Letter to Enver: “At the Zogaj border crossing, even though the searchlight was turned on five times, two enemies were not discovered and were destroyed…” / The secret report of Feçor Shehu in 1980

Dashnor Kaloçi

Memorie.al publishes some archival documents issued by the Central State Archive (fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), belonging to 1980, which are detached from a voluminous file with the initials “Top secret”, where the minister of Internal Affairs of that time, Feçor Shehu personally informs the first secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Enver Hoxha, about a series of very worrying problems and events that had occurred during that year, such as: “On some issues of hostile and malicious activity during the months of July-August and negative events in the ranks of the effective members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs “,” On the escapes that occurred from January to July 30, 1980 “,” Information from the first secretary of the committee of the Party of the district of Dibra, comrade Jovan Bardhi, for the extraordinary event that took place in the village of Vajmëdhenj of the Agricultural Cooperative of Muhurri ”,“ Information from Zija Koçiu, for the extraordinary event that took place in Tir on the night of October 20 and 22, 1980, when 10 vehicles of foreign diplomatic missions had their tires punctured with a knife ”, etc., etc.

“Communists and special cadres of the Shkodra Branch of Internal Affairs, starting from the fact that in recent months there had been no escape, instead of taking the necessary measures to increase vigilance against people with such tendencies, began to say that: ‘this year we are better, we have fewer events, the service has been revolutionized, the staff and the staff is tense’, when exactly in this period of last year, there have been escapes in this district, such as the most flagrant case that of the enemy element Nikoll Hysaj from Vermoshi, who managed to escape even though he had been under the surveillance of our Security and Border bodies for a long time. For this reason and for lack of sense of responsibility, the Branch President, the secretary of the Party Committee and the Chief of Police, at this time went with permission. “The clothes of a person who escaped from the sector of the border crossing Reç, the border service found them after 8 days”.

This is stated, among other things, in an archival document issued by the Central State Archive (the fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), dated 29.IX.1980, which contains a report-information which is detached from a voluminous dossier with the initials “Top secret”, where the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Feçor Shehu personally informs the first secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Enver Hoxha, about a series of problems and very disturbing events that had occurred from throughout 1980, such as:

“On some issues of hostile and malicious activity during the months of July-August and the negative events in the ranks of the effective members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”, “On the escapes that occurred from January to July 30, 1980”, “Information from the secretary of the first of the committee of the Party of Dibra district, comrade Jovan Bardhi, for the extraordinary event that took place in the village Vajmëdhenj of the Agricultural Cooperative of Muhurri ”,“ Information from Zija Koçiu, for the extraordinary event that took place in Tirana on the night of October 20 and 22 1980, where 10 vehicles of foreign diplomatic missions had their tires punctured with a knife ”, etc. etc.

From this voluminous file that Memorie.al has published several documents before, in today’s issue we are publishing the document with the topic: “On the escapes that occurred from January to July 30, 1980”

Secret

I N F O R M A T I O N

ON THE ESCAPES FROM JANUARY TO JULY 1980

From January to July 1980, 12 people escaped through the state land border: and throughout 1979, 21 escaped. The fugitives belong to: 6 Shkodra, 3 Korça, one from Erseka and Tropoja and one district of Berat. From the materials and problems in the follow-up, as well as from the analysis made after these events, it is clear that:

1. The enemy is constantly inciting the tendency to flee to border and deep-sea districts. In the district of Shkodra alone, 24 individuals are currently being pursued for attempted escape.
2. The crime of treason against the homeland in the form of an attempt to escape, was committed in most cases by young elements up to 35 years of age, some with hostile backgrounds, some with good political background, but morally degraded. .
3. The reconnaissance and strike force of some border bodies like last year and this year has been really weak. In 1979, 28 people tried to cross the border and only 7 of them were captured by the border forces and the people, while this 7-month period, out of 13, only one of the people was captured.
4. The causes of the escape are mainly the weaknesses that exist in the field of operational work, the management of the border service and the lack of revolutionary vigilance. The Internal Affairs Branch of the Korça district, although it had complete data on the purpose of the escape of an enemy element, could not strike it only for a pronounced lack of vigilance and coordination between the Security, Border and Investigation sectors. .

