Unpunished Crime

by Reshat Kripa

It was nearing mid-June in 1985. The summer was unusually cool that year, which seemed to coincide with the political climate of the time. The dictator had died, raising expectations for change in the hearts of the people. They awaited changes from his successor. The people were tired of the camps and prisons spread everywhere and of their lives within the large prison in which the entire population lived, that separated father from son, brother from brother. The Albanian people, who had been isolated for years, wanted to live like other nations of the world. Would this happen, or would it remain an illusion?

Sotir Nastua from Narta was a military soldier in Ravena of Karaburun. When he received three days off, he departed for his hometown. He went out to the street and after waiting a short while, got on a truck that took him to the city of Vlora. There he boarded the shuttle bus that went to his village. When he arrived, the sun was setting and with it, he could see the cooperative’s agricultural laborers returning from work in the numerous village vineyards. Among them, he caught sight of his mother whom he greeted and affectionately embraced. They went home together, but he did not stay for long. He washed, changed, and got ready to go out.

“What’s the rush son? You just got here. We have not yet seen enough of each other,” said his mother. But he acted as if he did not hear her. He went outside and headed for the center of the village. He definitely wanted to meet up with his best friend, Jorgo Shella. They shared a plan they kept secret. He went to his friend’s house, but did not find him there. He returned to the center of the village and entered a bar. There he saw Jorgo at a table talking to Aleks, a youth of the village, who was serving in the army as a soldier in Saranda. They greeted each other and Sotir sat down and ordered a glass of wine, like his friends. He wanted to talk to Jorgo, but Aleks’s presence prevented him. He couldn’t wait for Aleks to leave, when Jorgo suddenly whispered. “I spoke with Aleks about the plan. He is familiar with the place and is willing to help us.” Sotir was stunned. Jorgo’s act had shocked him. How could he open up to Aleks? How could he trust him with something so dangerous? But now this was a set fact and there was no way it could be reversed. “I would love to come with you,” said Aleks, “but you know my situation.” He was an only child and his mother was sick. They stayed there chatting until late in the evening, and decided to leave the country the next day. “Your conversation tonight is endless,” said the bartender, “Leave now, I have to close.” They looked around and noticed there was no one left. They got up, said goodbye to the bartender, and after strolling through the deserted streets of the village, each went home. The next day they awoke early in the morning and set off for Vlora.
“Poor me, son, I hardly saw you,” said Sotir’s mother, “why didn’t you tell me since last night so I could have baked you some bread rolls?”
“Don’t worry, Mother, we will find everything we need at the place we are going,” he replied as he left. In Vlora, they boarded the bus on the Saranda line. They arrived in the city of Saranda in the afternoon and began to wander the streets, waiting for the hour at which they were to go to the designated place.

Silence had fallen over Pavllo Shella’s home. Their son, Jorgo, had left three days before, along with Sotir and Aleks, and had not returned. Jorgo said he was going to his aunt in the city of Vlora. But no one had seen him there. Pavllo began to worry. He noticed that even the Village Council members seemed to avoid him. “Get up, husband, and go ask the police chief, because otherwise he will question why we have not reported,” said his wife with tears in her eyes. Then it was the custom in every similar case for one to inform the village police chief or the Department of the Interior.
“We will wait. If he does not return tonight, I will go first thing in the morning,” he responded, concerned. That night they heard loud raps at the gate of their home. Pavllo got up and opened it. It was Avni, the locale operative officer, accompanied by Jollanda, head of the United Village Council, and two policemen. “We have come to conduct a search,” they said to Pavllo.
“Why?” he asked, astonished. They did not reply. They pushed him aside and began to turn everything over. They searched everywhere. Pavllo and his wife stood still. When found nothing, they headed out once again. When Avni arrived at the gate’s threshold, he turned toward Pavllo and frigidly said,
“Your son betrayed his country and for traitors there is only one sentence. His body lies in the morgue of Saranda.” The old lady immediately fainted. Pavllo stood frozen stiff. He did not know what to do. Should he cry out? To whom? Should he yell? He did not have enough strength. Once he gathered himself he turned toward his wife and helped her regain consciousness by wetting her face with cold water. She screamed. The village heard her and the people began to come immediately, but when they learned the reason, they left as if there was an epidemic of cholera. Even the brother and sister of the old lady did not dare come. Only Pavllo’s sister and two or three others close to the family came, and tried to console the poor parents as best they could.

