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Attention:
Mr. Rene van der Linden
Chairman EPP/CD
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
6th September 2003
Sofia
Bulgaria
An Open Letter
Dear Mr. van der Linden,
The communist practice and ideology should have been long ago condemned
in a resolute and clear-cut manner by the official institutions
of democratic and united Europe. This process has been delayed rather
long, in my opinion, and this has its high price. However, as it
is said, better late than never. This is the reason why I ardently
support your and of your colleagues from the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe initiative for international condemnation
of communism. This is a worthy act of moral retribution and deference
towards millions of people who had been deprived from their lives,
and to those who had been caused a great deal of suffering and humiliation.
I am convinced that this act will have its substantial projection
both in the day of tomorrow and in the farther future days. Communism
was a dreadful phenomenon, and this is a truth learnt by painful
experience that should be remembered and known; and we must not
allow under one form or another the emergence of communism's or
similar recurrences. What is more, the still alive remains and mutations
of communism should be discerned, unmasked and to be confronted
by our moral intolerance and irreconcilability.
With respect to the above mentioned, allow me to make some suggestions
for supplements and alterations to your motion for a resolution.
Namely concerning the texts:
"...3. Taking into account that there have
been cases of populist forces, which play on the creation of nostalgia
for those totalitarian communist regimes, especially in the countries
which suffered such regimes. Such populism is enhanced by the lack
of information and education amongst the younger generation of the
reality of life under those regimes and an inability to deal with
this "nostalgia for the past" could negatively influence the decisiveness
of a part of the society for democratic reform;
4. Taking into account the need for the strengthening of
democratic citizenship and the rejection of all concepts of dictatorship
and non-democratic trends, which previously existed on the European
continent in order to prevent their revival"
As well as with respect to the text:
"...b. Member states of the Council of Europe,
which suffered communist regimes)
i. To set up national committees for the investigation of violations
of human rights committed during the totalitarian communist regimes,
which should report on their findings to the Council of Europe ;
ii. To lift all confidentiality - if such still exists - of documents
which could illuminate the cases connected with violations of human
rights committed during the communist regimes - especially those
committed by the communist secret services /political police and
to encourage their citizens to come forward and bear witness to
such events before this commission and the national committees."
And having in mind that truth is the strongest means and cures
against violence and tyranny, I propose the following text to be
included:
"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe INSIST that within a year from the passing of this resolution
the archives from the period of communist rule in the countries
of the former Eastern Block to be made publicly accessible to the
maximum extent and in the frame of maximum simplified procedures.
This should be done in strict observance of
human rights.
Meanwhile it is absolutely necessary that accessibility
procedures to these documents for independent researchers, journalists,
historians and analysts be different, as follows: free to the highest
degree, while at the same time these groups of people, after being
preliminary and expressly informed, will shoulder responsibility
for any eventual breach of other people's rights. Not any institution
under any pretext of prevention should have the right to refuse
access, such that will limit their opportunity to form complete
and objective opinion, as well as will impede them in researching
in depth the problems they are working on.
Likewise, names of people, who have worked for
the former secret services and at other key institutions, responsible
for the position strengthening, functioning and preservation of
the communist regime and state, must not be concealed under any
form from interested persons who would want to know about them.
The same also refers to the facts and circumstances concerning the
specific activities of the persons at service at these institutions.
A core issue in the process of motion towards
utmost accessibility of the archives of the former communist countries
should be the problem with the access to the archives of the former
secret services and repression bodies."
The ideas I propose to be included in the text are already applied
with various success and scale in countries like Germany, The Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland, etc.. Unfortunately, during the last
14 years quite few efforts in that direction have been done in Bulgaria.
What is more, after the parliamentary elections from 2001, the new
governing bodies undertook steps, including legal actions, in the
direction of placing maximum restrictions to the access to, namely,
the archives of the former secret services. The Act, which settled
the access and the revealing of the archives of these services as
well as the procedures for the announcing of the names of their
agents, was abolished and the commissions responsible for the law
execution were closed. Argumentation and means often used by the
executive authorities in order to undertake restrictions against
access to archives are grounded on the illegal reference to the
Act on protection of personal data and the Act on protection of
classified information (in spite of the fact that in 1994 the
Parliament of the Republic of Bulgaria passed an act, stating that
the whole archive and all the information of the former State Security
Service are not considered state secret any more).
