• SHQIPËRI
  • KOSOVË
  • MAQEDONIA E VERIUT
  • MALI I ZI
  • Revista në PDF
21 September, 2023
Edicion Special
  • Home
  • OP/ED

    The story of the Ulmas’ martyrdom should be known worldwide

    Triangulation of Eurasia: The North-South Corridor Underreported but pivotal for Our Common Future

    Loose lips sink morale

    Albania and Kosovo: the Leaders, the People, the Narrative

    Offensive defence: How Putin saved NATO

    A decade of Croatian EU membership: Success story of enlargement in the Western Balkans

    Elvin Luku: Fragile democracy in Albania

    French Jean-Dominique Giuliani, President of the Robert Schuman Fondation (a think tank on Europe) speaks during a meeting entitled "Eurozone, what a future" organized by his foundation and dedicated to euro, in Paris on July 18, 2014. 
AFP PHOTO/MIGUEL MEDINA        (Photo credit should read MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

    Europe is awake, united and more valuable than ever before

    China offers alternatives for modernization

  • Interview

    Exclusive/ The Russian Ambassador to Albania Mr. Mikhail Afanasiev: Russia only aims to end that war started by the West in Ukraine

    Exclusive/ Skopje’s top diplomat to Tirana, Dancho Markovski: OSCE Chairmanship a Project of National Importance for North Macedonia

    Exclusive interview of Croatian Ambassador Zlatko Kramaric: ‘There is progress in Croatian-Albanian relations, but it is still not enough’  

    The first anniversary of the appointment as Archbishop at the head of the Catholic Church/ Mons. Arjan Dodaj: Only God can be the author of our walk!

    Azerbaijan’s Ambassador Anar Huseynov: President Aliyev’s visit to Albania opened a new page in our relations through the specific accords reached

    Macedonian Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski: Open Balkans and Berlin Process are complementary processes for progress of cooperation among WB countries

    Exclusive/ China’s Ambassador to Albania Mr. Zhou Ding: China and Albania must look towards history to build the future!

    Appeal of Ukrainian Ambassador to Albania Shkurov for maximum support of Ukraine with weapons six months after Russian occupation

    Zoran Djukanovic: “The Montenegrin minority in Albania and the Albanian minority in Montenegro to be bridges of communication of our two countries”

  • Realpolitik

    Pacifying without reconciliation! Kurti’s autogoal! Between G – 7 and BRICS 11! The Balkans summer theatre continues! A speech for campaign 2024! A prewarned failure!                             

    Marriage spoiled for a lemon! The missed dinner! Sphinx and challenge for the West! Summer theatre in Bled!

    Peace as wishful thinking! Change the course! Brussels bells toll for Tirana!  Beleri between Tirana, Brussels and Athens! Compare the incomparables!  

    A cold shower! Change the tune! Partnership or vassalage? Euro-Atlantist Meloni!

    Open Balkans closed! A failed tour! Right is might! The NATO Ukrainian dilema!

    Balkan’s summer theatre started! China’s and India’s Megachallenge! SOS from Brussels! Support, Sanctions and statements!  

    No “ carrot” for Belgrade and “ stick” for Pristine! An unnecessary draft! Nor did Gjakova unite us!

    G-7 with 5 major messages! Erdoganist Turkey! A historic victory postponned! Much ado about nothing!  

    “Class reading” in Brussels!! Long live the King! Zelenski opens up, Putin isolated! “Political tremor in Tirana but not in Turkey!  

  • Current Events

    US Embassy warns DP against encouraging political figures declared non-grata by State Department

    Albanian language and history not be tested for the citizens of Kosovo and North Macedonia, says Interior Minister

    PM Rama says at the UN that Kosovo’s independence has been sanctioned by the International Criminal Court

    Albanian PM trades barbs with Russian Ambassador at UN Security Council on Ukraine, Zelensky praises Rama’s approach

    Candidates of Socialist Party and ‘Together we win’ Coalition in race for Mayor’s seat in Kukes on September 24

    Albanian-German cooperation is intensifying in frame of the Berlin Process

    PM Rama meets with the British FM at the UN in New York, No Details of the Talks Made Public

    Kosovo PM accuses Lajcak of being one-sided and in line with the Serbian President

    EU Ambassador to Tirana calls for improving working conditions for journalists

  • Top News

    Reward of 20,000 euros for any information leading to capture of gunmen who shot at ‘Shqiponja’ police unit in Tirana

    Bulgarian Ambassador in Pustec, the Macedonian minority considers the visit propaganda

