AIDSSH today opened the archive fund of the Petroleum Insurance Branch and holds a symposium in honor of the memory, work and knowledge that this sector inherits thanks to their unconditional service to the country.
Why was the communist regime unable to control state violence and the abuse of the rights of these precious people, who kept such an important sector afloat to overcome the economic blockade?
Dictatorship without violence is unstable. The history of the communist regime began like this: Whoever should order, should also punish. Oil production plans were no longer drawn up by scientific calculations, but were negotiated by the Government – Politburo and Party Congresses. The figures were inflated like Enverist dogma with the slogan: “Albania sails on oil.”, at a time when scientists claimed “Albania is an oil-rich country.”
The clash between propaganda and science produced a desperate result both for the human lives lost, and for the most profitable oil sector in the country’s economy, a successful but unstable sector, which after the elite’s blows only suffered a decline.
Propaganda did not recognize the technical condition of ineffective drilling in the multitude of open wells.
Through the opening of the documentary archive and their study by experts in history and geological science, we today provide an irreplaceable contribution to illuminating the dark recesses of the State Security, which with its infamous investigations, persecutions and executions shamed every human feeling and put the development of the oil sector in Albania to a standstill.
First they destroyed the man, then the scientist, the family and as in a chain reaction they damaged the economy and deepened the isolation of the country.
We reveal the unsaid things, the bright figures of this sector to show society that they have left us a documentary, scientific wealth in the field of oil exploration on which, in the new conditions, today's society is capable of building successful economic programs.
The prominent Polish geologist Stanislav Zuber, who died from torture in the communist inquisition in 1947, left us a geological and tectonic map of Albania, which is still used today by local geologists. He designed wells in Kuçova and managed to extract industrial oil from the sandy areas. Riza Alizoti and Thoma Pojani, restored the Kuçova oilfield to operation. The two small oil refineries, both suffered a tragic fate, as “saboteurs and agents of the Americans”, by hanging.
The author of the extraordinarily valuable discoveries of new oil fields in Visoka, Patos, Ballsh, Gorisht, from which 2 million tons of oil were extracted in 1970, Koço Plaku, and his colleagues Milto Gjikopulli, Beqir Aliaj, Protoko Murati, Dhimitër Stefa, Jani Konomi, Academician Teki Biçoku, Kadri Rama, Nuredin Skrapari, Thanas Nasto, Niko Goxhobashi, were arrested and sentenced as saboteurs on March 25, 1975.
Koço Plaku and Milto Gjikopulli were sentenced to death. The unbridled hatred of the dogma did not stop even with the disappearance of their bodies.
Petraq Xhaçka, Enriko Veizi, Mynyr Arapi, Petrit Sadushi and Luan Këlliçi, all with scientific degrees, were arrested in 1986 as the third hostile group.
Despite their qualifications and expertise, these technical professionals were essentially completely apolitical, not part of the regime’s elite loyalists. The lack of accountability and transparency, the culture of fear and intimidation, the prioritization of productivity over workers’ rights, and the absence of effective legal mechanisms – all of these created the conditions in which their abuse could occur with impunity.
From this tragic story, we learn that a sustainable balance between economic productivity and the protection of workers’ rights requires democratic processes, accountability, and independent oversight. Economic development should never come at the expense of people’s fundamental rights, but should aim to achieve it in a balanced manner.
Today, we honor the memory of these engineers as unsung heroes, who sacrificed everything to keep a key sector of the national economy afloat.
They will go down in history as men of progress. Their courage to challenge the brutal machinery of state security, both in the courtroom and before death, will serve generations above all in the moral sphere and in the consolidation of freedom of thought, free from fear.
Let us learn lessons from this history, and commit ourselves to ensuring that such a tragedy never happens again.
*Fjala e kryetares së AIDSSH-së, Dr.Gentiana Sula, në DSimpoziumin shkencor: “Eksplorimi dhe Zhvillimi i sektorit të naftës nën kontrollin e Sigurimit të Shtetit 1944-1991”, Tiranë 3. 07. 2024.