I can give immediately a flagrant example of total restriction
of access to archives, based on my personal experience. In order
to write a monographic book, I have been researching, collecting
and analysing materials about Iliya Minev, a political prisoner
for many years and a dissident, who passed away in 2000. Because
of the specificity of Bulgarian transition, Iliya Minev is regarded
a legend by a narrow circle of people, on one hand, but on the other
his name is quite unknown to the broad public. On 16th January 1988
he and his followers established with him being the leader, called
Independent Association for the Defence Of Human Rights in Bulgaria
- the first independent and opposing to the communist rule organization
in the country after the demolition of the democratic and pluralistic
structure of the state and the society in the second half of the
40s of the past century. At the beginning of 2002 I was given access
to Iliya Minev's prison archive files, stored in the Central Directorate
"Execution of punishment" - the administrative body, ruling directly
and responsible for the activities of the places for deprivation
of freedom. In the building of the Directorate I read these files
several times, meanwhile taking notes on them. This took place after
I had been asked to deliver a verification certificate from Minev's
heirs, stating that they approve my having an access to his files,
and I respectively submitted the consent in writing of the only
Iliya Minev's heir apparent - his son.
However, when I asked for copies of the files in order to further
proceed with my work for the monographic book about Iliya Minev
(one of the files was sent to the archive 40 years ago, the other
- 23 years ago), and after a series of administrative misunderstandings
and acts in arbitrary manner, I finally received a negative unmotivated
documental refusal by the Directorate. On this occasion the MP and
your colleague in the Parliamentary Assembly as well as a co-author
of this motion for a resolution on international condemnation of
communism, Mr. Lachezar Toshev, approached the Minister of Justice,
as the Directorate mentioned above is under his disposition. The
result of that was that after the ministry got acquainted with the
case, in June this year I received a new refusal from the institution
in charge of storing and controlling the prison files of Iliya Minev.
This time, however, the refusal I received was outrageously challenging
and let me even call it - extremely inadequate. I am citing below
part of the answer I received and that is signed by the Director-general
of the Central Directorate "Execution of Punishment":
"...it is useless somebody with your talent in
the field of sports journalism and what is more - in lyrics, to
use the memory of worthy people like Iliya Minev for the purpose
of causing psychological distress among the staff, who have strictly
and under regulation executed the current law and the internal order,
and among former prisoners and their heirs. The Central Directorate
"Execution of Punishment" bares legal and moral responsibility towards
the civil society, and to the mentioned persons particularly, not
to announce their personal deeds.
We know that nobody and nothing has been forgotten,
but in order to heal the wounds in our society, it is not necessary
to override the rights of known and unknown, good or bad ordinary
citizens and regular servants executing the Law. If their rights
are violated, every one of them might make claims not only against
The Central Directorate "Execution of Punishment", but also against
you personally as well.
We believe that a man of letters with your talent,
experience and sensitiveness towards injustice like you, will manage
to use the information he has already been offered and to focus
his creative objectives in the frame of a fictional biography, rather
than a "monographic book", such as a collection of archive documents.
We sincerely wish you to make best use of the opportunity you have
had and to fill in the white pages of our national history, which
you have been a witness of".
In Bulgaria in 2003 high-standing state officers, who refuse without
grounds to give access to information of public interest, allow
themselves to give advice to an independent journalist and researcher
what, how and which period of the country's history to write about!
Meanwhile actively impeding his work. The refusal I received was
given a certain publicity in the Bulgarian media, but despite of
that I myself am not informed whether the Ministry of Justice has
so far taken up a position on that confusing situation.
However, I want to point out that I am not the side who has suffered
the basic injures. In the past 18 months a state institution, impeding
and imposing restrictions to the wring of a book, based on documentary
materials, and concerning a personality symbolizing anticommunism
not only in my country, inflicts damages to the public interest.
What is more, practically Iliya Minev, who had been literally persecuted
and repressed from the very first day till the end of the 45 year-long
communist rule in Bulgaria, now is a subject to a posthumous repression.
This is just one flagrant example of a general policy towards the
access to communist period archives, a policy that is an actual
fact in Bulgaria today. Journalists, researchers, former political
prisoners, etc., I know, face the same problem. I am convinced that
the initiative you have taken up, will be extremely helpful in many
countries like mine as to guarantee that experiences like the ones
I had will happen as rarely as possible. And I hope that soon they
will never occur in any place within united Europe.
Finally, allow me to make one more notice on the text you and your
colleagues propose. I regard it more appropriately that the resolution
texts on the international condemnation of communism use the term
"communist totalitarism" rather than "totalitarian communism".
In spite of quite a few in number possible objections, mainly coming
from interested parties, the definition "communist totalitarism"
is not only more appropriate but also more precise. And I think
there is no room for compromises here. What is more - the text of
the resolution talks of "nazi and fascist-totalitarism".
Please accept my best regards, my cordial wishes for success and
once again - my sincere support for your cause.
Yours truly,
Todor Yanakiev
Journalist, researcher, analyst and publicist
e-mal: songer68@yahoo.com
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