The same thing happened in Apostol Nastua’s home. The same search was conducted and the same news of death was given. The same grief erupted. People also began to distance themselves as though there was an outbreak of the plague. Mourning fell over both families. Apostol Nastua did not have the courage to pick up the body of his son. Fear of the consequences of this action forced him to hold his pain inside his soul. In his home they could not even dare cry for the dead. Sotir’s body was buried in Saranda by municipal workers.

Pavllo decided to take on all the consequences. What worse could happen to these two poor elders? The next day, he alone took the road to Saranda. His married niece lived there. She received him and told him the terrible story that rocked all of Saranda and would horrify anyone who listened to it.

“People say that they were betrayed by the friend accompanying them. When they arrived at the appointed place, they undressed and threw themselves into the sea to swim toward the island of Corfu. Their friend turned around and informed the Department of the Interior. The motor boat of the coastal border guard immediately set off, reaching them in international waters. Communist border guards could have caught and brought them back to Saranda to put them on trial. But they did not do this. They were wild and did not have any human feelings. The criminals, born to kill and massacre people, took out their machine guns and killed both of them. But even this was not enough. Their youthful blood heated the communist sharks even more. They began to hit the young men with the propeller of the motorboat while hurting and disfiguring them all the more. And as if this was not enough, the next day they tied their bodies to a Soviet truck, dragging them through the streets of Saranda to terrorize the people of the city and to scare those citizens who might imagine undertaking a similar heroic act. All this was done under the order of the head of the Department of the Interior. Be strong, Uncle! A dreadful scene awaits you tomorrow. You need to face it with dignity.”
“Yes, my niece, yes. Your uncle is strong and will know how to carry himself,” answered Pavllo, determined.
The next day they went to the city morgue. A horrific scene awaited them there. Pavllo did not recognize his son. The marks of seven bullets were visible on his body. He could identify his son only from the shorts he was wearing. Nearby, his son’s friend Sotir looked the same. Making the most of the kindness of the hospital workers, he washed the corpse and dressed it with clothing he bought in the street market. Then he placed him in a coffin, nailing it so it could not be opened, and left on the municipal van to the village. They arrived home late at night. There he found very few who where close to the family.
After unloading the corpse, the van left immediately.
Llazar, a member of the United Village Council, showed up the next day at the gate of Pavllo’s house. Without coming inside he called to him and warned, “You are not going to bury the dead body in the village cemetery. We do not allow a traitor to rest near the honorable people buried there. This is the decision of the Organization of the Communist Party.
“What should I do?” asked Pavllo, lost. “There lie the graves of my family members.”
“Bury him below in the jalli (a barren piece of salty land by the sea), and do not leave a trace of the grave. I believe you understand,” said Llazar in a commanding tone, and left.
Pavllo remained stone still near the gate. How was it possible for them not to allow any room for his son’s grave, those who just yesterday had greeted and warmly conversed with him? He returned to the room and broke the appalling news to the few people there. “We will complain to the Department of the Interior and if necessary, to the Party Committee,” said Andoni, Pavllo’s nephew.
He immediately set off for Vlora. But even at the Department of the Interior he received the same answer. He set toward the Party Committee, but no one received him there despite his insistence. Finally the man on duty at the gate told him, “Leave, son; don’t store up more trouble for yourself.”

