Bulgaria's Top Cop: Ruling Party Closing Page of Ex Agents Files

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, has stated that the ruling party GERB will close the page with files of agents of the former Communist State Security. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, has announced that the ruling party GERB is working towards closing the page with files of agents of the former Communist State Security.

In an interview for the Bulgarian National Television on Monday, Tsvetanov said that the scandal with the files of Diaspora Minister, Bozhidar Dimitrov, and Deputy Interior Minister, Pavlin Dimitrov, was part of the opposition's tactics to not allow talks about real politics.

According to him, the debate on collaborators and agents of the former Communist State Security had to be done in the beginning of the transition period.

"Twenty years later, we cannot continue to talk about people who should have retired already or hold other positions, different than representing the country in foreign policy plan," Tsvetanov said.

The interior minister noted that the resignations of the diaspora minister and the deputy interior minister were needed in order to prevent further questions and debates, which could go on for months.

"Bozhidar Dimitrov has good qualities. Pavlin Dimitrov is a great professional, who was doing as much work as 2-3 deputy ministers before him," Tsvetanov said.

He said he is expecting Pavlin Dimitrov to resign on Monday, adding it was not clear who would assume his post because it was not considered until now. In his words, the choice for a new deputy interior minister could take several weeks.

Tsvetanov has also explained that the 1,500 employees of the Interior Ministry, who were exposed as former agents, were not as important because they do not define the policy of the ministry.

For years on end Bulgaria's politicians have been inching towards a further opening of the files, producing only unsatisfactory and politically compromised results.

A partial opening of the files under an anti-communist government in 1997 first gave over 25,000 Bulgarians access to their own dossiers, and led to the naming of around 150 state security collaborators (a parliamentary commission identified several MPs, ministers and candidates for public office as former agents).

However, in 2002 new legislation on access to information gave the power to declassify files to the successor bodies of the communist-era intelligence services. As a result, little progress was made in the direction of declassification.

More effective solutions were sought in the years afterwards and culminated in the establishment of the Files Commission in April 2007 as part of Bulgaria's long overdue efforts to finally face up to its totalitarian past and disclose who did what for the secret police under communism.

The list that the commission has prepared so far features Socialist President Georgi Parvanov, former MPs, former constitutional judges, supreme magistrates, investigators, members of parliament, prominent and well-known former and current Bulgarian journalists.

The files of the former Committee for State Security are a thorny issue in Bulgaria, especially when it comes to the past of high-ranking officials.

Bulgaria's communist-era security service is believed to have remained potent after the fall of communism with the ex-operatives closely linked to the political and business establishment.

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