Albania rewrites history exonerating Nazi collaborator killer of Greeks
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
A few weeks ago, the Albanian state as part of a glorious state ceremony greeted the remains of Nazi collaborator Midhat Frashëri with the honors of a national hero. Neither the fact that he collaborated with the Germans, nor the fact that his organization starred in atrocities against Greeks in southern Albania played a role in overturning the historical narrative of the Hoxha period.
Enver Hoxha had succeeded in establishing the institutional classification as "good" and "evil" - "enemies of the people" - against his enemies in Albania for almost half a century. In this case, the "bad guys" were those who had collaborated with the occupying Axis forces.
Those who during the Occupation had considered the greatest threat the establishment of a communist regime following the withdrawal of the (Italian and later German) troops and set as an absolute priority to prevent the imposition of a communist dictatorship, to the point of abstaining from resistance against the German troops or even co-operating with them in order to roll back the "revolution", as detailed in German Military Archives which were operating in Albanian territory since mid-1943 onwards.
Few people may know that not only in Greece, but also in Albania, as well as Yugoslavia, there was civil war during the occupation. This civil war, after the spring of 1944, saw Muslim Chams living in Thesprotia actively participating and officially recruited with the blessings of the German administrations in the Nuri Dino battalion. They combated Hoxha's units in the area of Argyrokastro. Hoxha won finally, creating the new political regime before the end of the war in Europe. The main rival of the Communist guerrillas in Albania was the National Front, the so-called Balli Kombëtar.
One of the political leaders of this movement - who from the point of view of Hoxha was a "traitor", was the Albanian politician and intellectual Midhat Frashëri, born in Ioannina in 1880 and raised in Constantinople, the son of a prominent Albanian family.
For Hoxha's regime, Frashëri was an "turncoat" and it is certain that if he had been arrested during the Occupation or later, he would have been executed, as other officials of the same organization who were less fortunate.
That is why, along with officials from Bali Kometar and other anti-communist organizations, he left Albania and after a brief stay in Turkey and Italy, he finally settled in the United States under the US program of "exploiting" Nazi and anti-communist organizations to counter the expansion of communism in Western Europe and the Balkans.
Midhat Frashëri theresfter worked with British and US intelligence services in an attempt to undermine and overthrow the Hoxha regime by sending small armed groups to Albania to destabilize the regime.
In August 1949 from Paris, Midhat Frashëri announced that he was chairman of the National Free Albania Commission, something like the prime minister of the exiled Albanian government, and with the consensus of the exiled monarch Zog, in Cairo.
On the evening of October 3, 1949, a small private boat, specially equipped for the occasion, sailed from the islet of Othon, north of Corfu, to the point of landing of the nine recruited Albanian commandos south of the port of Avlona. It was the first of at least three similar attempts to insert groups of Albanian commandos in the context of the destabilizing actions by the MI6, the CIA and other US security services.
All failed, while the instigator, the chairman of the National Free Albanian National Committee, Midhat Frashëri, did not even experience the outcome of the first mission: on the morning of October 3, 1949, on the day of the operation, he was found dead in his hotel room in New York, supposedly of natural causes, something which was later questioned.
The Communist regime of Tirana was well informed about all missions and the plans of the National Free Albanian National Commission before and after Midhat Frashëri's death, as the head of the British and US security services co-ordinating these actions, was none other than British double-agent "Kim" Philby, who at the same timewas a KGB man, and so Moscow was thoroughly informed about when, where and by whom each operation would take place.
As a result, Hoxha's security service, the notorious Sigyrimi, was always ready to capture the "traitors" and treat them accordingly - and not just the so-called "traitors", but the whole slew of the commandos - with methods and practices which would be envied by the worst Nazi torturer. At the same time, Hoxha passed the aid from Moscow as a result of Sigurimi's omnipotence.
The Albanian state - and not just Edi Rama - is rewriting the country's history, and the Albanian Left is unable to challenge the endeavor, much more to prevent it. For the simple reason that it has been ideologically destroyed because of their victory of 1944. One cannot know whose turn is next for "restitution", but now that, as it seems, all communist taboos have fallen, the next may come as an even more unpleasant surprise for Greece.
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