Tirana, May 17, 2019 – The Authority for Information on Documents of the Former State Security, in cooperation with the Institute of History at the Academy of Albanological Studies, the Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism and the Institute for the Integration of Former Political Persecuted Persons, organizes the international scientific conference on the topic: “The Face of the “Enemy of the People” during the dictatorship of the proletariat in Albania, 1944-1990”. The conference takes place throughout the day at the premises of the National History Museum and is open to the media.
During the opening ceremony, speeches were delivered by the organizers and representatives of the diplomatic corps, in the presence of scholars, researchers, representatives of human rights associations, national universities and students, international organizations, and public and non-governmental institutions.
In her speech, the President of the Authority, Ms. Gentiana Sula, emphasized the importance of addressing such a subject in post-communist Albania, which needs to review the regime's narrative and reassess the victims, still haunted by stigma.
The conference co-organizers delivered their speeches, Mr. Marenglen Verli, rector of the Academy of Albanological Studies, Mr. Agron Tufa, director of the Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, and Mr. Bilal Kola, director of the Institute for the Integration of Former Political Persecuted Persons, presenting their respective perspectives on the topic, its treatment, and the need of Albanian society for in-depth knowledge and study of the past.
The conference was welcomed by Ms. Elva Margariti, Minister of Culture, and the Deputy Minister of Defense, Mr. Petro Koçi.
The diplomatic missions in Tirana, present at the ceremony, gave their support for this initiative, presenting the relevant proposals regarding the treatment of transitional justice in the country. Mr. Bernd Borchardt, OSCE Presence, Mr. Johann Sattler, Ambassador of the Republic of Austria, Mr. Alberto Cutillo, Ambassador of the Italian Republic, Mr. Karol Bachura, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland and Ms. Monika Bylaite, European Delegation to Albania, presented their positions on the importance of such a conference in post-communist Albania.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sonila Boçi presented her paper “Dissidents without Dissidence: Reflections on the Peculiarities of Totalitarianism in Albania”, the first of a rich day, where Albanian and foreign scholars, researchers, historians, human rights activists and journalists discussed the expanded topic of the enemy of the people in Albania.
Subsequently, in parallel sessions at the National History Museum, the “enemy of the people” was addressed from a philosophical, historical, political, social, cultural perspective… The theoretical discussion on the concepts of “dissidence”, “dissident”, “political opponent” was followed by the class struggle, the typology of the young man during socialism, the regime’s behavior towards the Albanian Catholic clergy, the Orthodox clergy in Albania, the “enemy of yesterday”, the “enemy of today”; similarities and differences in the depiction of the “enemy of the people”; American imperialism-the permanent enemy of the communist regime in Albania; the projection of the “enemy of the people” and the ideology of alienation of the individual; the metamorphosis of the “class enemy” in the ranks of the People’s Army, from the “declassed officer”, to the “coup officer and polyagent officer”; the concept of the “enemy” in political acts in late 1990 and early 1991; images, enemies and vices in communist society; the typology of the “enemy of the people” in art, in novels and short stories with the agency of socialist realism; the clergy as an “enemy of the people” in Albanian literature; exclusion from the history of literature, as a punishment for “enemy” writers; the fate of “reactionary” cultural magazines after the establishment of the dictatorship; Albanian dissidence between myth and reality; the “disloyal Chams” as political opponents of the communist regime and other works, with names and concrete profiles of “enemies of the people”.
At the end, the moderators, along with researchers and interested attendees, gather for the conference's conclusions on the topics discussed.
The work for the conference has been underway for months and dozens of Albanian and foreign scholars have responded to the call to participate. The evaluation committee selected a portion of the papers, organizing them into panels of scientific research and memory. During this time, the scholars have had the opportunity to use the inventories, files, statistics and various archival materials made available by AIDSSH or other archives and, through research and scientific objectivity, to provide an expanded panorama of the profiles of enemies during the dictatorship, in historical, legal, political, philosophical, social and cultural aspects.
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The Authority bases its work and the continuity of the projects undertaken on the important principles of memory, which place historical memory at the foundation of the identity and heritage of individuals and communities, such as presenting different perspectives; avoiding deterministic expressions: avoiding generalizations; treating historical figures as individuals; ensuring a genuine historical basis; using academic-level knowledge as sources, where each content must be confronted and discussed with recognized and certified academics for the specific knowledge required for this work.
Based on these principles, scientific research and professional confrontation of facts, the Authority continues to undertake ambitious and complex projects that focus on the reexamination of history, its reassessment, the rehabilitation of victims, resistance in personalities and communities, and encourage social dialogue, in the name of transparency and the consolidation of democracy.
