Dashnor Kaloçi
Part forty-eight
Memorie.al publishes a voluminous archival file issued by the institution of the Authority for Information of Former State Security Files, where there are hundreds of documents with the logo “Top secret” belonging to the former political prisoner, Xhavit Qesja, originally from the city of Kruja, whose family during the period of occupation of the country, 1939-1944, was closely associated with the Anti-Fascist Movement, being one of its main bases and made available all the wealth it had, as Xhavit was one of the first members of the Albanian Communist Party for the Kruja district, leading the Kruja-Ishëm partisan battalion and the 22nd Assault Brigade. Xhavit Qese’s political career after the end of the War, where he was appointed and served in senior positions in the Albanian Army, the apparatus of the Central Committee of the ALP, and several districts of the country, from where he was sent to study in the Soviet Union, where stayed until 1957, when he was announced to return to Albania urgently, after openly expressing his views in favor of the political line being pursued by the main Kremlin leader, Nikita Khrushchev, condemning the Stalin cult. Enver Hoxha’s conversation with Xhavit Qesen in his office in the Central Committee, where he sharply criticized him for the wrong views he had expressed during his studies in Moscow, urging him to reflect and make self-criticism, but Xhavit rejected the suggestion of the first secretary of the Albanian Labor Party, which caused him to no longer be allowed to go to the Soviet Union to complete his studies, but to be sent to work as deputy chairman of the Elbasan Executive Committee, from where a year later, he was expelled from the Party and exiled to Zvërnec Island, where the communist regime kept isolated some of the former senior party and state cadres whom he had condemned for their anti-party views. Xhavit Qesva’s long ordeal and persecution from 1957 to 1990, where he spent a full 32 years in prison and internment, being one of the few Burrel prison convicts to go on long hunger strikes in protest of the treatment and savage attitude of the communist regime of Enver Hoxha towards him. The complete form, investigative and judicial file in charge of Xhavit Qeses, which is published for the first time by Memorie.al, which contains the documents of the former State Security that reflect the prosecution and wiretapping against him, the reports of Security collaborators with pseudonyms their correspondence with the letters he sent to the highest party and state instances, as well as the highest leaders of the ALP, until 1991 when he was released from prison!
Continued from the previous issue
The secret document of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, regarding the wiretaps that were made in Burrel prison during the conversations between the convicts: Maqo Çomo, Bardhyl Belishova, Fadil Paçrami, Gjergj Titani and Xhavit Qesja.
People’s Republic Soc. Of Albania “SECRET”
Ministry of Internal Affairs Copy No.2
Internal Affairs Branch Group II
(Security Side) Burrel on .3.1984
NO.15
Reproduction Prohibited!
LEGEND:
M – Maqo Çomo
B – Bardhyl Belishova
F – Fadil Paçrami
Gj – Gjergj Titani
Xh – Xhavit Qesja
(———–) Clarifications of Operational Worker T. Operative
I N F O R M A T I O N
On hearing with T.O. Stationary convicts anti-party, Maqo Çomo, Bardhyl Belishova, Fadil Paçrami, Gjergj Titani and Xhavit Qesja in room No. 3 dated 27.2.1984
M -… (Upon entering the room, I begin to explain the conversations he had with the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and the Branch President who took him to the meeting).
B – Did I also meet with the Deputy Minister?
M – Yes, Zylyftari and Hodo Hodo… (etc., for these unimportant to be whitewashed). Yes, the branch president told me do you know these? I say no. Yes one said it is Zylyftari, this one says it is Hodo Hodo, Branch President.
Gj – Yes Ismaili (Musta) had not come?
M – No, they told me that they took me there, Ismail left, they untied my hands. He told me at the end, how you are and how you are; he also said you look good, yes I said well. He said you met the family, but when they were called and when they left. What about when they left? But when I washed them I said, once a year, once in two years, once in four years, once in 12 years… (Laughs ironically,) but how did he say in 12 years? Yes in 12 years I told him, that they did not let me do, but as he said. Yes 12 years in a row I told him. Yes they called him once, then they called him after two years, then I said four, and so on I said, But then he said, did you call to mind? What you call me, I said. You do not understand.
GJ – What about Zylyftari?
M – Yes Zylyftari, and then I said to the mayor. If I have not made a mistake I say, yes in ideology, yes in ideology I say, yes, yes I… no if you have betrayed the Party and the people, but it is not so, I have not betrayed either the Party or the people I told him, no, if you loved Khrushchev, he said, let’s bring Khrushchev here in Albania.
Gj – Yes.
M – There I elaborate the conversation. Well, if you did not agree with the Party, yes, I completely agreed with the Party until 1960, on all issues, without moving at all from the Party. Without moving at all from the Central Committee…! Yes, you agreed with Khrushchev. What worries me is this talk, but the Soviet Union was the pivot of politics until 1960, and I did not have any commas for that. You did not like Khrushchev, I told him, I did not have a friend Khrushchev, Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union and I heard about Khrushchev well, more than anyone from the main leader of our Party. But who sentenced you for agitation and propaganda, the mayor intervened, if you know that, this is where agitation and propaganda begins. Yes I said well, then why do you get into these conversations? Did he say you do not know how many truths there are? If I do not understand, I tell him where you are, not how many truths do you know? Ore I do not know I told her… got a book with a red cover. What is this color, he said? If he does not understand, I said to him, but how can he not understand? What color is this, it’s red he said, oh, a, a, a, I told him.
