Authored by Avdi Ibrahimi. Translated by Petrit Latifi.

Besim Adem Ndrecaj, martyr of the Albanian nation, was born on May 10, 1956 in the village of Maqitevë in the municipality of Theranda (Suhareka). He was a member of the Guerrilla Movement “Albanians of Freedom” from December 30, 1991; he fell heroically fighting for Albanian freedom on May 3, 1995 in Malësia i Re.

The commander of the guerrilla unit “Zjarri 002” Besim Nddrecaj, refusing to surrender his weapon, at his workplace in Shirok, to the commander of the notorious Serbian militia, Dragan Shoshkic, Besim shoots him in the forehead, telling him that only in this way does an Albanian surrender his weapon, son of a bitch.

The epilogue of this event results in the killing of two officers and several military-police soldiers in Malesia i Re. Thus, paying for himself many times over with a weapon in his hand, Besim, the freedom fighter who has won glory at the price of his life, heroically falls!

Besim was born in the village of Maqiteva in the municipality of Suhareka (Theranda). He was born during the time of the arms campaign, where dozens of patriots who wanted freedom for their homeland found death under the tortures of the most cruel of the devilish executioners, Tito-Ranković and their Albanian-speaking slanderers. In 1956, Besim Ndrecaj was born, the third child in a row out of the seven children of father Adem and mother Meleqe, who died leaving five sons and two daughters orphaned.

Since the young Besimi had heard stories about the Pelasgian-Illyrian-Albanian historical past since the time of King Bardhyl, Queen Teutë, about the heroism of Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeg, about the brave renaissance men of the rifle and the pen, the Frashëri Brothers, Naum Veqilharxhi, Jeronim De Rade, Dora D. Istrian, Pashko Vasa, Qerqiz Topulli, Mihail Gramenon, about the declaration of Albanian Independence by the old man Ismail Qemali in 1912 in Vlora, about the Kachak Sali Shaban who laid to the ground Spirrë and Filë Dobrosavljeviq, two bloodsuckers of the Albanian people who were under the orders of Nikolla Pashiqi, then he had read and heard about the exploits and heroism of Mic Sokoli, Bajram Curri, Isa Boletini, Avni Rrustemi, Qemal Stafa, Ali Kelmendi, Emin Duraku, Rifat Berisha, and the whole other brave men who gave everything and their lives for the freedom of the Albanian homeland.

He then heard and read about the past of the Albanian people that was full of suffering from the cruelties of the most savage and barbaric Yugoslav-Serbian-Montenegrin-Macedonian invaders, at the same time he also heard about the heroic resistance of the brave men Tahir and Nebih Meha, Rexhep Mala and Nuhi Berisha and most recently about his collaborator Alush Kryeziu, etc.

Besimi had a great love for education, in 1971 he graduated with excellent success from the “Vladimir I. Lenin” primary school in the village of Mushtisht in Theranda, so for 8 years in a row he had traveled from his native village of Maqitevë to the school in Mushtisht.

The media press at that time called Muhamet and Besimi, these two students of the Mushtisht Primary School “Passengers of Light.” And Besimi used this light of knowledge even with weapons in hand against the Yugoslav-Serbian invaders. As early as 1970, the press at that time wrote about two exemplary students at the Mushtisht school: Muhamet from the village of Grykoc and Besimi from the village of Maçitevë.

In 1979, Besimi’s family moved from the mountain village of Maçitevë to the village of Malësi e Re, municipality of Prizren. In the meantime, that same year, he received an invitation to go to military service in the Yugoslav chauvinist army in Divule, Split, in the Republic of Croatia. From the beginning of his service in that collective prison, Besimi came into conflict with neo-Chetnik officers who put psychological pressure on the young Albanian recruit, in order to break his extremely patriotic spirit.

The Serbian officer with Chetnik convictions brings two Serbian soldiers into conflict with Besimi, but with the courage and physical strength that this fearless Albanian had, he fought with an iron rod with the officer and two other Serbian soldiers, seriously injuring the officer and slightly lighter injuries to the soldiers. For this, he was sentenced to 21 months of hard labor in the prison cell of Lepoglava in Croatia.

During his stay in prison, he hardened himself even more and created his conviction that in the artificial creature of the Yugoslav federation, Albanians have no place and that Albanians should leave rotten Yugoslavia as soon as possible.

