organization that had specialized information sectors, was waging another strategic battle, especially in the gorges and gorges of Rajca and Mokra, starting from Corfu, Delvina and Saranda and up to the sides of Zhur of Dragash with Pashtrik and the banks of the Drini, up to the front with Peja and Gjakova, in the Rugova Gorge and beyond the sides of Hoti, Gruda, Gucia and up to Ulcinj, on the line with Montenegro …!
(Both here and there, along the border line between Albanians, devilish mono-paths full of human life risks led to the road of no return! Yes, people who had lost their way in the shadows of the night where they remained beyond the seasons of dreams and so far from reality on the silent front, through events and responsibilities…)
The long list of Albanian collaborators of the UDB is also headed by other journalists and intellectuals, even imams and teachers, whose “contributions” have been of a “high” level, for the interests of the secret services and for specific sectors. For this, they have been helped materially and have enjoyed various benefits and perks. As collaborators and informants, people who have enjoyed authority among the people and have been communicative, were chosen, recruiting them in various fields of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.
Thus the UDB and the KOS have acted with priests, especially in Croatia and Bosnia, just as the other secret services of the Communist Bloc states have acted in all countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, including especially Yugoslavia and Albania. Here I should also mention the fact that a large part has become “spies”, due to the pressure that has been exerted on them, that is, due to fear.
Those who refused to become collaborators were imprisoned by the UDB and were persecuted, monitored and identified as “enemy” elements against the people and the state for their entire lives. The Yugoslav Secret Service also called Albanians of this category irredentists and separatists, or even “enemies” or “ballists” and many other epithets, for whom there are also personal files, called ‘DL’ (“Dosie za lice”) and files of illegal groups, organizations and the so-called ‘PPR’ (“Predmet vo predhodna rabota”), “Preliminary Work Subject Matter”!
So the Albanian people, always being disappointed and exploited by others, discriminated against and oppressed, terrorized by foreigners and, especially by the Slavic-communist regime, were forced to emigrate to the Western countries of the Free World, in order to survive and ensure the existence of their families.
Therefore, when it comes to Albanians in America, as well as in some other countries of Western Europe, this phenomenon must be elaborated since the time of Fan Noli, before and after World War II, and even during the rule of the communist regime, both in Enver’s Albania and in Yugoslavia, Albanians have emigrated across the ocean, in several stages during the time of Rankovic, but also after him. In emigration, especially in the USA, we encounter two categories of Albanian emigrants; the political and the economic.
However, when it came to its own interest, the UDB used the same operational methods and means to discover, intercept and identify all movements, activities and developments of their activities, both in the individual and collective aspects, of the Albanian organizations and emigrants that have existed.
By eavesdropping on the Yugoslav secret services of the UDB, as well as the diplomatic intelligence, they have developed secret operations and activities through operatives attached to the centers of emigrants, such as (also infiltrated informants), in those larger groups and organizations, in New York, Paterson and Chicago.
In an analytical manner, special files have been devised and prepared, with various analyses and operational reports, using collaborators-informants and spies, from among the Albanians themselves, who have been categorized as “selected” conspiratorial persons, in operational connections, or special “sources”.
But all of them have been engaged in using Albanians against Albanians as rusty tools, as black tools. Here, even intrigues, divisions and slanders of the filthiest kind have not been lacking, even introducing them into serious revenge and settling scores with fights, scuffles and severe physical abuse.
Secret policies and secret diplomatic and espionage information services in New York, which Belgrade led as a separate branch, after the fall of Rankovic and after the years 1968 and the demonstrations in Kosovo and Tetovo, as specialists of this service, were Mito Lambevski and Dimçe Bellovski, while Osman Gashi, was entered into the Yugoslav diplomatic annals, as a sold-out Albanian and intriguer, who caused havoc and divisions among the Albanians of Paterson, by slandering and making combinations according to the instructions of the UDB.
Using Albanian against Albanian as an “informant” or spy-fakir also in Warbury, Brooklyn, New York and Chicago etc., by developing specific activities of special interest in the spread of the anti-Albanian war in the ranks of emigration and Albanian immigrants in America. In these annals we also have Olloman Sela with a “double role”. Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