The village atmosphere was tense. Most people remained locked in their homes to avoid appearing involved with this event. But some shameless others, such as the dentist Nastua or pensioner Apostol, called aloud for no one to attend the funeral ceremony because Pavllo’s son had died as a traitor.
The small cortege of mourners set off that afternoon for the jalli. The few people who happened to be on the street turned their backs to them. Worse, a shameless provocateur began to sing a song that sneered at what had happened. More painful events occurred in the following days. Spirua, a communist and sector supervisor, divorced his wife only because her father had attended the funeral. Whereas Pandeli Andoni, Pavllo’s brother-in-law, who would not consent to the Council’s dictate to divorce his wife, drank poison and ended his life because he could not resist the great pressure.

The year 1990 signaled the beginnings of a huge downfall. Dictators of Eastern Europe began to fall one after the other. Only ours remained. Pavllo thought it was time to bury his son’s remains by the family graves. He exhumed his son’s remains and headed toward the village cemetery. But on the way he was confronted by Jollanda and Antigoni, secretary of the Communist Party, who said, “We are not dead yet. No, no! We are alive and we will crush you. Send back the remains where they were because that is where they belong.” Pavllo was silent and headed back. The remains were placed once again in the jalli. Only after March 22 of 1992 were they able to rest in the village cemetery in their rightful place.

I met with the two elders one day in April of 1993, when I went to their home along with my friends, Mihal and Dino. You could read only mourning in their faces. With tears in their eyes they told the story I described above. They had a huge disappointment in their hearts. Would those who created this tragedy be punished? We searched for Jollanda, Antigoni, Avniu, Llazar and their other lackeys. We were told they had flown to Greece, where only God knows what they were doing and preparing, most definitely new tragedies, like that of the year 1997.

Pavllo had only one appeal. He wanted democracy to bring to justice those who massacred and disfigured his son. Under the pressure of the Political Persecuted People Association and public opinion, the arrest of the ex-head of the Department of Interior in Saranda was made possible. But the trial was a sham. He was convicted and received only three years of prison term for the abuse of public responsibility. Oh, irony of fate! Three years of prison term in exchange for the lives of two 20-year-old young men. Pavllo’s heart was once again let down. The crime was left yet unpunished.

Published in the collection “A story for my friend,” 2004

Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa

The murky candle of Communism is shining on in our land...

by Leke Tasi

Coming to America, to a country we, the Albanian anticommunists have cherished for decades in a row, the first thing that came to my mind was the idea to present you a short confession on the process this our love of America underwent during the political phases we did experience, its ups and downs, its hopes and disenchantments. I said "according to political phases", but it ought to be pointed out that our admiration and love of America, as well as of whatever country or people we bestow our friendship, is characterized by a feeling that goes well beyond the political conception. The idea that the free world will save us one day in that Adriatic coastline, so common amongst us, - we must accept - proceeds from an apolitical, ideal conception of relationships, conception that we Albanians have nourished in centuries. According to our view the world aids us just for friendship, as friends help each other, and not out of some conjecture or pure interest. This our formation does not directly come out of sheer weakness and naivety but rather out of a just apolitical stand, an extension of modeling of personal relations into the sphere of relations between states, and I have found the confirmation for this my view in the conclusions of many authoritative historians. Surely this conception is completely outmoded nowadays, and this is precisely our first mistake I want to point out in this speech. When I saw James Baker in Scanderbeg's square in March 1991 I concentrated upon the expression of his face, and became suddenly and tangibly aware of this misconception of ours. State Department Chief had come to do his job. Like a true policy-maker, and also being of Anglo-Saxon stock, he reacted coolly, not manifesting any special emotion, to the oceanic onslaught of the feelings of the two hundred thousand strong crowds. This our misconception becomes particularly grave when we unite in our complexion the hope for the other's help with our total lack of inner cohesion as a people. Our history is characterized by the periodical repetition of the prevalence of those two states of mind I just pointed out: hope in the Savior coming from another land, and in case he doesn't show up, active subjugation and zealous service to the Strong one of the moment, and this one always and also of outer provenience. I am not tarrying any longer to analyze this psycho-historic construction of ours, and not in the least out of any inferiority complex. History offers also examples when the help we have expected from others we have prodigiously offered to them ourselves, but of course within the limits of a world view that is clearly incompatible with the collective political maturity that conceives the nations.

