Bulgaria President Urges Opening of Communist-Era State Security Files

President Rosen Plevneliev called for a full disclosure of the archive of the Communist-era state security service, Darzhavna Sigurnost (DS).

In a video address on the occasion of the Day of Recognition and Honouring of the victims of the communist regime, Plevneliev suggested that all documents related to the activities of DS had to be archived, digitalized and given to the State Archive Agency.

He claimed that a lot of effort went into the fight to keep the documents of the communist-era state security service unread so that the truth could be manipulated whichever way was suitable.

"There's nothing left to hide after 25 years. Let everybody have access to these records, instead of having a mediator read the archives for us," Bulgaria's head of state noted, according to reports of Sega daily.

"There is no need for a mediator between us and the truth. All citizens and students in secondary and higher education have the right to learn the truth about the secret services of the totalitarian regime firsthand. Let us once and for all put an end to speculations surrounding DS, let us put it in the State Archives and provide universal access to it in an intelligent way, like European countries did a long time ago," Plevneliev said.

He defined the lack of an unambiguous evaluation of the crimes of communism as the deepest flaw of the transition period.

"Instead of doing that, there have been unceasing attempts to create a parallel reality and myths about Todor Zhivkov being a man of the people, about the "good" DS agents who did not work for the party but for the state, etc., conveniently forgetting about labor camps, prisons and the terror exercised by these same professionals over the Bulgarian people," Plevneliev declared.

Bulgaria's President claimed that a number of political formations had tried to keep the truth about the secret service of the totalitarian regime partially hidden.

"Enough is enough! Let us close this page in a dignified way, enough damage has been incurred through its half-hearted reading," he stated.

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