By Dashnor Kaloci
Memorie.al / On that cloudy and rainy morning of November 29, 1974, hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, officers, cadets of the “Enver Hoxha” United Officers’ School, “Skanderbegs,” and other participants or guests at the big parade held that day in honor of the 30th anniversary of liberation, as well as all Albanians who watched it on the television screen, would never have thought that the tribune in front of the prime ministry building, where Enver Hoxha with the members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labor, and other guests were, was made of concrete!
Even today, when more than half a century has passed since that day and 35 years since the collapse of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha and his successor Ramiz Alia, no archival document has been published to make this fact known, and no one has testified to such a thing! At least not publicly! But it seems that this thing, i.e., the construction of a tribune with iron and concrete in front of the prime ministry building, which is unlikely to have happened even in the most dictatorial countries before the 90s, such as North Korea, etc., happened in communist Albania!
This is known from an archival document from 1982, taken from the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (now part of the fund of the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents), where one of the former senior officers of that period, arrested in 1982 on the charge of being; “a member of the hostile group of Mehmet Shehu and Kadri Hazbiu,” testified before the investigators in the cells of the Tirana prison (Block 313), where the investigative process against him was taking place.
If we consider the time when this event happened, i.e., the great parade in honor of the 30th anniversary of liberation (November 20, 1974), which took place at a time when the crackdown on the Minister of People’s Defense, Beqir Balluku, and his main subordinates in the General Staff and the Political Directorate of the Army, such as Petrit Dume, Hito Cako, Rrahman Parllaku, etc., had begun (Balluku was arrested on December 16, 1974), the testimony of the former senior officer seems to be more than true.
This is because, besides the fact that he also mentions some of the names of his other officer colleagues who were present at that event, who could easily be called by the investigators and questioned, what makes his testimony completely credible is the paranoia of the communist dictator Enver Hoxha (especially after the event in China with the Minister of Defense, Lin Biao, who, in an escape attempt, was shot and his plane was burned in the air near the border with Mongolia), as well as Mehmet Shehu’s loyalty to him.
The document in question became part of the voluminous file that was administered at the time by the “Special Operations Group” (which was created in 1982, only a few days after the arrest of Kadri Hazbiu), which was headed by the deputy minister of Internal Affairs, Zylyftar Ramizi, who also held the function of Director of State Security, where the former senior officer was asked to testify “about the hostile activity of Mehmet Shehu and Kadri Hazbiu”!
Such as “removing ammunition from the tanks” that paraded in the great parade of the 30th anniversary of liberation on November 29, 1974, as well as the construction of the leadership tribune with iron and concrete. But for more about this, etc., we learn from the archival document that is published for the first time by Memorie.al, which we are publishing together with the relevant facsimile photos.
THE 1982 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENT, WITH THE TESTIMONY IN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FORMER SENIOR OFFICER, ABOUT THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE LEADERSHIP TRIBUNE WITH CONCRETE, AFTER MEHMET SHEHU’S ORDER
Minutes of the questioning of the defendant (………..)
Tirana, 16.11.1982
I, (B…..I…..), investigator at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, questioned the defendant (………..).
Question: Continue, defendant, and explain to us about your hostile activity against the people’s power?
Answer: I (…….), asked the investigation for a period of two or three days to think about giving more detailed explanations about my investigative process, where I talked about Kadri Hazbiu.
I also explained in the first investigative process that Kadri Hazbiu is in common hostile activity with Mehmet Shehu. I want to continue this explanation today, as I remembered during the time I was thinking:
In November 1974, when we were preparing the parade, and it was the first or second rehearsal, in front of the prime ministry, one night we were there, Mehmet Shehu, Kadri Hazbiu and other cadres of the Army, who would watch the rehearsals of the parade.
After the secretary of the Central Committee, comrade Hysni Kapo, came there, and Mehmet Shehu told me to explain to comrade Hysni about the squares, I explained and at the end of the parade rehearsals, I stayed there, while comrade Hysni left.
Mehmet Shehu, Kadri Hazbiu, Feçor Shehu, I (…….) Sami Meçollari, Mendu Backa, and some others whose names I don’t remember now, remained there.
At this time, Mehmet Shehu gave instructions to Mendu Backa to make the tribune where the leaders would stand with concrete, saying that the tribune should be made of concrete, so that if a tank comes, it cannot knock it down.
At this time, I intervened, saying that we have never made it with concrete and it cannot happen that the tank gets out of line and comes to shoot at the tribune!
Mehmet told me that; you are myopic; we will take every measure to avoid any unexpected event. Mehmet continued to give instructions, saying that the ammunition should be removed from the tanks, you of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, will be responsible for these matters.
I then said that, in this way we will also remove the ammunition from the planes! Mehmet told me that you are responsible for this with your head. After this, we parted from each other, leaving the tribune to be made of concrete, the ammunition to be removed from the tanks, but not from the planes.
Mehmet Shehu left for his house, while Kadri Hazbiu and I left for the cars that were waiting for us at the Lana Bridge. They were leaving in a group, but I was leaving with Kadri, together with each other.
On the way, Kadri told me that: “You (……..) must react well, I mean for today’s case, but for everything, you must listen to Mehmet, he knows more than us, he knows the situation better than us, this is for your own good, because then it will be too late.”
I told him that I would keep it in mind, and he got in the car and left for home, while I went to my house. The tribune was made of concrete during the nights, the ammunition was removed from the parade tanks, but who specifically transmitted Mehmet Shehu’s order, I don’t know, but Sami Meçollari, the Chief of the General Staff, was present there.
And I didn’t remove the ammunition from the planes and I didn’t tell anyone. After two or three days of this order from Mehmet Shehu, one day when we were going to watch the parade rehearsals, I got in a car with A. F., the tank commander at the Ministry of People’s Defense. A… told me: “What is going on like this, the ammunition is being removed from the tanks, and this has not been seen”?!
I told him not to discuss it, it is an order, and he did not speak any more. A… was angry, because as a tank commander, they had not notified him. For me, the parade of tanks with ammunition had no danger, because the driver was below and the tank commander was above and there was no one to use the weapons.
And it was an impossible thing to do, with ammunition we have paraded in every parade, while if I removed the ammunition from the planes, the readiness of the planes would be broken and it would take several hours for the planes to be put back in readiness!/ Memorie.al
The defendant (……….)
The investigator (B…..I…..)