In 1982, Besimi was released from the prison of Lepoglava in Croatia and arrived at the large prison called Kosovo where the Albanian people of Kosovo had risen against the Yugoslav Federation and were openly demanding their Albanian State, the Republic of Kosovo! This same year Besim managed to get a job at the Agricultural Industrial Organization in Shiroka in the geodesy sector, the Yugoslav-Serbian Chetnik beasts and Albanian-speaking traitors were keeping him under constant surveillance, it was the year 1982 when numerous forces of the Yugoslav Federal militia, under extraordinary measures of violence and terror, kept the Albanians of Kosovo under the conquering boot.

One day like those previous days that reigned under violence and terror, the Serbian militia in Suhareka had planned the arrest of Besim at the bus station, the action for his arrest was taken by a superior of the militia of the Suhareka Station with two other militiamen. The superior comes in front of him and orders him to stop, behind him are the other two militiamen who try to put handcuffs on him, but in the blink of an eye, Besim with his agility manages to push them away and in a few seconds manages to hand over the militiamen who happened to be in front of him, it was Besim’s revolver that had handed over these miserable beasts.

He now had the situation completely in hand where he ordered the disarmed militiamen to be sent in the direction of the Suhareka Militia Station and thus he was telling the surrendered superior that it is not easy to take the weapon from the Albanian’s belt. Then, when he arrived at the militia station, he asked to meet with the commander, although he had never met him before.

The militia commander was surprised by this situation, and Besim addressed him with the words:

“… Take these puppies of yours and never let them come before me again. This time I handed them over alive, but if they tried to come before me on another occasion, you will never see them alive again…”

This event was the most challenging act for the invader, after the heroic event of May 13, 1981, when the occupier Yugoslavia trembled from the rifles of Tahir and Nebih Mehe.

This event of Besim Nreca quickly spread throughout the Albanian lands, now he had become a living hero among the Albanian people with his patriotic exploits. The illegal movement, the Albanian National Committee for the Unification of Territories, at that time had shown extraordinary interest in including this great hero of the Albanian national cause in its ranks.

Thus, one day in September 1987, through the freedom fighter Rexhë Mema, together with the author of this article, in the chamber of the patriot and political prisoner Ali Mema, under illegal conditions, Besimi contacted Ruzhdi Saramati, the head of the aforementioned Movement.

From November 28, 1987, the Movement changed the form of organizational activity to a Guerrilla Movement: “Albanians of Freedom” formed brigade 28-128, where Besim Nrecaj was appointed commander of the Guerrilla Unit for Suhareka, “Fire 002” and took the pseudonym “Forca” where prudence, bravery, and conspiracy were high virtues for Besimi.

In 1989, Serbia stripped Kosovo of even the little autonomy it had. With this suppression of autonomy, the Titoist leadership of Pristina had completely submitted to the Milosevic leadership of Belgrade. The people were opposing this injustice in every way, because this autonomy was already too little for the aspirations of the Albanian people.

Besimi and his friends were thrown into action, openly expressing their opposition at rallies everywhere, proposing the idea that all Albanian lands remaining under the Yugoslav federation should be united with Albania as soon as possible, because they were already unjustly separated from the Albanian core at the bloody peace conferences of St. Stephen, London and Berlin in 1877-78.

In 1990, the situation in Kosovo became increasingly serious, the incident of students being poisoned in primary and secondary schools by the repressive apparatus of the Serbian Chetniks shocked the Albanians, and the situation was getting more and more out of control. Besim Ndreca and his collaborators in the liberation movement had declared in many places that they would take revenge and that this would be the end of Serbia.

In the fall of 1991, the commander of the guerrilla units “Albanians of Freedom” Ruzhdi Saramati, after a clash with the Serbian militia forces in the Kurilla neighborhood of Prizren, was forced to flee to Albania. This incident and Ruzhdi’s escape severely affected the comrades of the movement, and in this case, Besim Ndreca.

This year, on a hot August day, he was at an Albanian wedding, where there were a large number of wedding guests, the Albanian national flag was flying above the wedding guests. Large forces of the militia on the Suhareka-Prizren highway near the village of Gjinoc stop the wedding guests and forcibly take the flag from them, Besimi goes towards the militia and after a fight with them, takes the flag and returns it to the wedding guests, and Besimi became a hero to them. Thus the years passed one after another, Besimi was able to help all those people who needed him.

