Hard Line Man
During the war, Shehu won a reputation for brutality. On his command most clan chiefs in the mountains of northern Albania were executed. In 1949, he ordered 14 Catholic tribesmen in the Mirdita region executed after underground fighters aligned with conservative Albanian political exiles working as Italian Navy espionage agents executed Bardhok Biba, a relative of Catholic tribal leader Gjon Markagjoni who had turned against the tribal system to become a ranking Communist district official. Mike Burke, the American spymaster who set up a 1950 paramilitary project to oust the Albanian Marxist regime, said in 1986 that Shehu was "one tough son of a bitch", whose security forces gave U.S. agents "a tough time".
At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (October 1961) Anastas Mikoyan, one of the Soviet leaders, quoted Mehmet Shehu, who had said at an Albanian Party Congress: "Whoever disagrees with our leadership in any repect, will get spat in the face, punched on the chin, and, if necessary, a bullet in his head."
Read more about this topic: Mehmet Shehu
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