By Dashnor Kaloçi
Second part
Ramiz Alia: “Something about Comrade Enver’s health, for now only we know, no one else, so no one should find out”!
Memorie.al / Exactly 39 years ago, at midnight on April 11, 1985, after two days in a coma, the main leader of communist Albania, dictator Enver Hoxha, the man who had ruled his country with an iron hand, died. , since November 1944, when he came to power immediately after the departure of the German forces, which also marked the end of the War. His death also came as a result of a disease (diabetes), which had appeared to him since the first years after the war, which also caused an acute heart attack, which he suffered in 1973, narrowly escaping death. , but since the beginning of the 80s, he became extremely irritated, giving him many complications, this also led to his death at midnight on April 11, 1985.
But the deterioration of Enver Hoxha’s health began in the first days of February 1984, which caused a real alarm among the “leadership comrades”, making Ramiz Alia, the man whom Enver, after the elimination, – Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, in December 1981, had “baptized and promoted him as his successor, to gather several times in working meetings the members and candidates of the Political Bureau, to inform them about the serious health situation, which is the “Commander” passed, or communicated from time to time, about his illness and the “measures the Party was taking” to overcome that extremely difficult situation.
Among other things, this fact is made known by some documents with the motto “Highly secret of a special importance”, extracted from the Archive of the former Central Committee of the APS, (Fund 14, App. O.U)
The first thing that stands out from these documents and the minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau, held on February 17, 1984, is the fact that Ramiz Alia had already taken the “reins” of the Albanian state and in some way he was already the “de facto” head of the Labor Party of Albania, deciding everything himself. And the other thing that can be noticed in these documents is the great preoccupation of Ramiz Ali and all the “friends of the leadership” to keep Enver’s illness and his health condition as secret as possible.
After making a summary of the health condition of Enver Hoxha and the team of Albanian doctors who were engaged in that direction, Ramiz Alia discussed with the “friends of the Bureau” also about the possibility of bringing some specialist doctors from abroad, mainly from France, but it was not accepted by Enver himself, nor by Ramizi and Nexhmija, as they were afraid of the news of the world press, because a Greek newspaper had written that Enver Hoxha had died.
Based on this, in those meetings, Ramiz Alia ordered the “friends of the Bureau” to be careful in maintaining the secret “about Comrade Enver’s health”, not even to talk to their family members at home or in public , keep laughing, so that the people do not understand anything.
But for more, we are familiar with the following documents with the minutes of the meetings of the Political Bureau of February 17 and November 11, 1984, which we are publishing.
Continues from last issue
ARCHIVE DOCUMENT WITH THE MINUTES OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU MEETING ON THE HEALTH CONDITION OF ENVER HOXHA
“Top secret, of special importance”
Minutes of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, dated November 11, 1984
This meeting of the Political Bureau was called by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Comrade Ramiz Alia, to inform the main members of the party’s leadership about Comrade Enver’s health condition.
They gathered in the small break room, upstairs, and Comrade Ramiz’s speech was transcribed.
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: I thought I would talk to all of you, comrades, to inform you about Comrade Enver’s health condition. You all have followed him and are generally aware of his health condition.
Now I would like to let you know, so that you can also consider how this matter stands in recent days, why, as you yourself saw, at the meeting of the 9th Plenum of the Central Committee, on September 27, his condition has worsened approx.
Comrade Enver’s health is characterized by a general weakness of the organism. His physical stamina has dropped quite a bit, which, as you saw, is reflected in his difficulty speaking.
He has pointed out this situation to us himself, when he came to the camera last time and among other things he told us that he wants to talk to us about many things, but he can’t. Recently, friend Enver has also had difficulty moving his limbs.
The truth is that during these days, he also had some kind of flu, which of course had a negative impact on the severity of this condition. For all these reasons, I thought I would inform you, friends of the Bureau, to have a complete picture of this situation.
The main source of Comrade Enver’s health decline is diabetes. As you all know, he has been suffering from diabetes for a long time, since 1948.
This disease has generally affected the blood vessels, reducing the possibility of circulation, which weakens the body. The treatments against this disease have been done consistently with rigour.
Yes, they have been done in order thanks to the rigor and will of constant care of Comrade Enver himself, who has strictly adhered to the recommendations of the doctors and implemented their advice with an exemplary discipline.
This has made it possible to avoid for a long time those negative effects that could be proven much faster if certain therapy was neglected.
However, diabetes is the main source of the predicament Comrade Enver is going through now. As a result of diabetes, Comrade Enver had a myocardial infarction, 11 years ago, in October 1973. Many of the comrades do not know about this event, but a good part, like Adili, Manushi, etc., do. For this disease, from which he was affected at that time.
