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Qafë-Bari Prison Camp

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Emri Qafë-Bari Prison Camp
Vendndodhja: Qafë-Bari

Once the Spaç mine had been consolidated, another mine would be built for mineral exploitation, not far from Spaç. Qafë-Bari of Pukë was selected as the mine’s location. The need of the district for labour brought the necessity of ‘forced labourers’. The main goal would be for a workforce of 250–300 to extract copper. In addition, the regime opened another isolated labour camp. Located in the mountains, the site targeted as a ‘re-education unit’ would add to the horrors and confessions on the places where prisoners were forced to work.

On 4 June 1982, the Council of Ministers made the decision to open Unit 311 Qafë-Bari. According to the plan approved on 10 July 1982, the construction site was completed, while on 25 July 1982, the surrounding barrier was ended. According to the letter dated 11 June 1982 of Deputy Minister of Mining Industry Martin Cukalla, the unit became operational on 1 August 1982. Two hundred thousand pieces of bricks, a staff of 75 people (36 service soldiers), and up to 300 prisoners of conscience would constitute what would later be known as ‘Education UnitNo. 311 Qafë-Bari, Pukë’.

Qafë-Bari became one of the most terrible camps of communism, set up to exploit the work of political prisoners to bring good profits to that time’s regime. The dictatorship machine, as well as the socialist economy needed the ‘fuel’ that came out of the struggle of people destined to work hard and suffer.

This work was also the essence of opening and maintaining the Qafë-Bari Camp, a place where one entered and did not know whether he would come out alive or not, as the work he would do had the dangers of a primitive mine.

Long ago, the communist regime had been criticized by international organizations for the forced labour with which it punished political prisoners, but all this had fallen on deaf ears.

“Supporting the official request dated 27 March 1982 of the Directorate of the Mining Enterprise FushëArrëz, verbal requests of the Ministry of Industry and instructions of the Chair of the Council of Ministers for building and setting up in the Qafë-Bari mine a re-education unit that can be used with forced labourers, the unit in question is built… The place on which the unit is required to be built is quite suitable, in a pit between hills. There is plenty of water, electricity and existing buildings can be used for housing with some additions and improvements that must be done “– wrote, among others, the director of the Directorate of Execution of Criminal Decisions, KasemKaçi. There is no exact opening date for the unit, but it is believed that it may have been opened in August 1982 because the first reports start in this period. As such, in August-December 1982 alone, 2,895 emergency medical checks and 254 medications were administered due to severe working conditions, which showed a high accident rate. In December 1982, there were 242 convicts in the unit, and the capacity was 300.

In February 1983, a convict wrote a letter to EnverHoxha due to difficult conditions. Agron, who wrote this letter, had been convicted of political offences since 1980 when he was 16. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He started his sentence in Spaç but later moved to Qafë-Bari, where he worked in extracting pyrite. In the letter, he writes that the work fronts were filled with water, that they entered places where the ore did not come out, they worked two shifts, were beaten barbarically, were not fed, and were never washed with hot water. ‘The command has introduced terror by beating convicts with whips inhumanely every day,’Agron wrote, among other things. The whip was referred to by the command as the ‘colon’.‘This mine is not a labour and re-education camp, but an extermination camp,’ making convicts ‘worthless as people’ if they came out of there, as there was ‘no law protecting them.’Agron had dared to write the letter because even if he got out of prison, he doubted if he would be able to continue his life. In the first nine months of 1983, the production force increased, while 82,595 tons of copper was said to have been extracted. Difficulties were great, and ‘great effort’ had been put into the works. Two hundred and thirty prisoners worked in the mine out of 275 who had to do this work. The other convicts worked on the surface. Technical staff didn’t help;in fact the free brigadiers left before the closing hours.

In 1983, Din Thaçi, Pjetër Mark Ndreca, ArqileZoto, NuroHoti, Fetah Hasan, etc., were identified as problematic convicts.