In 1995, this year, the military-police action to collect weapons had gained momentum, a terrible violence and terror was happening like in the time of the Tito-Rankovic satrapy in 1955-56, the fascist soldiers of the dictator Milosevic were mistreating dozens of Albanians every day. I was saying that all the villages of the Suhareka municipality and some of the villages of Prizren were targeted every day by these neo-Chetnik gangs of Milosevic and Seselj.

One of the most savage and cruel was the criminal and commander of the militia command post in Lubizhd, Prizren, Dragan Soskic, a Montenegrin who had come to Prizren on duty from the city of Peja, There was a Chetnik kindergarten in Sredska i Rečani, he and his subordinates, and unfortunately with them were also some Albanian speakers who had been sold to the Serbs and Montenegrins, were practicing the most cruel tortures on the Albanian population, where electric shock and baseball bats were used and other more inhuman tortures were used by these bloodthirsty neo-Chetniks, and all this cruelty was openly supported by two even more notorious criminals from the police commands of Prizren, commander Petroviqi with his associates and that of Suhareka, commander Milan Shipka, of course, by order of the Serbian state apparatus, this extremely savage terror was being carried out against the Albanians who were demanding national rights and freedom.

Ruzhdiu was in Albania, while the links that were maintained with Besim within the movement were severed because Regjë Mema, also from the village of Legjend, because he had also been asked for weapons, decided to escape to Germany. He had left his villa with Halit to contact the author of this article, to tell the situation that was in the village. Halit was cruelly tortured at the militia station in Lubizhda and could barely stand, then he was kept isolated in the Prizren prison cell and did not manage to inform any of the members of the movement that Halit had knowledge of about the situation created in his village.

Besim also knew that the Serbian militia forces would raid his house, but he had in no way agreed to escape and it did not even occur to him to hand over the weapons of freedom. On May 3, 1995, at 9 am, a platoon of militiamen led by Dragan Shoshkiq raided Besim Ndreca’s house in the village of Malësi e Re in Prizren.

Besim’s wife, Sheride Daka – Ndrecaj, whom Besim married in 1983 and left her six children, recounts this incident. Alban, who, although young, participated in the liberation war in the UÇPMB, Albanë, Hekuran, Arbnora, Granit, and Malësor. She recounts the incident: “A platoon of militiamen armed to the teeth and wearing bulletproof vests came to our house at 9 am on May 3, 1995 and asked for Besim. I told Hekuran to go and tell him that he is working in Shiroka.

Dragan Shoshkiqi, has taken the task of going to the highly wanted person Besim Ndrecaj, on the pretext of confiscating the weapon, which he carried without authorization and never removed from his belt. Then Shoshkiqi and other militiamen go to the OBI, in Shirok, at his workplace, notifying the other units of the Suhareka police station and in particular the commander of the militia, the criminal and Chetnik Milan Shipka, who was also a member of the Belgrade “Crna Ruka”.

As soon as they arrived in Shirok at his workplace, the militia notified the guards about the police action because they are aware that Besim carries weapons without permission. He was found with other colleagues at his workplace. Shoshkiq asked for Besim by name and he answered, then the workers were asked to leave Besim’s office, they all came out, Besim acted unexpectedly.

He pulled out his revolver and killed commander Dragan Shoshkiq, saying:

“… what you were looking for you found now, you son of a bitch…” and seriously wounded Milan Shipka’s deputy commander, Dragan Dobrosavljevic. Besim took both of their weapons and with lightning speed, like the Kachak Sali Shabani, left his workplace.

This showed that the repressive Yugoslav-Serbian government had lost control of the situation, even though this murderous machine insisted that their genocidal system controlled everything. So they were no longer being sold propaganda in Kosovo, this propaganda lie had been broken by Tahir and Nebih Meha, Rexhep Mala and Nuhi Berisha, Alush Kryeziu and most recently Besim Ndrecaj, who had created a situation of chaos in the ranks of the Yugoslav-Serbian invaders, even though on that day of May 3 they had not yet declared a state of emergency, but the state of siege seemed open in the spaces of the whole of Kosovo.

This was no longer a usual sight for the criminal commander Petrovic and Shipka, this was a situation where they and their hounds felt completely afraid, this fear was visible on their faces. This unexpected situation had dissolved the myth of the Yugoslav-Serbian federation which had become like a tower of paper.

Upon hearing that Besimi had killed the commander of the Lubizhda police station, Shoshkic, this unexpected news raised the entire Serbian-Montenegrin terrorist state apparatus to its feet, everywhere on the streets of Kosovo the noise of heavy military and police machinery could be heard.

Reality changed its form, those Yugoslav-Serbian terrorist invaders, who boasted that they were not afraid of Albanians, were now gripped by fear and panic, the commander who had created fame in punishing Albanians was killed. Now they were mourning the only son of Cernagor and Cernagorka, they were now cursing and cursing the Yugoslavia of Tito-Ranković and Milošević.

On this same day, May 3, Besimi’s brother Xhemajliu recounts: “…At around 12 o’clock, when I returned home from work, approximately 300 militiamen attacked me, they tortured me cruelly, threatening that if Besimi did not surrender, we would kill all of Ndrecaj…” Besimi had managed to meet his wife and children, suggesting that they go to Grykoc to Aunt Sabrie, leaving the children in the care of his wife and leaving to go home to get the weapons he had.

But there was an iron fence and he positioned himself in several ditches of Fusha e Thatë above the village of Legjenda and waited for the approach of those dozens of forces that had made an iron siege in both the Suhareka and Prizren areas. For two hours in a row, Besimi had waged an open and fierce war with dozens and hundreds of enemy military and police forces.

Three military helicopters had approached Besimi’s istikam to capture him alive, but luck was on his side and he managed to injure the pilot of one of the three helicopters and they barely managed to escape. However, two other helicopters machine-gunned Besimi’s istikam from above, they emptied a hail of bullets, but Besimi also emptied his weapons and fired mercilessly at the bloodthirsty invaders.

Finally, at around 3:00 PM, Besimi fell heroically on the field of honor, fighting like a true hero of our Albanian legends. He fought like a hero against hundreds of Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers and militias and Albanian-speaking thugs. The place where Besimi fought and heroically stood was not suitable, but the brave man had initially chosen the path of a face-to-face confrontation with the centuries-old enemy of the Albanians, and not escape, for which he had perhaps had the opportunity.

He stood until the last bullet in this battle. Although Besimi was alone, among other things, Prof. Bajram Kurti writes in his book “The Blood of Freedom” in no. 7-8 on page 66 of the book: “…The enemy, out of shame, did not give the number of militiamen and soldiers killed, but after three or four days he launched a lie that supposedly the two police commanders Zoran Nikolić from Kruša e Vogël on duty at the militia postblock in Lubizhda, and Milorad Vućinić at the militia postcommand in Prizren were killed among themselves… also dozens of other militiamen and soldiers of the elite units were killed…”.

Besim’s body had nine wounds, as many as Gjergj Elez Aliu had. Those wounds were the wounds of freedom and at the same time of his immortality, which was repeating the glory of Albanian heroes Oso Kuka of Vranina, who Besim had read and reread in Gjergj Fishta’s “Lahuta e Malcië”, Mic Sokoli, who had exposed his chest to the cannon of the Turkish Sultan, Sali Shabani, who had been one of the most famous kaqakis during the time of Azem Bey Galica, Tahir and Nebih Meha, who collapsed the Yugoslav federation.

On May 5, 1995, the long line of thousands of participants in the funeral procession, with dozens of wreaths and bouquets of flowers, gathered in the village of Legjenda to bid farewell to Besim Ndreca for eternity. His body, wrapped in the Albanian national flag, was passing on the way to the cemetery of Malsija e Re, near the numerous barrels of enemy forces.

In the bed of the Albanian land that Besim loved so much, the body of the hero was laid, covered with bouquets of flowers that covered the soil of the mother earth with the immortal hero Besim Ndreca. During the funeral ceremony, Prof. Bajram Kurti spoke, who gave a fiery speech in which it was clearly stated that the end of Yugoslav-Serbia is near and Besim’s collaborators will take revenge and will soon expel Serbia from the Albanian lands.

The Albanian people will never forget the example of the sacrifice of this hero who returned the dignity to the Albanians trampled by the invader and by miserable pacifism, at a time when it was most difficult, he appeared as a meteor of freedom. Besim was the inspiration and motivator of each of the Albanians who were preparing to deal the final blow to terrorist Serbia, to bring the people the freedom they lacked and the unification of the Albanian lands with the mother state of Albania a bright ray.

With the name and example of Besim, many of the friends of his ideal, fought the invader without compromise during the glorious war of the Liberation Army, which was Besim’s own dream that his friends made his dream a reality with the liberation war.

Reference

https://www.radiokosovaelire.com/besim-adem-ndrecaj-10-10-1956-3-5-1995/