This unfortunate chain of events is justified even by objective reasons, mainly geographical, but it is mainly defined by our natural and centrifugal individualism deepened by our inner constant quarrels, which cause in turn our falling into the dividing traps the incomparably more mature chancelleries surrounding us lay with extreme facility for us, the eternally immature ones. For this reason, whenever the commonplace "cafe" talk overpowers me (but also the mentality of many intellectuals) which is swift in blaming foreigners for ills plaguing our country, a motto my father used in those circumstances comes to my aid:" We are not to blame our neighbors, they only do their job. And we, what are we doing?" Therefore I cannot refrain from watching the Albanian panorama with this paramount concern, and it results to me unity is the most necessary objective. Thus I am obliged to consider those of ex-Communist side as representatives, although not always valid, the only available ones, as they still held fast in their hands the power to decide and act. And I kept expecting they would serve the country in a way or another, notwithstanding the urge of profit in the interest of their class. Unfortunately, the 50 years of Communist rule have wrought irreversible change, and I cannot perceive any possibility of time reversal; during that time, their progeny was carefully educated, while ours was constrained in hard labor work. When USSR lost the armaments' race and retreated, but didn't give up, US signed with it a treaty which foresaw that the reforms in the East were to be performed by the same people in power. This compromise was made known to us gradually after 1991, and it did cool down our initial enthusiasm in hoping at least an ideological retaliation.
Is there any democracy, transparency, progress where truth is banished? First of all, I just want to focus your attention at the rehabilitation of the executed, persecuted personalities because of their efforts to establish pluralism and democracy, as well as of those persecuted and defamed in turn by the Communists in power for the choice they offered to Albania, negotiating with German occupiers to avoid the military governance of the country. All of them were judged and sentenced extremely harshly, were shot or hanged, or condemned with heavy prison terms, only because they sought the existence of an opposition in parliament, or because they held talks with allied mission members, or were practicing religion, or, as I already mentioned a little above, formed the only quasi sovereign government in all of German occupied Europe, not only achieving the avoidance of massive massacres, but also saving hundreds of Hebrew lives. The pluralist parliament declared them all innocents in 1991, and later forgot everything about them. For if the cheating of dictatorship is not completely uprooted, based for its today's fans in the theory that in general things went positive in the post-war period (the liberation, reforms etc.), and only some ensuing bureaucratic deviations had later deformed it, they that had been opponents in war and after it, cannot be considered as truly innocents and patriots. A suitable way was thus found to establish democracy on a well preserved Communist background, this is the succinct truth, and I will later explain why and how.
(But are we right when complaining to America about such matters? I guess this is what its reply would be: "The Berlin Wall has fallen also for you, just try and fight, you now dispose of the necessary legal space to do this.", an answer wholly reflecting the mentality of a two-hundred years old democracy, and., just for this reason, nearly inapplicable in our case...Yet I am trying here and now to rely on it.)
I am especially irritated by the fact the official intelligence social strata, yesterday so close to the power, but still secretly markedly dissident, which today is nearly the first and only voice to be heard in Albanian cultural public opinion, notwithstanding it was itself terrorized by the dictator, today behaves in the meanest possible ways and shows up only the exclusivity of its inherited monopoly of public opinion, and does not accept even evident, sunray clear truths, as if nothing had happened. Where is today that "transparence", so much craved by us and them alike, in the first days of democracy?