In the note dated 8 February 1983, it was emphasized that there were 340 convicts in the camp. Thirteen of these were collaborators (five agents and eight informants). Ten prisoners were actively processed inside the camp.

After inspection of the General Prosecutor’s Office, all concerns raised in the letter of a convict were confirmed. Up to 16 prisoners slept in a 3 × 4meter room, while the capacity was six.

On 13 October 1984, the convict Jani NashoPano, while being released from full-time prison, treated an officer and a non-commissioned officer of the camp with an alcoholic drink at the village cafe. This action was denounced and was described as ‘mitigation of the class war’, as coffee, poncho, and liquor endangered the formation of the two soldiers. Measures were taken for both to be demoted. In the report presented, Minister Hekuran Isai noted that there were ‘grounds for legal prosecution’.

In January 1984, there were 448 convicts in this unit, of whom 291 worked underground. 178 convicts were repeat offenders. The increase in the number of prisoners distinguishes 1984 from the previous year. The figure was generally maintained in the other months of the year, while it dropped to 392 in July. At the end of 1984, there were 380 convicts in the unit.

The camp had 435 convicts, according to the report dated 22 April 1984. 30 police officers and 55 soldiers served there. A total of 21 convicts were prosecuted in active processing 2A. There were 13 collaborators in the camp (of whom four were agents). 231 prisoners worked in three shifts divided into six brigades (three production, one search, one internal aid, and one external aid brigade). 160 convicts were in prison.

In 1985, there were 391 political prisoners in the camp and no ordinary prisoners. In the first nine months of that year, 26,580 tons of minerals, or 143% were extracted. At the end of 1985, as demand for minerals increased, the number of convicts rose to 400, while the mine employed 260 prisoners.

In the first ten months of 1986, 180,181 tons of copper was produced, significantly exceeding the planned work rate. But the command became ridiculous when it declared that it had saved 10 kg of bread from what the convicts had to eat. So it had an increase of the work rate by reducing the bread. By the end of January 1986, 363 convicts were in the unit, by the middle of that year there were 260, and at the end of it, 304. During 1987 the unit employed about 300 political prisoners.

A statistic according to districts showed that 14 convicts from Tirana and 11 from Elbasan had been found guilty of agitation. This charge was present in other districts too. Regarding escape, Shkodra was first with 40 convicts, then Tirana with 35, Durrës 24, Saranda 22, Dibra 20, Korça 17, etc. At the end of 1988, there were 377 convicts in the unit. Twenty-one percent were convicts for agitation and 66% for escape – other categories were in smaller numbers. About 47% of the convicts belonged to the age group of 18–30 years.

At the end of 1988, there were 365 convicts in the unit. In the first half of 1989, the command reported that it had extracted 90,000 tonnes of copper, including 5,000 tonnes above the plan. Eight hundred fifty linear metres of works were performed. A total of 300 convicts were reported.

During 1990 there are some reports on the situation in the unit due to the changes that had taken place. In January 1990, there were 340 convicts in the camp, of whom 173 were working in the mine. In January-August 1990, there were about 314–326 convicts in the unit. In 1990, the situation begins to change. In June 1990, 35 people worked in the mine, while in August only 25. Because production at the mine fell sharply, authorities saw fit to hire workers in Qafë-Bari and remove convicts from there.

In July 1990, there were 182 political prisoners and 114 ordinary prisoners. By Order No. 1876, dated 10 September 1990 of the Minister, ‘for reasons of vacating the place for free workers’, Unit 311 was temporarily relocated to unit 321 Burrel. The convicts would stay in unit No. 311 until the completion of works in Unit 318. The plan of measures for relocation was approved on 10 September 1990 (relocation time). However, due to the events, the prisoners remained in Burrel, where they were released in early 1991.

In the beginning, camp management had primary education, usually having worked as farm labourers. After 1985, they had police education.

 

Prisoners: