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Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
Feb 14 2008
The Wrong of the Right to be Upset
By Milena Hristova
14 February 2008, Thursday
"Florence is of Armenian origin. She is flirting a lot. During the
dances her shorts came down. I was very cooperative."
This is not the beginning of a short story, but part of the secret
file of Hristo Drumev, head of the landmark National Palace of
Culture in Sofia, "whistle-blowing" from a party at the US Embassy in
Paris. For no apparent reason, the file was stamped as highly
confidential, according to the latest revelations of the special
panel that investigates Bulgaria's communist-era police files.
The revelation that seven deputy ministers and Bulgaria's envoy in
NATO have been agents or collaborators of the former secret police
was hardly breaking news, but it will certainly not help the
country's image abroad, especially given the default KGB links.
The repercussions on the domestic front will be far less impressive,
however.
"The secret police grew from a ferociously repressive body to a more
human thing in its last years," one of the custodians of the files
commented in a bid to play down the fallout from the country's
overdue attempts to come to grips with its murky history.
Humanized or not, the trove these custodians probe is not that
tantalizing for most of it has been removed or destroyed and the
information is patchy at best. At its worst it is as informative as
the exciting excerpt above.
Apparently Bulgarians will not even be able to enjoy "the right
people have to be upset", as preached by Jan Lagos, former Interior
Minister of Czechoslovakia, when the people of Slovakia faced the
need for purification of the past.
Or the present, as in Bulgaria's case.
Ahead of this bruising week that saw the fourth no confidence vote
against his government and unveiled agents in it, Prime Minister
Sergey Stanishev spent the weekend among friends.
He and his two coalition buddies tried to be convincing in their
insistence on the validity of the narrow basis on which they seek
re-election. They enjoyed some mutual back-patting and put forward a
handful of ambitious and controversial proposals for making Bulgaria
one of Europe's economic tigers.
Bulgarians don't have the right to be upset after all, right?
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=9 0396
Feb 14 2008
The Wrong of the Right to be Upset
By Milena Hristova
14 February 2008, Thursday
"Florence is of Armenian origin. She is flirting a lot. During the
dances her shorts came down. I was very cooperative."
This is not the beginning of a short story, but part of the secret
file of Hristo Drumev, head of the landmark National Palace of
Culture in Sofia, "whistle-blowing" from a party at the US Embassy in
Paris. For no apparent reason, the file was stamped as highly
confidential, according to the latest revelations of the special
panel that investigates Bulgaria's communist-era police files.
The revelation that seven deputy ministers and Bulgaria's envoy in
NATO have been agents or collaborators of the former secret police
was hardly breaking news, but it will certainly not help the
country's image abroad, especially given the default KGB links.
The repercussions on the domestic front will be far less impressive,
however.
"The secret police grew from a ferociously repressive body to a more
human thing in its last years," one of the custodians of the files
commented in a bid to play down the fallout from the country's
overdue attempts to come to grips with its murky history.
Humanized or not, the trove these custodians probe is not that
tantalizing for most of it has been removed or destroyed and the
information is patchy at best. At its worst it is as informative as
the exciting excerpt above.
Apparently Bulgarians will not even be able to enjoy "the right
people have to be upset", as preached by Jan Lagos, former Interior
Minister of Czechoslovakia, when the people of Slovakia faced the
need for purification of the past.
Or the present, as in Bulgaria's case.
Ahead of this bruising week that saw the fourth no confidence vote
against his government and unveiled agents in it, Prime Minister
Sergey Stanishev spent the weekend among friends.
He and his two coalition buddies tried to be convincing in their
insistence on the validity of the narrow basis on which they seek
re-election. They enjoyed some mutual back-patting and put forward a
handful of ambitious and controversial proposals for making Bulgaria
one of Europe's economic tigers.
Bulgarians don't have the right to be upset after all, right?
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=9 0396