Chiefs of Bulgarian Employers' Associations Exposed as Communist-era Agents

According to Bulgaria’s Files Commission, BIA Chair Bozhidar Danev was recruited as a DS agent in 1979 and was discharged in 1990. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian employers' associations have been revealed to include a large number of collaborators of the communist-era State Security (DS), the secret police and intelligence of the regime in communist Bulgaria before 1989.

Bulgaria's so-called Files Commission, a a special panel investigating the Communist regime secret files, published Thursday the results of checks at the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA) and the Union of Private Bulgarian Entrepreneurs "Vazrazhdane".

Out of a total of 94 people checked at the BIA, both former and current members of the organization's managing body, 13 were found to have worked for DS.

Bozhidar Danev, BIA Chair, was revealed to have been a secret collaborator of the First Chief Directorate of DS in the period 1979 – 1990. He worked under the codename of "Genchev".

The Files Commission published the names of the other DS agents from the BIA: Borislav Manahilov, Velichko Alexandrov, Dimitar Petkov, Ilia Levkov, Kiril Stanulov, Krasimir Stanev, Nikola Dobrev, Radosvet Radev, Rumen Atanasov, Stilian Balasopulov, Hristofor Dochev and Tsvetan Tonchev.

The check at the BICA included 33 people, 6 of whom were found to have DS records (Boyko Nedyalkov, Georgi Balanski, Georgi Bonin, Petar Neychev, Rumen Atanasov and Yuri Aroyo).

The Files Commission checked 29 people from the Union of Private Bulgarian Entrepreneurs "Vazrazhdane", two of whom were found to have been DS agents – Kamen Manev and Plamen Ranvhev, former socialist MP.

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