Even in this case, Comrade Enver was treated very carefully and it should be noted again that he was also much disciplined in the implementation of the treatments. I can even say that then he was treated so effectively against the heart attack that later he had no more worries and continued to work normally.
It should be mentioned that three years ago, from 1980-1981, he began to notice some other phenomena called ‘pulmonary edema’, which are nothing more than accumulation of water in the lungs, causing difficulty in breathing. .
For this reason, our doctors have been forced to take measures from time to time, for the discharge of excess water from the lungs, in order to relieve it and return it to a normal state.
The cause of “pulmonary edema” comes from the weakening of the heart muscle, which does not have the proper power to absorb the excess water that is created in the lungs and causes breathing difficulties.
From the beginning of this year, there was a period when these phenomena became more frequent and aggravated his health condition, but this phenomenon is now no longer being noticed. As you know, in February of this year, Comrade Enver also had a cerebral ischemia.
Pali and Muho were not there when we gathered the next day on this occasion. However, they also learned about that extremely dangerous moment, for Comrade Enver’s life, but the situation was well controlled, thanks to the very quick and very effective intervention of our doctors.
After this blow, Comrade Enver improved, but it must be admitted that in general his state of health worsened, as the ischemia created difficulties in moving the limbs of the leg and hand, which were affected, and he developed a fatigue General.
For this reason, several times we had proposed to Comrade Enver, to bring doctors from abroad to visit him. I myself talked especially with him, Nexhmija also talked especially, at the same time we talked another time together with Nexhmija, but he never accepted our proposal. He argues it with two reasons.
First, with the complete trust he has in our doctors, in the diagnosis they have made and in the treatment they have given and continue to give. Secondly, it is then the political aspect of this step, which he thinks should be looked at carefully before acting.
Even without taking doctors from abroad, we have all seen what the press in the world wrote about his condition, even a Greek newspaper, there a month ago, wrote as if he had died. Italian television has also talked about the serious health condition of Comrade Enver.
So, without bringing doctors and there is noise outside, so it is guessed what can be said and written later in the world opinion, as if someone is called. We must take into account then, in the first place, the concern that would be caused in our people.
Two or three weeks ago, we talked again with Comrade Enver, and finally he agreed to do something in this direction, not to have foreign doctors come here to visit him, but to send our doctors abroad, to France, to do a consultation with French specialists.
For this reason, we sent to Paris three of our doctors, who deal with the treatment of Comrade Enver, his personal doctor, Isuf Kalon, the cardiologist, Ylli Popa, and Bajram Preza, as the neurologist, who followed the cures against cerebral ischemia.
Our doctors received all the necessary data and, with the help of our embassy in Paris, organized a consultation with the president of the France-Albania Association, doctor Professor Pol Miliezin at the head, to whom they spoke openly and, of course, confidentially, that it was for Comrade Enver.
This was done so that he and his team understood that the secret of the case had to be preserved, therefore it was emphasized that only they knew this.
There is no doubt that the French specialists will have spoken to their government, but at least in the press, they cannot say anything, that such a thing would be very negative for them. Therefore, the French specialists were presented with all the documentation, starting from the history of the disease, the electrocardiograms that were done during this time, etc.
It is known that in modern medicine, it no longer follows the old methods, listening to or touching the patient’s body; today, the necessary analyzes are done beforehand and consultations are organized on their basis.
This is how it was done there for Comrade Enver’s case as well, and this consultation was very effective. What came out of it? All the French specialists in the consultation were completely in agreement with the diagnosis of our doctors, from the beginning to the end.
Second, they all agreed with the method of treatment, with the therapy that has been followed, whether against diabetes, or for strengthening the heart, against edema, etc…!
Even the French specialists said that, even if they had followed the patient themselves, they could hardly have done more than what our doctors have done, who have used the modern medical technique and the latest drugs they have provided, have given them in appropriate doses with efficacy.
Not that we had any doubt in the treatment of our doctors towards Comrade Enver, because we have always been convinced that the effectiveness of their treatments has been good, but the fact that even the French specialists had the same opinion as ours, calmed and convinced us, that we are not dealing with anything else.
As far as the heart is concerned, the opinion of both the French specialists and ours is the same. This organ has reached the stage of marked insufficiency, the heart muscle has weakened excessively and this is precisely the source of the general impotence that Comrade Enver has until now.
So the main factor in this condition that causes the other negative phenomena of Comrade Enver, is the heart. Even when the diagnosis was discussed, the French said that the cerebral ischemia that struck Comrade Enver a few months ago has its source; we are not dealing with carotid artery stenosis, as our doctors thought. Memorie.al
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