Considering the fact that during one month in the district of Shkodra there were three escapes with six people, or 50% of those who realized this during the seven months at the national level, we closely followed the analysis made by the Bureau of the Committee of District party. From this meeting it was concluded that in this district for escapes, several causes have influenced:

• They still have unrealistic and euphoric assessments of the situation.

Communists and special cadres of the Shkodra Branch of Internal Affairs, based on the fact that in recent months there had been no escape, instead of taking the necessary measures to increase vigilance against people with such tendencies, began to say that: ‘ this year we are better, we have fewer events, the service has been revolutionized, the staff and the staff are tense ‘, when exactly in this period of last year, in this district there have been escapes, such as the most flagrant case he of the enemy element N. Hysaj from Vermoshi, who managed to escape even though he had been under the surveillance of our Security and Border bodies for a long time. For this reason and for lack of sense of responsibility, the Branch President, the secretary of the Party Committee and the Chief of Police, at this time went with permission. The clothes of a person who escaped to the Reç border crossing sector were found by the border service after 8 days.

• Practice in some cases is proving that sectors, communists and cadres are not tense in the line of duty. On the night of the escape of two people in the sector of the border point in Zogaj, they were on duty, in that direction, two service units, the searchlight was turned on five times, and yet, these enemies were not detected and were annihilated. The operative worker and the police officer of the border point, Lepushë, now stand up and say: “If we had been asked about these people, we would not have agreed to work on that geological expedition”.

Security and Border had not assessed the fact that these special enemy elements are using directions not closed with the electro-signal barrier system. The Security Agency did not cover the geological expedition, which operates in the Vermosh area, with signaling force. There are still cases of lack of mutual information between the Branch staff and the field staff, about the changes that occur in the area and certain individuals. In the border ward, these 7 months there have been over 30 negative cases in service, which testifies to the underestimation of the enemy’s activity and the reduction of vigilance in duty.

The events have occurred as a result of liberal attitudes in law enforcement.

The sectors of the Internal Affairs Branch have made concessions in the implementation of the norms that determine the orders for the border regime. After the events, from the controls exercised, in the area of ​​Vermoshi were found 14 children and some families of employees, who had neither a residential nor a work center. Some popular councils, not only do not apply certain criteria, but in some cases abuse their right to grant permission to persons seeking to enter border areas. The chairman of the People’s Council of the village of Tamara, had given permission at the border line to four people from a family with bad political composition and those who had fled abroad.

• The formal and sensational work comes out in this direction.

During 1980, in some border areas, large-scale staff and employees were active on the issue of vigilance and strengthening the border regime, but this year, out of 189 regime violators, the people of this district captured only 18 of them, ie less than the same period last year. This shows that in what is said in these assets, they do not fit properly into the masses of the people.

• There are bodies and party organizations on the ground that seek responsibility for these events, not in the weaknesses and shortcomings of their work, but in others.

The secretary of the party organization of the Factory “Drini”, where two young people who escaped had worked, instead of analyzing the work and responsibility of the party organization in this case, went so far as to say: “The responsibility for this lies with “The Executive Committee has sent such people to work.” Thus, the Director of the Geological Enterprise and the Director of Reclamation were dismissed for their cases.

From this comes the conclusion that the Party organization and the Branch Party Committee, as well as the district Party Committee, have not been able to create that strain and spirit of mobilization and that vigilance and readiness that today’s situations require. Therefore, at the meeting of the Bureau of the District Party Committee, emphasis was placed especially on some issues of education, management, organization, control, accountability and deepening the fight against liberalism. As above, in addition to the measures determined by the Bureau of the District Party Committee:

1. The Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a group of friends of the Border Directorate to the Shkodra Branch, mainly for assistance in the above directions.
2. The issues of understanding the situation and concretizing the revolutionary vigilance in the border bodies were addressed in a special way in the seminar recently organized by the apparatus of the Central Committee of the party, on the problems of education of the border forces.
3. The conclusions drawn from the control assistance on the issues of understanding the situation, discipline and readiness for service in the Gjirokastra Branch, we generalized with the management staff of all border battalions. /Memorie.al

GROUP OF INSTRUCTORS FOR BODIES E

INTERNAL AFFAIRS

August 1980