FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The funeral was to take place the following day, December 19. We would be allowed to leave the house only for the funeral, because, since 24 hours, we were under house arrest, although such a measure was not contained in any existing law.
The day before, the head of the cadre office of the Central Committee apparatus came and met Fiqreti, telling him that Mehmet Shehu would not be given a ceremonial burial, because he did not leave himself room for that, because suicide is a reprehensible act. so it would be an ordinary family funeral, for which, of course, we had to notify and call the relatives, but in any case in a more or less narrow circle, not with great fanfare, that is, even from the Prime Minister, as his work center, some representatives would come.
Fiqreti asked her if she could use her car to go to the funeral, while the head of the Central Committee Apparatus Staff Office told her that not only would she have her car, but that she would be given other vehicles are also available for burial. Meanwhile, during that day, in our house with the shutters forced down according to an order, various investigators and experts were constantly entering and exiting, while the officers of Mehmet Shehu's accompanying group were assigned to be guards inside the house, not to allow anyone of us to approach his bedroom and the studio next to it, so not even Fiqret to enter his own bedroom.
Urgently called meetings of the Political Bureau and the Plenum of the Central Committee were held one after the other in the opposite building. The next morning, among the relatives we had called and who had come to us the day before, some of them did not come to the funeral. One of Mehmet's brothers, second only to him, a retired accountant, had a fit of unbearable headaches, an illness from which he had been suffering for years, so he was unable to come, but stayed at our house and only the son would come to the funeral.
Mehmet's other brother, the third, an officer in the Ministry of Defense, did not come, as Minister Kadri Hazbiu told him that he advised him not to come, while the day before he had advised him to come to us. However, not coming to the funeral could not save him, a few months later, from being arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison as an accomplice of Mehmet Shehu in the activity of sabotaging the Party Line. And the second one, four years later, because he could not stand the behavior of others towards him like the brother of the agent and conspirator Mehmet Shehu, killed himself by jumping from a bridge with a great height.
Mehmet's younger brother, at that time a director in the company, was the only one of them who could come to the funeral, but on the contrary, unlike them, there was no consequence. Another person who, apart from us from the house, came to the funeral was Marjeta's father. So, all in all, there were six of us, because neither Fiqreti nor Bardha would come. Bardha, of course, could not come, because she was about to give birth, even that morning they took her to the maternity ward.
As for the mother, it was Vladimir who convinced her not to come, given that she continued to be a member of the Central Committee and her coming to the funeral of Mehmet Shehu, who knows, could influence her expulsion, or, in any case, could trigger for this. But, although she did not come to the funeral, only one day would pass, and she would be expelled from the Central Committee and from the Party at the same time, as an enemy and as a close collaborator in her husband's hostile activities, and after two weeks she would be arrested for high treason.
So, anyway, it wouldn't have been any worse if she had come to his funeral, or whatever. Only Vladimir, Marjeta and I remained from our house to escort my father to the grave. The three of us left, putting Marjeta in the middle. As we were leaving the backyard, Marjeta turned for a moment and plucked a large red rose. Then, under the constant gaze of the Security guards, we walked that part of the road to the exit of the Block, a side exit
The black hearse was waiting there, with the coffin of Mehmet Shehu that we had just loaded, and behind it an old bus. We got into it and headed to the cemetery. The bus, almost empty, with only six people in all, everyone avoided it as much as possible on the main road, while its windows rattled in the wind, the sheets of that battered carcass also rustled, every now and then, like crow's feet. It was the second time I went to the cemetery within that week, at the beginning and end of it.
But this time, they would direct us to the other end of the cemetery, to the farthest plot. The farther we went, the rarer the white tiles were. There, somewhere among the graves that had nothing but a fragile vault around them and a name with some letters carved on top, an open pit and two gravediggers covered in mud awaited us.
Constantly supervised by the Security and while the employees of the Prime Ministry stood at an unusual distance for anyone escorting a dead person. We were burying my father as quickly as possible, when, in the meantime, a stream of rain began to fall, just like the other time when I was driving near my grandparents' graves. Are you saying that by going to them I had evoked for myself this second coming to the cemetery? Marjeta threw the rose on the frozen soil that completely covered the coffin.
Brother's confession: Kadri Hazbiu ordered me not to go to Mehmet's funeral
Duro Shehu, the brother of the former prime minister who committed suicide under suspicious circumstances, has been living in Canada for years. Ever since he settled there, every December 18 he receives visits in honor of his brother, who passed away in the distant December of 1981. Despite the fact that his friends and colleagues are few in number, he feels good that together with bring back various details from Mehmet's story and his tragedy. Duro Shehu says that he has a big hostage who did not participate in his burial, forced by a final order from the former Minister of Defense, Kadri Hazbiu.
He does not forget for a moment the meeting with the latter, the night of the mort in his office. As soon as I went to the Ministry, he remembers, I showed up at his office. I had to wait about an hour in the hall to meet Kadri. Without a proper greeting, he addressed me with a barrage of words that shocked me and more from the news we had received a few hours before. "Listen, Duro, he told me, you came for Mehmet's problem. He killed himself for the issue of that girl, Skenderi's fiancee, for Turdiu's daughter".
Right then and there, almost unconsciously, I told him that we didn't know anything about what it was about, but Kadriu, who apparently wasn't speaking only on his own behalf, went from moments of clarification about what had happened, to official orders about what needed to be done. to do as family members after these moments. Apparently it was finely ordered by senior officials of the Central Committee.
"Now," he told me, "notify the brothers and go home, to the funeral." Tell them that the Party will not bury him. It is suicide, and that means treason. Then, with what he did for that engagement, it may turn out that he was an enemy".
I persisted in asking him for something else, with the conviction that, despite these circumstances, everything could not be erased from his spiritual ties with Mehmet, but it was in vain. At that moment, Kadriu stood up, took off his glasses and addressed me succinctly: "It's an order. This is how it should be done! Goodbye!". On his way out, he told me that I, as a communist and responsible cadre, should not participate in the funeral that would take place the next day./ Memorie.al
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