BULGARIA: Secrets will out
Vesna Peric Zimonjic BELGRADE, Dec. 6 (Inter Press Service News Agency) - The Bulgarian parliament finally adopted a much delayed law Wednesday to open most of the country's archives of former communist secret services. The names of thousands of individuals who collaborated with the former secret services of Bulgaria will be published on the Internet, the new law says. The names will appear only after these people have been informed, and they will have the right to appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court before their names are published.
In order for their names to be made public, it will be enough for even a single report written by them, documents of the operative that recruited them, or registers of payments to be available.
The new law provides for publication of all files -- except some hundreds -- that identify politicians, public officials, scientists, judges, church officials and journalists as secret police agents in the communist era. The law does not prevision any sanctions for these people, but will allow the public to learn about their past.
A separate archive will be created for documents that remain classified. A de-classification committee responsible for opening dossiers will decide which these should be. Files on employees of the intelligence service and the defence ministry will remain classified.
"This is really important and good news," political analyst Andey Raichev told IPS on phone from Bulgarian capital Sofia. "After 17 years, the story of secret police files is finally over. The public will now know almost everything about everybody who had any part in running this country for decades."
Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that "the past of the services should be distinguished from their current work." He added in a statement reported by Bulgarian media that this would guarantee the confidentiality of intelligence work.
Stanishev had earlier called for complete destruction of archives, but he bowed under pressure from the EU and the international community.
The new law was adopted more than 17 years after the fall of communism in Bulgaria, which is to join the European Union (EU) Jan. 1, together with neighbouring Romania.
Opening of secret police archives was long demanded by the public, but was believed to have been blocked by powerful remnants of the pro-Soviet communist regime that collapsed in 1989.
The parliamentary session Wednesday began amidst protests by a large group of people gathered in front of the parliament building to demand complete access to files.
Raichev was among them. But despite the earlier demand for full access, he told IPS later in the day that "it does not matter now if some 100 or 200 files remain unavailable to the public. The story is finally over."
All former communist states in Eastern Europe opened their secret police archives long back, but Bulgarian leaders failed to arrive at a consensus.
Parliament passed a law in 1994 that the documents of "Derzhavna Sigurnost" (State Security) were not state secrets, but failed to provide for access to the files.
In 1997, the first stable anti-communist government created a commission to screen candidates for high state positions for any links in the past to the secret police. The commission was closed in 2002 by the government of prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg..
Access to files was delayed by powerful interests - the Bulgarian secret service was among the most loyal to the former Soviet Union for decades. It was widely regarded as one of the Cold War's most notorious spy networks, and its files may contain answers to some of the era's unsolved mysteries.
Among these is the alleged role of the network in plots such as the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, to the 'poison umbrella' murder of prominent anti-communist Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov on London's Waterloo Bridge in 1978.
Bulgarians were reminded of the ways of that era last month when the man in charge of Bulgaria's secret police files, Bozhidar Doychev, was found dead at his desk after apparently commiting suicide.
In another development, former interior minister Gen. Atanas Semerdzhiev told the private BTV channel that the archives of the former State Security Service long believed to have been destroyed in 1990 remain in a secret repository.
"They were reorganised," the general said, adding that all the paper archives have been filmed. A great part of the files have been xeroxed as well.
"This is the end of an era, the era where the past could be used for blackmailing people or turning so-called top security issues into a means of intimidation," Raichev said. (FIN/2006)