Therefore we are right when stating the key defect of post communism as it did unfold in Albania, different from elsewhere, is not its residual power inherited from past Communist establishment - this being an effect of international political conjecture beyond our control -, but only the persistence of non-declaration of the elementary historical truth and the consequent non-application of Law in accordance with it. Who can dare to doubt-were he/she a historian or not - after having consulted documents, but mainly from the sheer fact he/she has lived in Albania, and furthermore he/she still lives there in the present condition of NATO membership, that Hamit Matjani was the most heroic anticommunist figure, and from long deserves to be officially declared Hero of the country? And together with him Preng Cali, Llesh Marashi, Alush Lleshanaku, Aziz Biçaku, Jup Kazazi, Mark Gjon Markaj and many others? Is it not our legitimate right to declare that truth as a natural consequence of the Albanian version of the fall of Communism? The uprisings of Malsia e Madhe, Postriba, the Anticommunist militaries in the mountains are our strongest card which makes us dignified members of the map of the most combatant eastern anticommunism, together with Poland and Hungary.
But our state never plays it. Why?
Because in our vile society, our mediocre one - I cannot term it otherwise -, the official intelligentsia, those who were appointed to deal with history -read: with its manipulation, are still the powerful masters in the stage, or there are extremely few rivals left, as a result of the exercised genocide especially against their intellectual friends, and thus continue to advise the administration, just direct it on how stagnation survive.
Otherwise their career, based on servile service to 50 year old cheating, would instantly wane. The text of history, edited by the Albanian Academy of Sciences not more than 2 years ago, qualifies those fighters and the uprising they led as "inspired by the dissatisfaction with reforms", and some of them as "collaborators with Fascist/Nazi regimes". Which are the reforms they're talking about in 1945-46? Those of shooting men in their homes in the North and violating their wives? Those of secretly hiding rifles in churches and the following execution of both who didn't know anything of it and also of those that put them there? The judgment of parliamentarians that sought to exercise their constitutional rights?
This kind of text those barbarian violations of every human norm mentions, in the guise of objectivity, in a sub tone, and then goes on for entire pages on the "progress" brought by the regime. Some place is reserved only to Abas Kupi, Muharrem Bajraktari, Kryeziu brothers in this kind of text, but still they get eclipsed in term when they were on bad terms with communists.
Is there any reasonable person, not a professional historian that can count positive the role of Enver Hoxha in history, when he himself declares he was constrained to keep his mouth shut all time, and well knows his colleagues in Eastern Europe has long ago settled those accounts with much more lenient dictators and regimes?
Where can we find anywhere in Albania, after 20 years of democracy, even one monument consecrated to many and many Albanian and foreign engineers and technicians, who sacrificed in the altar of their country their careers, honor and even life, having their families and relatives persecuted, like e.g. engineer's Kujtim Beqiri outstanding figure, who was hanged accused to have had secret relations with his late Prof Harry Fultz, his once professor? The murky candle of Communism is shining on in our lands...We remain hostages of the feeling of guilt of the yesterday official intelligence, which is still resisting....
The case of Albania remains truly special, we must not completely despair. That hermetic closing towards the world, that provincial evil-doing in the extremely overall dire conditions the class struggle brought about, that servility resistant even in the conditions of openness, which defames us in the eyes of the world today more than ever, in certain moments finds itself in competition with amazing stands of unique civility, being even of worldwide appeal. We remind of the past such examples... The Chief of a small State without an Army, Mehdi Frasheri, is dictating terms to an occupying Nazi power for the inviolability of the Jews living in his territory, and achieves those ends! Our people rarely have been so fortunate in electing a government so in tune with his most outstanding virtues. That nationalist governance of 1943-1944 endangered by all sides ("The citizens of Calais" ropes on the necks, as Elsa Zallari-Poga has duly qualified it) is our pride is our strongest card that equates our civilization with the European one, but unfortunately, for them our government and society of today keep silence. On the contrary, there is a campaign in Albanian press to humanize the monsters of dictatorship, even to publish their memories (!)