B – What about the mayor, right?
M – Chairman… yes I’m not… to try my eyes… but now what to do. And how many truths there are. More what are you asking me?!
Gj – Yes, yes.
M – No yes, who spoke about the main leader of the Party, I do not know, I told them that I have nothing to do with the main leader of the Party. Yes I until 1960, I was completely with them. Yes I said I was convicted only for views. No he said that in our Party you are never punished for your views. How can you not be punished? But I know that you are expelled from the Party only for your views, no one puts you in prison. But you expel me from the Party for hostile activities. But where did I say that? What did they send you after you left the Central Committee? Yes director Ferme I said. Yes, you did it there. What activity did I do? I told him not to throw me to arrest the other one, but for the faults and mistakes. Well, are you condemning yourself for the views in the Party? And I told him from Vlora, that I was an MP when I was the director of the company and I came down for the shame of the world, I said, for a scandal in the middle of Vlora. Not here and not there, but this is not a job, go ask Vlora… and so on.
Gj – Finally.
M – Here are these, but you are the enemies of the Party and the people and communism, leave them what we were, that we are not enemies of the Party and the People, and here are such talk.
Gj – And finally, what interest?
M – Yes no hour, maybe makes some standard to go to see what they do, or do they want to cover someone else, or where I know, but opposing them, I so how they got into conversations, even i dropped the phone once et .etc., (no matter how long it takes).
Gj – Would they call another man?
M – Yes, I do not know, if Liria’s brother will be called, he said no.
B – But who said that, the mayor?
M – The mayor said to Zylyftari, Zylyftari said no. Then he said to me: what do you advise your son, to follow your path, or to follow the path of the Party? What are these questions, I say to him, but I have no reason to make these conversations. No, what will you say to your son? But the boy is a man now, and let him do what he pleases, as his conscience wills.
Gj – Yes I have never asked my father!
M – How the conscience wants him and therefore do not enter into this conversation. Then I no longer want to talk about my family matters, but when you asked me, I told them that I had not even met my wife, now a quarter of a century…! If you have been convicted of agitation and propaganda and you have been convicted a little. If the popular power condemns you, I say it in vain. Yes, how they sentenced him, yes, for the first and the second… yes, this is the second time when I was sentenced and kept for two months in Tirana, including all the tortures and physical ones, I was brought here and witnessed what out of fear they deposed for me. But who did you witness…? I told him, a traitor, a saboteur, who have now been convicted.
Gj – From 25 years.
M – Yes, Galip Sojli, this Jani too. Yes Jani Konomi, even based on his statement, sentenced me.
Gj – Yes Jani Konomi, you know him, he was from Fier, etc., etc., no matter.
M – Yes, I was punished with these.
F – Then, how did all that talk start?
Gj – What did you draw yourself?
M – Yes, I do not even understand this, because they called me, but they either want to make standards, or they want to cover someone else!
Gj – They do the same, whatever they want.
F – Did you say that many words?
B – Yes aman more, yes you now have it in hand and now take me home.
M – How is it, you have not given up on these views, you have grown up with these views. Yes I am more than 35 years old in prison, there is a quarter of a century, now it is going for 62-63 and I thought well, tak fak, we give up on these. The ones I had, I still have them today and if I stay in prison all my life, I will have the same and I will not play from the country.
B – How did you get yourself on the neck, you Maqo… (Speaks with irony).
M – Yes without any guilt, I have been convicted and for no crime to be convicted.
Gj – Are you in prison for a view?
M – If you do not explain this to me, I would really like the laws to be enforced, because all the laws have been violated by me. Yes, since Vlora, when I was a member of the People’s Assembly. Even these views, in vain we are talking about. I did not have a personal friend, Khrushchev, but what a good thing. I once heard about Khrushchev only well and never badly, until the ’60s, and I can tell you that I heard about it that way and not only through officials, but also through friends. The party has been friends with the Soviet Union since its inception in the 1960s, and I have no qualms about it. Yes, the main leader of the Party said so in this report, yes, fascism and nationalism and these are, I told him.
B – Well, what did the report say about you?
M – Yes, as if he said before.
B – Well ahead, before the ’60s? The same event he says there, is it before the ’60s?
Gj – And no hour, what event?
M – I’m talking to you there once.
B – No yes, your activity was before the ’60s.
M – You have it before, for this I was deported and sentenced.
Gj – I told them, you do not have the strength to resolve antagonistic, non-antagonistic contradictions, and eliminate them.
B – Only one thing is, before his release, Pajo Islami came and called Nevzati. Pajo said one thing.
Gj – Yes from the Branch, or from Tirana?
B – From Tirana and said that we are authorized by the leadership, with which you will be released and the leadership wants to know…
Gj – Your opinion.
B – What, do you think, has reflected on these. Pajo Islami is dead, because the sentence is over, I told you, as a representative of the Ministry of Interior, I know the laws and I know them best, I knew and I know better that they should be implemented and I I will implement them, I am a citizen and I will implement them.
B – Then, look at this, and Kadri Hazbiu was wrong, how he told the main leader of the Party. Kadri Hazbiu and Beqir Balluku, helped Panajot Plaku pass.
Gj – Yes, my blood pressure will rise tonight and I will be left without sleep…!
It was printed in two copies. Copies passed to the Operations Sector for the implicated. Memorie.al
Operational Workshop
Ndue Sulejmani
The next issue follows