    “Shqiponja” unit police officer shot in Tirana, police in pursuit of perpetrator

    Some 185 flight hours and 63 flight missions of the “Guardia di Finanza” which left Albania

    Assembly of Bar Associations of Greece demands that jailed Himara Mayor is sworn in

    Census 2023 started in Albania on Monday which will last six weeks

    Montenegrin border police seizes a truck with 300 kg of cannabis passing from Albania

    Head of Albania’s FA expresses support to KFOR for security in Kosovo in the NATO Military Committee

    DP’s Bardhi says the Speaker of the Parliament must implement the regulation

  • YOUR VOICE
  • ShqipShqip
No Result
View All Result
Argumentum
  • Home
  • OP/ED

    The story of the Ulmas’ martyrdom should be known worldwide

    Triangulation of Eurasia: The North-South Corridor Underreported but pivotal for Our Common Future

    Loose lips sink morale

    Albania and Kosovo: the Leaders, the People, the Narrative

    Offensive defence: How Putin saved NATO

    A decade of Croatian EU membership: Success story of enlargement in the Western Balkans

    Elvin Luku: Fragile democracy in Albania

    French Jean-Dominique Giuliani, President of the Robert Schuman Fondation (a think tank on Europe) speaks during a meeting entitled "Eurozone, what a future" organized by his foundation and dedicated to euro, in Paris on July 18, 2014. 
AFP PHOTO/MIGUEL MEDINA        (Photo credit should read MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

    Europe is awake, united and more valuable than ever before

    China offers alternatives for modernization

  • Interview

    Exclusive/ The Russian Ambassador to Albania Mr. Mikhail Afanasiev: Russia only aims to end that war started by the West in Ukraine

    Exclusive/ Skopje’s top diplomat to Tirana, Dancho Markovski: OSCE Chairmanship a Project of National Importance for North Macedonia

    Exclusive interview of Croatian Ambassador Zlatko Kramaric: ‘There is progress in Croatian-Albanian relations, but it is still not enough’  

    The first anniversary of the appointment as Archbishop at the head of the Catholic Church/ Mons. Arjan Dodaj: Only God can be the author of our walk!

    Azerbaijan’s Ambassador Anar Huseynov: President Aliyev’s visit to Albania opened a new page in our relations through the specific accords reached

    Macedonian Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski: Open Balkans and Berlin Process are complementary processes for progress of cooperation among WB countries

    Exclusive/ China’s Ambassador to Albania Mr. Zhou Ding: China and Albania must look towards history to build the future!

    Appeal of Ukrainian Ambassador to Albania Shkurov for maximum support of Ukraine with weapons six months after Russian occupation

    Zoran Djukanovic: “The Montenegrin minority in Albania and the Albanian minority in Montenegro to be bridges of communication of our two countries”

  • Realpolitik

    Pacifying without reconciliation! Kurti’s autogoal! Between G – 7 and BRICS 11! The Balkans summer theatre continues! A speech for campaign 2024! A prewarned failure!                             

    Marriage spoiled for a lemon! The missed dinner! Sphinx and challenge for the West! Summer theatre in Bled!

    Peace as wishful thinking! Change the course! Brussels bells toll for Tirana!  Beleri between Tirana, Brussels and Athens! Compare the incomparables!  

    A cold shower! Change the tune! Partnership or vassalage? Euro-Atlantist Meloni!

    Open Balkans closed! A failed tour! Right is might! The NATO Ukrainian dilema!

    Balkan’s summer theatre started! China’s and India’s Megachallenge! SOS from Brussels! Support, Sanctions and statements!  

    No “ carrot” for Belgrade and “ stick” for Pristine! An unnecessary draft! Nor did Gjakova unite us!

    G-7 with 5 major messages! Erdoganist Turkey! A historic victory postponned! Much ado about nothing!  

    “Class reading” in Brussels!! Long live the King! Zelenski opens up, Putin isolated! “Political tremor in Tirana but not in Turkey!  

