SPEECHES AND STATEMENTS
Statement of President Rosen Plevneliev at the “25 years free Bulgaria” initiative
Esteemed Mr Minister,
Esteemed President Zhelev,
Esteemed President Mesic,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We planned the “25 years free Bulgaria” initiative so as to hold open talks about communism and the transition period, to step on the firm basis of truth and facts on which we build our future. We united for the sake of the objective interpretation of history. Because we believe that only if we openly talk about the past, will we be able to look ahead, free from biases, delusions and manipulations. According to a recently conducted sociological polls, currently a mere six percent of the young people aged 16 to 30 know anything about Bulgaria’s development in the period 1944-1989. Not a single educational and cultural institution has assumed the systematic commitment to show the way communism functioned and its ideology. The media, the school, the university, the museums refuse to explore the topic, leaving the young generation to gain knowledge about the regime mainly from their narrow family circle and the memories of the elderly, which throughout the years have been reconsidered, faded or changed. It is high time we presented to our children the facts as they are and draw our conclusions; it is high time for the period of communism to find its place in the history textbooks.
The major aim of this initiative is clear – we would like to be on the side of truth – where are we, where have we set off from and where we would like to go. We would like to be on the side of the real values which make every person be a patriot and love their homeland.
The ambition of this event and the initiatives that accompany it is to make a further step toward restoring the trust of the Bulgarian public, which has rarely been so polarized, and the political debate - so deprived of strategic prospects and basis for a national consensus. Differentiating democratic values and principles and the realities of the inhumane communist regime is fundamentally important for Bulgaria. It does not matter if we are looking toward the past or into the future or where we stand on the political spectrum and what our social status is.
When 25 years ago the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe collapsed one after the other the artificial division between the free and open societies in Europe, on the one hand, and the unfree and repressed societies, on the other, was eradicated. The people looked forward with hope and enthusiasm to a unified Europe to which they have always culturally and historically belonged. Therefore currently we Bulgarians will have to take stock. It is high time we asked ourselves and provided an honest answer to the question about what went right and what went wrong in the years of transition from a totalitarian rule to pluralism and democracy.
Many people say that the transition could have been different, that it could have been better. Even if not sociological polls were conducted, currently we could say that both left-wing and right-wing the supporters in Bulgaria are disillusioned. Then what went wrong? The answer is that for 25 years we have failed to uncover the whole truth about the communist regime, that for 25 years we have failed to completely open the communist-era state security dossiers, that for 25 years as a society we have failed to find strength to close this page of our past and unequivocally and strongly condemn the crimes committed by the totalitarian regime. We should not seek a “left” or “right” interpretation of history, but we should unite around the truth about the past and avoid repeating its mistakes.
I realize that 25 years are both a short and long period of time. A whole generation was born and grew up throughout these years. A generation that some are trying to persuade to indulge in a false feeling of nostalgia for the past by consciously and skillfully saying nothing about the ugly and commonplace things and sweep them under the carpet of oblivion.
Concealing the whole truth is the greatest mistake the Bulgarian transition has made. Half-opened dossiers, half-truths, not fully revealed facts about the inhumane essence of the communist regime. Unfortunately the major participants in planning and making the Bulgarian transition were the former top representatives of the communist party and the secret services. They did their best to distort the facts, taking them out of context so that truth could be swept away and forgotten. In the transition years people who were linked to the former structures of the communist-era state security, occupied top state positions, or were appointed for politicians, businessmen, oligarchs, bankers, for Bulgarian diplomatic representatives abroad, undermining the trust of the democratic world. People with fake biographies and vicious dependencies were offered positions and benefits. Note that only in the first three months in office the Oresharski cabinet replaced 90 percent of the directors in the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry and all new appointments were of former State Security agents. What is this fact indicative of? A mere couple of months ago in Euro-Atlantic Bulgaria informers and agents were appointed on all levels of the diplomatic service instead of young and intelligent Bulgarian diplomats. Why is all this done? Political analysts, sociologists – former communist-era state security agents, journalists and publishers - former communist-era state security agents use the media to flood us with information about how nothing has changed, how the transition has been a failure, and the worst we hear about Todor Zhivkov is that he is a man of the people. Nothing is said about the national treachery such as offering Bulgaria to be the 16th Soviet republic. Nothing was said about the horrifying national treachery committed by the communists on the Macedonia issue under the directions of Stalin, Tito and Georgi Dimitrov. Nothing was said about the People’s Court, the concentration camps, the thousands of people killed and exiled.