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Opening speech of the President of AIDSSH, Ms. Gentiana Sula, at the Scientific Conference “The Face of the ‘Enemy of the People’ during the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Albania (1944-1990)”
Dear friends, colleagues, representatives of the diplomatic corps and public institutions, researchers, historians, journalists, civil society and human rights activists,
I am pleased to welcome you to the international scientific conference "The Face of the 'Enemy of the People' during the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Albania (1944-1990)", the second one organized by AIDSSH in collaboration with the Institute of History at the Academy of Albanological Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Crimes and Consequences of Communism, the Institute for the Integration of Former Political Persecuted Persons and the National Historical Museum.
I thank everyone for the dedication and continuity of our first project, the conference "Denyed by the Regime", the proceedings of which have been distributed to you in electronic form, along with other AIDSSH publications, with a focus on history 1944-1991 and its reconsideration.
To enable the presentation of the profiles of "enemies", the Authority has declassified and digitized over 6,000 sheets of documents, enabling the shedding of light on State Security files and the completion of the profiles that will be addressed at the conference, including with materials from the printing press.
The objective of the work of the Security, expressed in the 1985 platform, states: "The internal affairs bodies of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania are a powerful weapon of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a political and military department of it led by the Party of Labor of Albania, to discover and defeat the hostile and malicious activity of internal and external enemies, to protect the victories of the revolution and the socialist homeland, to guarantee the triumph of the cause of communism."
"Albanians fought Albanians and a war broke out...", said an "enemy", to explain how after World War II, with the establishment of the communist regime in the country, it was defined as a hostile element, with detailed traits and characteristics.
The Enemy of the Party was quickly rebranded as the enemy of the people and treated as such.
In the regulations, an "enemy" was considered someone who is against the interests of the class, the Party, the homeland, and socialism and who fights and acts against them.
Ashley Semrick, a well-known blogger for popular history and an elementary school teacher, breaks down the historical approach to using facts with three questions:
-Who told the story?
-Who did he leave unmentioned?
-Why did he do it?
At this point, the work of the Authority and partners began, leading today to the first "Faces of the 'Enemies of the People'" conference.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and today, when the public debate on the past is heated and, on occasion, high-pitched, the usual approach to certain behaviors, crimes, acts of violence, mistreatment or support for the regime has been relativized through well-known expressions: "that was the time", "that was what the law said", "everything was done in accordance with the law", resulting in rigid positions, in the face of a state that was well-organized with fair laws and those who opposed it were simply lawbreakers. On the other hand, those who supported, consolidated, gave life and power to the governing and controlling instruments were simply people doing their job, regulated by law and procedures, and as such, freed from any official, human, personal, moral responsibility, for any action taken on duty or not.
Therefore, it is enough to comply with the law, be careful with the expression of thoughts and ideas, respect the ideological line and you can live peacefully, self-censored, and cautiously.
Here begins our challenge with the present, which needs to reexamine the past, for us and the future of our children.
The creation and keeping alive of myths of those who were on the side of the law and those who were on the other side has continued for almost 30 years, as has the stigma and sense of guilt in society of those who for 45 years were part of that side of the wall, descendants of enemies, their family members, and continued to be "enemies" for the 30 years of our prolonged transition.
Many of them, without having the opportunity to re-dimension themselves, prejudiced by origin, still on the other side, despite the wall collapsing, but society did not have the opportunity, the will, the policy, to collapse its high and stable walls that, apparently, over the years create a confused framework of today's Albania in transition.
“Will the tyrant be forgiven for this unprecedented disfigurement he inflicted on his nation?”, expressed a survivor in testimonies collected by the Authority for one of the memory projects.
On September 30, 1991, with Law 7514 “On the Innocence, Amnesty and Rehabilitation of Former Convicted and Politically Persecuted Persons”, (as amended), the People’s Assembly, using its powers, granted innocence to former prisoners and political persecuted persons, and considered it its honor, as the highest representative of the people, on behalf of the rule of law, to apologize to these people for the political punishments and suffering they suffered in the past.
This law granted amnesty to former political prisoners convicted of the following criminal offenses:
-by military courts based on law no. 21, dated 15.12.1944 “On saboteurs of the National Liberation War”,
-law no. 41, dated 14.1.1945 “On the organization and functioning of military courts”,
-law no. 372, dated 12.12.1946 “On criminal offenses against the people and the state”,
-articles 5 and 6 of law no. 373, dated 12.12.1946 “On the prosecution of prohibited trade, speculation and economic sabotage”,
-those convicted under all articles of the chapter “Crimes against the state”
-and for failure to report and support these crimes, according to the Criminal Code of 1952 and 1977.
