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Resolution 1096 (1996) on measures to dismantle the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems

Doc. 7568 3 June 1996
Measures to dismantle the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems

International Round Table Discussion “PACE Resolution 1096 and the Problems of Its Enforcement in Some Countries of the Former Socialist Camp”


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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