  • Current Events

    US Embassy warns DP against encouraging political figures declared non-grata by State Department

    Albanian language and history not be tested for the citizens of Kosovo and North Macedonia, says Interior Minister

    PM Rama says at the UN that Kosovo’s independence has been sanctioned by the International Criminal Court

    Albanian PM trades barbs with Russian Ambassador at UN Security Council on Ukraine, Zelensky praises Rama’s approach

    Candidates of Socialist Party and ‘Together we win’ Coalition in race for Mayor’s seat in Kukes on September 24

    Albanian-German cooperation is intensifying in frame of the Berlin Process

    PM Rama meets with the British FM at the UN in New York, No Details of the Talks Made Public

    Kosovo PM accuses Lajcak of being one-sided and in line with the Serbian President

    EU Ambassador to Tirana calls for improving working conditions for journalists

  • Top News

    Reward of 20,000 euros for any information leading to capture of gunmen who shot at ‘Shqiponja’ police unit in Tirana

    Bulgarian Ambassador in Pustec, the Macedonian minority considers the visit propaganda

    “Shqiponja” unit police officer shot in Tirana, police in pursuit of perpetrator

    Some 185 flight hours and 63 flight missions of the “Guardia di Finanza” which left Albania

    Assembly of Bar Associations of Greece demands that jailed Himara Mayor is sworn in

    Census 2023 started in Albania on Monday which will last six weeks

    Montenegrin border police seizes a truck with 300 kg of cannabis passing from Albania

    Head of Albania’s FA expresses support to KFOR for security in Kosovo in the NATO Military Committee

    DP’s Bardhi says the Speaker of the Parliament must implement the regulation

  • YOUR VOICE
  • ShqipShqip
No Result
View All Result
Argumentum
No Result
View All Result
Home ENGLISH

Anniversary of Revolt of Spac Prisoners / “Not Enough Words to Express Truth about Spac”

3 June, 2019
in ENGLISH, English Top News
A A
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

“I consider a great honor and evaluation the participation of the honorable and important Ambassadors to our country right in this place where the Albanian anti-communist men, youth, democrats, and patriots suffered in this catacomb. But because they were as such those boys and men decided to hit the most savage communist dictatorship in the world,” said ex-political prisoner Bedri Coku  

 By Genc Mlloja

Senior Diplomatic Editor

“This past which we are remembering now is the present of those who had the bravery to react. That present should be written as it is history. It should be remembered for not allowing it to never return for the younger generations in the future. That is why it is important to turn the notorious prison of Spac into an international remembrance center,” has said the Ambassador of Austria to Tirana, Johann Sattler.

The Ambassador launched that appeal at an event organized on May 27, 2019 at the prison camp of Spac to mark the 40th anniversary of the execution of the political ex-prisoners Vangjel Lezho, Fadil Kokomani and Xhelal Koprencka, while 66 other prisoners were given longer sentences. The first uprising in Spac erupted on May 21, 1973, which was crushed tragically on May 23 of the same year with the execution of four youngsters – Skënder Daja, 23, Pal Zefi, 29, Hajri Pashaj, 29, and Dervish Bejko, 27 years old.

The political prisoners Lezho, Kokomani and Koprencka were executed because they had written an open letter from the Spac prison in 1979 addressed to the then Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Albanian Labor Party so that they should distance themselves from the path of the communist leader, Enver Hoxha against the backdrop of the ruining of Albania’s economy after the split with China in 1978.  

Image

The remembrance event, which was organized by the Austrian Embassy in collaboration with the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture (IDMC), the Institute for Studies in Crimes and Consequences of Communism and in cooperation with Mirdita Municipality, was as an occasion to remember the victims and ex-prisoners of that political camp of the communist regime through different activities including visits to prisons’ debilitated buildings, literature and music.

“Thanks to ex-prisoners for being here, to Fatos Lubonja, Bedri Coku and Shkelqim Abazi for the readings, Zamir Kabo (piano) and violoncellist Bertin Christelbauer for the music, Minister of Culture Elva Margariti for attending,” said a press release issued by the Austrian Embassy.

“Spac, an Open Grave”

In her remarks during the event, the Minister of Culture, Elva Margariti said they were in Spac not to erect walls but space for dialogue, to give meaning to this remembrance site which is linked with the past, but on top of all it is an address to the future and belongs to the sons more than to their parents.

The Minister put a rhetoric question: “What should we do with such places?” And her answer was: “For all those who were locked here, this place is still a piece of their life, a permanent unhealed pain, an open grave. It is precisely up to us to preserve and turn it into a linking knot between the past and the future; a place to build a new bond with the younger generations through memories.”

The Austrian Ambassador, Sattler told the participants in the event among whom representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Tirana, dozens of ex-prisoners, their relatives, and journalists, that they should not leave that truth in oblivion, but see it in its eyes.

 “The prison camp of Spac was located in such a remote place, in such a steep terrain at the entrance of the tunnel of a mine, in a place surrounded so properly among mountains, where there was no need for high walls to secure the camp, but just an entering gate and a barbed wire fence,” said Ambassador Johann Sattler in his remarks.