Included in this law were those who died in custody, those who were shot without trial, those who were killed in clashes with the dictatorship's forces and at the border for political reasons, those who were accused of political crimes and were locked up in psychiatric institutions for compulsory treatment, as well as those who were convicted of slander and insult against the highest organs of the state and the Party, for violating decree no. 7459, dated 22.1.1991 "On the respect and protection of monuments related to national history and state symbols" and for violating decree no. 7408, dated 31.7.1990 "On meetings, gatherings and demonstrations of citizens in public places" until March 22, 1992.
Other articles of the amnesty law address all those who have fled Albania for political reasons or convictions, as well as military personnel who have fled or deserted from the country or military service.
The law granted former political prisoners several rights to resume their lives: to return to their homes, to have their medals or decorations returned, the years they were imprisoned or interned, expelled, etc. were counted as working days and they received additional benefits in their pensions, school scholarships for their children, various compensations for the period of serving their sentence, etc.
The Law of Innocence was the first step towards redimensioning enemies, an insufficient law that did not address the activities of the persecutors and did not allow innocent victims to be cleansed of the mud, stigma, or myth of being an enemy, because at a certain stage in history, they themselves, their parents, or their family members would have made a choice, which has only been interpreted in one way, even today, 30 years after the fall of the dictatorship.
This labeling keeps the victim's frustration alive and poses serious barriers to public dialogue about the past.
Today's conference takes the first step towards dismantling these walls.
Also awarded the title of “People’s Hero”, the State Security was the important weapon of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the RSPSH for the detection and liquidation of hostile activity against the people’s power and the socialist order, for their continuous protection and consolidation; an organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat, tasked with protecting the socialist order and the state from the activity of internal and external enemies and other evildoers. “In addition to the tasks of detecting, striking in time, in depth and in a comprehensive manner any type of hostile and evildoing activity, the internal affairs organs must also do a great job of preventing crimes to save people who have gone astray and have fallen victims of hostile and evildoing activity, finding and using for this purpose, various forms and methods of work”, specified in the platform of the Security.
This makes the concrete prejudice against certain social categories, predetermined as enemies of the Party-state, more than clear.
As stated above, the protection of the Party-state from the overthrown classes was defined in the introduction of the Security regulation, which is considered thepowerful weapon of the Party.
If we take a look at some profiles of “enemies of the people”, they are collaborators, anti-communists, representatives of the wealthy classes, clergy. After the first years, the power machinery began to eat its own, as Father Pjetër Meshkalla prophetically expressed: “You can punish me as much as you want, but I will still be free. While you, after you are done with us, have your own people to eat.”
The subsequent profiles of enemies were enriched over the years, with enemies of the Party finding themselves in its ranks, with groups of saboteurs, with decadent initiatives, and the "enemies" joining the ranks on the other side of the wall.
The enemies are free intellectuals, those educated abroad, pro-Westerners, foreigners, representatives of religion, from Musine Kokalari, Sabiha Kasimati and the intellectuals shot without trial on the night of February 26, 1951, Sejfulla Malëshova, Hysni Lepenica, Father Anton Harapi and his friends, Father Gjergj Suli, Hafiz Ali Kraja (Tari), Baba Hajro Abazi, the "saboteurs" of the Maliqi swamp, foreigners, such as the Pole Stanislav Zuber or the Italian Giuseppe Terruzi, the so-called "group of deputies", who emerged from the first Front elections in 1945; then to Bedri Spahiu and Tuk Jakova and later, the poets Genc Leka, Vilson Blloshmi and Havzi Nela.
How many enemies has communist and post-communist Albania kept in its bosom, recycling the seeds of hostility in the new generations and creating new categories of children of enemies and their descendants, facing the descendants of people who were in order with the law.
Because that was the time.
"People make time," Uran Kostreci, a former inmate of Burrel prison, clearly answered.
By implementing its mission to reexamine history through irrefutable facts and inherent truths, the Authority lays the foundation for a series of conferences on the "faces of the enemy", which aim to fully address the profiles of those who were called "class enemies" and continue to be recognized as such today.
Creating bridges of communication with facts, serious treatment of data, documents and testimonies, through such roundtables, which include researchers and historians, activists and journalists, Albanians and foreigners, helps social dialogue about the past and gives space to the victim, making her voice heard.
In closing my speech, I want to quote again that Pjetër Meshkalla, who said: “To cross the water, large and small stones are thrown, the first, the second, the third… they disappear, sink, are never seen again…. throw and throw, at the end some start to emerge here and there; they slip, others are thrown again…until the crossing is made, for better or worse, but it is made. The time will come when it will be done better. We are the stones, large and small, thrown at the beginning, which disappear and are never seen again, but are in the first foundation… This is the goal of the foundation: To disappear and never be seen again! From the first we expected a free Albania! Our grandchildren expect from us a happy Albania!”
