For those who are not acquainted with the history of Albania, Enver Hoxha was the communist leader for five decades. Being a British and a CIA agent in 1930s and during the WWII, he was supported by the Allies – the British Empire and its puppet states, to form the communist party in Albania and rule the country.
With the support of the British and American forces, he formed the new government in 1944. In order to conceal his mission as a British and American spy, he staged an attack on the British Royal Navy what is known as “Corfu Channel Incident.”
In addition, Albania was the only communist country of the eastern Europe not to maintain diplomatic relations with the UK and the USA. Apparently, this shows that Albania considered the British Empire and the US Government as the biggest enemies.
In fact, there is some truth in this. The Albanian people were considered the biggest enemy of the British Empire, at least for the last two centuries. The first Albanian who made history is the legendary Muhammad Ali Pasha, who defeated the British army in Egypt in the beginning of the 19th century, who not only saved the Ottoman Empire from the imminent danger, but he also deterred the British Empire from its quest for trade routes to India and South Asia. Muhammad Ali defeated and humiliated the British army by taking hostage hundreds of British soldiers, which he used this as a condition for the European barbarians to leave Egypt.
Moreover, the British plan to bring down the Ottoman Empire meant a direct attack on the Albanian people, who not only were part of the Muslim Empire, but they had a crucial role in its defense. In the 19th century, when the British Empire was expanding its power and territories, Albanians dominated the Balkans, ruled Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and Hijaz – Mecca and Madinah; in other words, they controlled strategic territories.
So, it is not an exaggeration that the British Empire and the US Government considered Albanians a big hindrance to the expansion of their political power. When Albanians were defeated in the Balkans by the British Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, the latter started a new era of persecutions and elimination of whoever posed a threat to their power.
In this regard, the people that Enver Hoxha has persecuted the most, killed, forced into exile and even wiped out as a whole tribe were those who still expressed a distain and resistance against the British occupation. Even though officially Enver Hoxha would persecute those pro-American voices in Albania, that was just a cover up. He actually persecuted the opposition to the British occupation.
To this very day, Albanian governments of all political spectrum persecute Albanians whose families have resisted the British occupation in the past. Enver Hoxha appeared as anti-American as a strategy for absolving the US Government and the British Empire from the crimes he was about to commit.
Sabri Lushi