From closely related to the Academy of Sciences sources (positively, from the new director of the Institute of History), I have come to know recently American analysts of the Department of State have qualified our leaders of 1943-44 as true patriots that served their country in extremely difficult conditions. And those opinions are for the most "compromising" figures, in Communist terms: Mehdi Frashëri, Ernest Koliqi, Xhafer Deva! Such a notice, just for sensation sake, would have been explosive in our public opinion. Still, nothing! Better to say, it is indefinitely delayed. Have we then the right to think post-communism is newly established, casting only a thin veil on the past?
We, the Albanian ex-persecuted, sufferers under Communism and offended for a lifetime by Communists, will never give up insisting Albania must have its transparency, its genuine Pantheon, modest but of reliable authenticity. They that did undertake the responsibility of government in the tragic conditions of German occupation, being indisputably sure they were going towards self-destruction and self-sacrifice in the highest degree. Mehdi Frashëri, Patër Anton Harapi, Lef Nosi, Mihal Zallari, Et'hem Cara, Sokrat Dodbiba, Xhafer Deva, Ibrahim Biçaku, Akile Tasi and many others were highly distinguished citizens and patriots, the only Westerners both in formation and aspirations, notwithstanding it was early for Albania to deserve such men in power. Some of them had a relish of Renaissance, all of them were genuine intellectuals, linguists, historians, economists, researchers with publications widely known, facing a difficult life experience, in emigration, persecuted, nearly always in opposition, some sometimes have made mistakes, (especially those anti-zogists who did naively follow the policy of friendship with Italy) but only and always thinking the best for the country, and lastly, no comparison can stand, in whatever domain, moral, intellectual or otherwise, between them and the subsequent morass, killing and persecuting them together with their families, and with the best part of all the people, including even those
Communists as Z.Mala, S. Premte, A.Lulo, A.Qendro and many others that cherished the cheating illusion that with that ideology, beautiful outside and pestiferous inside, could make something better for the Albanians.
They were all buried by the secret contract of an immoral with the most dangerous enemies of Albania. In short, it was an epochal cataclysm what happened; it has some relation with our born delay to follow the right path. It added to the mentality of the people not the progressive virtues widely expected, but only enhanced the performance of the most retrograde feudal and servile vices. Our requirement rests at this: to reestablish the honor of the country (at least in the historical level), the executed and defiled by Communists elite be completely and loudly rehabilitated, with the hope this will influence our access to values. America has formed the main part of these elite, in its schools, with its outstanding respect for work, with its exceptional social values. Our elite have loudly demonstrated the faithfulness to American and Western values and ideals. They were persecuted for the friendship to the West and bore witness to its ideals. On this basis, we request American aid to fulfill this noble end...
Putting those great figures in the place they belong, the image of Albania would significantly change, reestablishing them in Albanian and foreign public opinion both as a norm and example, as the proper and genuine criterion to value the service rendered to fatherland in cases of extreme necessity, which is done according to objective circumstances and offering everything we have, and not the demagogic and false service, which "dresses" the priorities of the winners to serve in fact personal interest, and not that of fatherland. Certainly American historians I mentioned above have judged our political figures of the occupation period relying on those criteria, for the priority for each and every serious intellectual everywhere is the interest of the proper country over that of every alliance, independently of its importance. Those men of politics had much time to experience and surpass different kinds of temptations and miscalculations and succeeded in providing an example of unity for the first time, not expecting good fortune for the country, as when conjectures were positive, e.g. in 1878 and 1912, but when it was on the brink of abyss in 1943 and screamed despairingly for help. Democratization and true decommunistization of Albania means: educating younger generations with the true values of their own country, bestowing the merits on those who deserve it, and lastly pardon of the guilty ones, but not before they have fully consented and repented, and demonstrated by solid evidence a genuine will to compensate the damage done. The true historic self-awareness and conscience is the foundation on which a sane society can stand secure. Without achieving it we shall perpetually face the same problems of immaturity and falsehood. This is the lesson we must learn from great democracies of the West.


Translated from The Albanian by Lluka Qafoku