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A Secret Admission to the EU
// Bulgaria Opens Its Classified Intelligence Files
With less than a month to go before the country is accepted into the European Union, and 17 years after the fall of its Communist government, Bulgaria is adopting a law declassifying the intelligence files kept by the former ruling Communist regime. The late opening of the files and the fact that they will not be opened completely, however, means that Bulgarians are not likely to learn the whole truth about the pasts and presents of their ruling elites.
Archival Secrets
The Bulgarian parliament adopted the new law by majority vote on Wednesday. It will go into effect after Bulgarian President Georgi Pyrvanov adds his signature, which is expected to happen within the next few days. The new law is clearly in anticipation of the upcoming January 1, 2007 date of Bulgaria's accession to the European Union, and many Bulgarians point to pressure on Sofia from Brussels as the driving force behind the declassification of the secret dossiers.
The federal security service of the People's Republic of Bulgaria maintained a wide network of personnel and informers: according to the Bulgarian media, around 100,000 people were involved in intelligence gathering for the service, which was closely linked to the Soviet KGB. The opening of its files is thus being awaited with impatience.
The first attempt to peer into the archives of the service, which was officially disbanded in July 1991, was made in 1997 by the right-wing government then in power. However, that attempt ended with the publication of a list of only 23 names of former regular and part-time Communist special services personnel who were part of the country's ruling elite. The list, which was compiled by Bulgarian Internal Affairs Minister Bogomil Bonev, included 14 parliamentary deputies, 4 members of the High Judiciary Council, 2 employees of the Treasury, and leaders of the Post and Communications Committee, the Post Bank, and the National Statistics Institute.
Now Bulgaria is making a new attempt to deal with its communist past. First of all, the new law will allow Bulgarians to look at the classified dossiers that were kept on them by the secret services before 1991. Parliament will also create a nine-member commission to analyze the biographies of high-ranking politicians and officials in the country, including former and current presidents and prime ministers, diplomats, judges, police chiefs, and members of the media. The names of those who cooperated with the Communist regime's secret police will be published on the internet. Though no punishment will be meted out, the new law's sponsors hope that those who are exposed as agents of the security services will retire of their own accord.
In Bulgaria it is hoped that the declassification of the secret files will help throw light on the possible participation of the Bulgarian secret services in two of the most notorious crimes of the end of the last century. In 1978 Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and dissident who was working for the BBC in London, was murdered on Waterloo bridge by means of poison injected with a sharpened umbrella tip, and in 1981 a Turk of Bulgarian descent named Ali Agca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Immediately after the fall of communism in Bulgaria in 1989, it was discovered that the file on Georgi Markov had been destroyed.
Archival Murder
However, not all of the Bulgarian federal security service archives are being opened. In the week before the new law was adopted, the leaders of the country's ruling left-wing coalition decided at a closed session to impose limits on the legislation. According to a last-minute amendment, the stamp of secrecy will not be removed from documents "whose declassification could damage the national interests of Bulgaria in international relations or create serious danger to the lives of certain persons." In particular, the pasts of currently active Bulgarian special services personnel will remain under wraps.
Even the deputies from the ruling coalition admitted that the amendment was adopted under pressure from the special services. "There was serious pressure coming from the side of the intelligence services, particularly from the National Intelligence Service," deputy Nikolai Svinarov told journalists, adding that "we're only talking about a few dozen people, and it's necessary for the protection of national security."
But the government's opponents think otherwise. "The files that would allow Georgi Markov's killer to be identified may now remain closed," said Filip Dimitrov, a former prime minister who is currently an opposition deputy. One of the most active supporters of the new legislation, the journalist Georgi Lozanov, went further: "The restrictions will help the organs of state security to preserve their secret sway over our political and social lives," he said.
Oddly enough, when the right-wing government published the list of collaborators with the Communist regime's secret services in 1997, current Bulgarian President Georgi Pyrvanov, then the leader of the Socialist Party, criticized the government for "being excessively selective in working with the secret dossiers and not telling the people the whole truth about the current political elite." Today, the left and right wings have switched places within the Bulgarian government, and those on the right are lobbing similar critiques at the current left-wing government.
The passions aroused by the adoption of the new law were stoked by the recent hushed-up death of Bozhidar Doichev, the 61-year-old director of the Bulgarian intelligence archives. Mr. Doichev, who had worked for the federal security services since the 1980s, became the overseer of the archives in 1990. In the middle of November, Doichev was found dead in his office. The official verdict was suicide. However, his death was reported by the government only after several days had gone by, sparking many rumors both in Bulgaria and abroad. According to one version of events, the head of the archives killed himself because he had been forced to destroy several important documents. A different version claims that Bozhidar Doichev was helped on his way out – by murder.
Interestingly, when those who were implicated in the destruction of the dossier on Georgi Markov were supposed to be brought to trial in 1992, the main suspect, former Deputy Internal Affairs Minister Stoyan Savov, also committed suicide, also under circumstances that were never fully explained.
Gennady Sysoyev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 08, 2006
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