All of us have frequently heard that unlike the events that unfolded in Hungary in 1956 or the Prague spring of 1968, Bulgaria was a passive and loyal satellite of the Soviet Union. It is true that the Bulgarian opposition against the communist regime is not as famous as the Polish Solidarnost. The myth about the Bulgarians’ passivity is still maintained today, contemporary “authorities” argue that that simply no resistance was offered…
Have we forgotten the Goryans, organized in more than 160 detachments – the most massive opposition against the advance of the Soviet-model communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe? Or the young students in Sofia University who in 1968 distributed leaflets against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and who spent the rest of their lives in prisons?
Or the Independent Association for the Defense of Human Rights, which, after the cruelties of the so-called “Revival process”, in the spirit of the best European traditions fought to restore the rights and dignity of the Bulgarian citizens, irrespective of their names, religion and ethos and to ensure religious pluralism and tolerance. Or the women from the committee in Russe, who boldly supported with their signatures the dream for a clean nature and a better future of the children in Bulgaria.
When I was elected president, I assumed the commitment not to allow former communist-era state security agents to be appointed ambassadors and I strictly keep my promise. It is high time we held the former communist-era state security in the archives, in the museum, where its place really is and we do it in a worthy manner. It is high time that we uncovered all well-kept secrets and placed communism in the museum and the history textbooks.
Ladies and gentlemen,
10 November 1989 marked simultaneously a beginning and an end – the end of the “lack of freedom” and the beginning of “freedom.” It was then that a politically, economically, socially and morally worn-out regime was formally brought to an end. An inhumane in its essence totalitarian regime that repressed basic human rights. It is then that the transition to building a modern European democracy began, based on the principles of respecting human rights, in which the equality before law and the rule-of-law state are a supreme norm.
Shortly after 10 November democracy in Bulgaria was formally institutionalized by adopting a new constitution and initiating a party and political pluralism. “Dear compatriots, brothers and sisters, we are deeply convinced that Bulgaria has no alternative but democracy and all of us, its sons and daughters, will walk side by side until we reach its road that leads to political stability, economic growth, social justice and cultural progress.” These were the words of the address made by the Union of Democratic Forces at the rally held on 10 December 1989 at the Alexander Nevski square. Since then the state has made a lot of steps toward building the institutions of the democratic state. It is high time these institutions achieved results for the citizens and work facing the citizens, not being a façade for serving dirty interests. The reforms should continue, the rule of law is really the overriding public aim today. We all believe in and follow Levski’s message for a pure and sacred republic, which means a European-type of democracy and a rule of law for all Bulgarians.