 “This site where we are now is a living attempt for the depersonalization of the individual through fear and terror denying him everything like physical freedom, freedom of thought and speech which are fundamental rights,” he said. In his view, the prisoners locked in that jail were held like guinea pigs to see how much people could resist, but they found enough bravery to oppose the regime of the dictator.

“Their courage to provide us a different future today got as a reward execution and in the best case longer sentences for the rest of the prisoners,” said the Ambassador. “The evidence of political prisons in the human history has shown us the violence and terror as well as the power for survival, the love for life and freedom,” Vienna’s top envoy to Tirana said.

The well-known analyst, Fatos Lubonja, who was an ex-political prisoner in Spac, read parts from his book “The Re-sentencing” which contained personal memories on the communist jail and also on the executed ex-political prisoners, Fadil Kokomani and Vangjel Lezho. 

‘Cries from Underground’

In his revelations quoted from his book ‘The Voices of Memory’ the ex- political prisoner, Bedri Coku brought memories of what he called cries from the underground which shook Albania. He said Spac prison was a hell of the Albanian communist dictatorship where men and young people, patriots and democrats suffered for decades working as slaves within the spiritless mountain, which was the face of the rigid communist dictatorship. Even though under the pressure of an exemplary dictatorship in the human history such events have happened in this small site and the Albanian oppressed people should be proud of their race, he said.

He recalled the first uprising of the political prisoners on May 21-23, 1973 and the second revolt which took place in 1979 when a group of prominent intellectuals jailed in Spac wrote a letter of protest to the Political Bureau of the CC of the Albanian Labor Party so that they should distance from the path of the communist dictator, Enver Hoxha against the backdrop of the split with China in 1978-1979.

“Being self-conscious, the intellectuals, who were suffering in this camp of slaves, irrespective of their political points of view, decided jointly to write a letter of protest addressed to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Albanian Communist Party where an appeal was made to its members to distance themselves from the path where Enver Hoxha was leading the country to ruin,” said Coku.

Further on, he expressed the pain that none of state bodies or personalities during the last three decades have neither mentioned nor organized any remembrance conference  on the values and importance of these events.   

Given the oppressive atmosphere reigning across the country and the timing when the events happened during the rule of the dictatorial regime, the revolt of the political prisoners in Spac takes special value in the history of the Albanian people, he said, adding that the uprisings in that political prison should enter into the aureola of the important national or international events.

“I consider a great honor and evaluation the participation of the honorable and important Ambassadors to our country right in this place where the Albanian anti-communist men, youth, democrats, and  patriots suffered in this catacomb. But because they were as such those boys and men decided to hit the most savage communist dictatorship in the world,” said the ex-political prisoner, Bedri Coku.  

During the stay in Spac the participants in the event were shown by the ex-political prisoners places where they were held, the canteen, the dormitory and other facilities which were in such a bad situation seeming as if they would fall right away.  

© Argumentum

Related Posts

Current Events

US Embassy warns DP against encouraging political figures declared non-grata by State Department

21 September, 2023
Balkan Overview

Albanian language and history not be tested for the citizens of Kosovo and North Macedonia, says Interior Minister

21 September, 2023
ENGLISH

Reward of 20,000 euros for any information leading to capture of gunmen who shot at ‘Shqiponja’ police unit in Tirana

21 September, 2023

Follow US

Subscribe

Receive Argumentum Magazine by Email

Last Posts

US Embassy warns DP against encouraging political figures declared non-grata by State Department

21 September, 2023

Albanian language and history not be tested for the citizens of Kosovo and North Macedonia, says Interior Minister

21 September, 2023

Reward of 20,000 euros for any information leading to capture of gunmen who shot at ‘Shqiponja’ police unit in Tirana

21 September, 2023

PM Rama says at the UN that Kosovo’s independence has been sanctioned by the International Criminal Court

21 September, 2023

Bulgarian Ambassador in Pustec, the Macedonian minority considers the visit propaganda

20 September, 2023
Argumentum

“Argumentum”, një proces intelektual …

Contact Us

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Follow Us

Media Partner

Register

Receive Argumentum Magazine by Email
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact

© 2022 Argumentum. All Rights Reserved. | NUIS: L91415033Q

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • OP/ED
  • Interview
  • Realpolitik
  • Current Events
  • Top News
  • YOUR VOICE
  • ShqipShqip

© 2022 Argumentum. All Rights Reserved. | NUIS: L91415033Q

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.