We can do more to introduce elements of direct democracy, to adapt and improve the mechanisms of the representation of the citizens in power. In the current high-tech age it is high time we introduced e-government and electronic voting, as a sign of respect for our compatriots, who are free, mobile, so that the voice of every citizen is heard no matter where they are in the world. We owe it to all our compatriots, who exhilarated by the freedom and mobility they obtained, chose to live elsewhere or to those who disillusioned by the mistakes “voted with their feet” and left Bulgaria. Democracy is a collective effort, it should be defended every day and by means of every action we take.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Even in the 21st century there are people who say that things were not so bad during communism. We see that in the sociological polls as well. Why should things have been bad, after all, we were all equal! Equal, but not free. Many people comfortably say nothing about the tens of thousands that were killed as early as the first years of the enforcement of the so-called “people’s power”, about the political prisoners, about the concentration camps. What do we know about them? That the successors of the former communist party said they were “a mistake”! Can you imagine what insolence this is – to create institutions in which the attitude to the people is worse than that to animals, where people work under non-human conditions, hungry, half-naked and subjected to countless insults and humiliations, the whole elite of the nation was killed and exiled. Can we call this “a mistake”? Is this the exact word, the objective assessment? Today everyone can speak their mind, can publicly condemn politicians – from the mayor to the president. Today everyone is free to voice their opinion, to express it, to defend it. However, during communism even if you cracked a joke, you could end up in a camp and some unfamiliar informer could decide your fate by submitting a single report to the authorities against you. Should we forget about these crimes, should we listen to these fake mantras – “Stop it. The topic has already been exhausted. There is no point in doing that any longer, the people are no longer interested in it.” I do not approve of such an approach. We should not forget the crimes committed by communism, not because we expect revenge, not because we have been hoping for 25 years that someone will be held responsible, no – we should remember them so that we can value what we have today and defend it. That is why we called the initiative 25 years free Bulgaria – so that we can lay the emphasis on the most precious value - freedom. Of course, critics promptly appeared who said that we are not free, that the transition has hardly begun. However, this is part of the same sinister plan – to make everything positive senseless, to ridicule the real values so as to create an unreal romantic feeling about the most macabre period of our history. Today we are free to travel, to study, to work in different parts of the world. However, in the recent past we waited in queues for visas. And in communist times there were exit visas. Can you imagine this? The state telling you whether and when and where to travel. It does sound unreal, doesn’t it? However, it is a fact. And do you know what happened to people who left the country without being allowed to do so – the prisons were full of such Bulgarians who simply wanted to leave but were caught. They were denounced as “fugitives,” “non-returners” – they were ridiculed in public, sent to prison, does all this sound romantic! To be condemned to live without being able to see and sometimes even to hear your mother and father. To abandon everything because this is the only way you can be free. We should cherish and defend our achievements – although we take them for granted today, thousands of people sacrificed their lives for the sake of the right to be free. These are the lessons history teaches us and they should make us very cautious today when we yearn for the politician with a strong hand, who will “set things right.” I will never be tired to reiterate that rich and fair are the countries that have strong institutions and rules, not messiahs and irreplaceable politicians.
In the first years of the transition period the economic reforms seemed to have been put aside until the sobering effect of the 1997 crisis was felt. Then Bulgaria went bankrupt, only seven years after the previous bankruptcy declared by Lukanov’s government in the last days of the communist regime in order to declare insolvency and completely obliterate the traces of the communist ruling top. One third of the financial institutions had gone bankrupt and the people took to the streets. The Bulgarian state debt was worth 105 percent of the GDP! The inflation rate reached 3,000 percent.
It is high time we admitted that Bulgaria, maybe together with countries such as Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, conducted the worst privatization in the whole of Europe – non-transparent and oligarchic. Assets worth approximately 30 billion euros were sold for next to nothing. In the 1990-1996 period the Bulgarian factories and plants were “granted” to the capitalists appointed by the communist elite and in the second phase of the post-1997 privatization a lot of mistakes were made. Very few strategic investors and quite a few accidental investors acquired Bulgarian enterprises. Left without international partners and markets, the enterprises could not work efficiently. Nevertheless, in the years after the basic part of the process was practically completed, that is in the post-1999 period, Bulgaria’s economy, the basic part of which is privatized, started developing and growing.
The civil society is the real hero of the transition period. In Bulgaria it was born and promptly occupied the place it deserved. Among the most revealing examples were the protests that started in the summer of 2013 and continued more than a year. The turbulent times the country passed through showed the strength of the civil society in Bulgaria and its categorical adherence to the democratic and European values.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We should proudly note that unlike the transition period in some countries in our region, in Bulgaria it was peaceful and with no bloodshed. An indisputable success.
The so-called “Revival process” and the unprecedented act of forcing hundreds of thousands of our compatriots of a Turkish ethnic self-consciousness and Muslim Bulgarians to leave the country at the end of the 1980’s justifiably provoked the criticism and indignation of the democratic world. This serious infringement of the basic human rights and freedoms by the communist regime will remain one of the darkest moments in Bulgarian history.
Our country has always been located on the crossroads between the West and the East. A lot of cultural layers have been superimposed on its territory, there we find the borders of a lot of civilizations, religions coexist. In its many-century history, Bulgaria has always managed to take advantage of this cultural, ethnic and religious diversity and to gain advantage from them, establishing a strong tradition of tolerance and understanding. Nowadays it has its own European interpretation in line with the motto of united Europe – United in Diversity.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The fall of the Berlin wall turned out to be the most powerful symbol of the collapse of the communist doctrine, which inspired millions of people from the former socialist countries to look forward to a new beginning. It was the event that opened the way to the real united Europe. To the birth of a united in its diversity Europe which throughout the years became the pillar of the democratic values and the protection of human rights and freedoms.
In the post-10 November years Bulgaria took the path of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. It was not an easy and unproblematic path. Valuable time was wasted which delayed the process of reforms and had an impact on the overall development of the country. It was not until 1997 that a firm course of integration with Europe was adopted – a wise act of statehood and a fulfilled strategic priority of the country. Today Bulgaria is a NATO and EU member-state. A lot of courage and difficult decisions were necessary. Will and statehood responsibility were necessary, yet the engine of European integration has brought about its positive change. And this change is valid not only for Bulgaria, but also for the whole Southeastern Europe. From a region associated with instability and ethnic conflicts in the past, the Balkans are currently recognized as partners sharing common values and projects for the future.
Truth has the strength to unite, not to divide. I sincerely hope that by launching this initiative we managed not only to mark the 25th anniversary of the democratic changes in Bulgaria in a worthy manner, but also to start a debate important for the public. I am happy that apart from the 120 events in our campaign, different media, NGOs and academic circles launched their own initiatives related to the topic. The protests of the Bulgarian civil society which continued for about a year and a half are a clear proof of the irreversibility of the democratic processes in Bulgaria; of the fact that the choice Bulgaria made in the distant 1989 was the correct one and is still supported by the Bulgarian people. However, we should never take democracy for granted. It is a constant struggle for freedom and values.
The great issue is whether the generation that pulled down the Berlin wall will start building new walls 25 years later: walls between the East and the West, the periphery and the center; between the Roma population and the immigrants. Europe’s great problem today is not the Roma population and the immigrants, but those who are afraid of them.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The communist regime was capable of depriving man of everything but one thing – the freedom to choose your own path, to adopt a position and defend it. This is precisely why we called the initiative “25 years free Bulgaria” in order to lay the emphasis on freedom as the most precious value. I would like to quote the talented Bulgarian writer, dissident and patriot Georgi Markov, who set an example of making the hard choice between freedom and reconciliation in the years when the totalitarian state had crushed the Bulgarian citizens and infringed their basic human rights: “The only criterion for freedom that history has established so far is the rights (or freedoms) which the individual ordinary person enjoys. The free societies and free countries are free only if they have ensured the freedom of the individual ordinary people.”
I believe in the principles of the “free society” in which everyone is responsible for their life. I believe that hard work, individual capabilities and personal initiative lie at the basis of success, not money, social status and ties. The really fair society is the one in which everyone has the opportunity to develop. A new generation of freedom has grown up in Bulgaria today. Although it has no critical memory about the totalitarian regime, it should know the truth about it. So far the generations have failed to engage in a real dialogue, each one rejected the previous generation, just recall the debates you held at home. The young against the old, the BSP against the SDS, the left-wing against the right-wing, communists against democrats. It is high time these generations of rejection gave way to the youth. The young Bulgarians can support the positive position of truth and the facts about the past. They are free, they are convinced democrats and know how to order and defend their freedom, European and democratic Bulgaria.
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