crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

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Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes reasons. The National Assembly entrusted the Chief Prosecutor with the execution of investigations for clarification of the circumstances related to the death of prominent political activists, ordered the revision of verdicts through inspection of legal compliance and ordered the Ministry of Finance to take measures for remedy of persons, who sustained repressions. The National Assembly continued to issue consequent decisions (of 6 March 1990, 30 March 1990, etc.) for political and civil rehabilitation and initiated respective proceedings on behalf of the Chief Prosecutor, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance for respective investigation, abolishment of verdicts, abolishment of administrative acts and compensation of persons affected by repressions. A special parliamentarian committee was instituted to consider and decide on urgent issues, related to deviations and infringements in the state, public and economic life that was broadening the circle of rehabilitated persons including those interned in camps. In 1992 the Act on Restitution of Immovable Property to Bulgarian Citizens of Turkish Origin, Emigrating in the Republic of Turkey and Other States in the period May–September 1989 was passed thus continuing the activity initiated according to Cabinet of Ministers’ Decree No. 170 of August 1991 for elimination of damages due to the forceful change of personal names. The Bulgarian society sought the optimal approach for elimination of damages from repressive measures, committed in the near past by applying these measures in an environment of public dialogue. The road to peace doubtlessly passes through the inner peace of the remedied victims of repression. This could be achieved by declaring the repressions as a breach of law and compensating the sustained damages. In addition to the numerous decisions of the National Assembly and its committees in 1990, five months after the beginning of democratic changes in the Republic of Bulgaria, the Cabinet of Ministers passed Decree No. 38 of 28 April 1990 for the recognition of the right on compensation for persons, imprisoned on political charges with or without verdicts or sentenced to death by execution or who have lost their lives during investigation or while arrested in prisons, as well for the heirs of these persons. In addition to the commissions for revealing the dossiers, central and regional commissions were established according to the Act for Political and Civil Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons (APCRRP), of 1991, who identified as illegal the repressions during this period due to origin, political convictions or religious faiths. Lack of formal documents was replaced by testimonies of witnesses. The commissions were composed of representatives of repressed persons and governmental institutions. The currently acting Central Commission was established on the principle of party affiliation of repressed persons and government institutions. Since the act was passed, numerous amendments (last amendment of 7 March 2008) expanded the scope of persons to benefit rehabilitation and various forms of compensations for damages. With the aim to encompass all kinds of repressions, the act included all kind of repressions, found up to now, committed due to origin, political convictions or religious faiths of the victims: sentenced in penal lawsuits, arrested illegally, interned in camps, mobilized to forced labour, dismissed students, persons, repressed by forceful change of personal names, vanished without trace, forcibly replaced to the Soviet Union, moved and interned to other settlements, refugees, murdered, perished in prisons, detention cells and similar facilities, persons with higher and semi-higher education, who were forcibly employed for low-qualified work with construction sites and husbandry, persons deprived of pension entitlement and the heirs of such persons. The Act for Political and Civil Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons provides for various rights of the persons: 1. Right to rehabilitation – according to Article 1; 2. Right to lump sum compensation (for material and non-material damages) – Articles 2 and 3; 3. Right to recognition of work record – Article 7; 4. Right to survival pension – Article 8; 5. Right to monthly supplement to pensions – Article 9. The right to rehabilitation according to Article 1 of the Act shall arise ex lege, pursuant to the law itself, according to which “political and civil rehabilitation shall be declared …”. In this way, the moral remedy of persons will not depend on the issue of a specific act. The right to remedy and supplement to pensions could be exercised upon petition of the entitled person. The established order is aimed to 186
Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes prevent abuses, related to obtaining budgetary transfers on behalf of persons, who were not affected by the actions, defined in the law and simultaneously to achieve full remedy of the really repressed persons by providing compensation for their grief and sorrows. In the period between 1990 and 1996, about 120 thousand persons have been compensated by decision of the municipal councils, the central and regional commissions, (according to Ahmed Hussein, MP, who introduced into the Parliament the bill for amendment and supplement of the Act). After 2004, the newly established Central Commission considered some 7,400 applications for recognition of repressions on the basis of declarations of witnesses due to lack of formal documents. Pursuant to the Act for Declaring the Communist Regime in Bulgaria as Delinquent, the leadership and members of the leading apparat of the Communist Party, the ruling party in this period have been declared guilty of “the conscious breach of fundamental human rights and freedoms; unprecedented violations against the members of the ХХV th National Assembly and the innocent persons, sentenced by the so called ‘Peoples’ Tribunal’ … the violation of religious freedoms; the continuous terror against non-conformists to the government system and entire groups of the population …”. The act declared the communist regime responsible for “systematic breach of fundamental human rights, by oppressing entire political, social, religious and ethnic cohorts of the populations”. Texts of the Act show, however, that political revenge in Bulgaria is not yet under full control – in addition to the admission of a series of real facts, foreign actions were also attributed to the regime – the defendants before the Peoples Tribunal after Word War II (WWII) were found guilty and the proceedings were executed under the control and the strong ascendancy of the Allied Control Commission. Further, pursuant to a decision of the Tehran Conference of 1943, the main defendants, who designed and implemented the internal and the foreign policy of the Bulgarian Government should have had to appear at a hearing of an international court, but were returned from Moscow upon request of the state prosecutor. Well known is the “bullet in the head” option of Franklin Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill for war-criminals without access to lawsuit. A conclusion is to be derived that revenge, immediately after WWII and after the changes in 1989 should be managed by the most efficient means to resolve such type of conflicts, that is reconciliation. With the aim to achieve that, Bulgaria activated a series of measures for declassifying the dossiers of the former State Security. Whether the result from the procedure of revealing the dossiers is positive or negative is still questionable. Following long-year debates, two acts were passed: in 2001 the Act for Access to Documents of the Former State Security and the Former Intelligence Department of the Army General Staff, and in 2007 – the Act for Access and Declassification of Documents and Identification of the Affiliations of Bulgarian Citizens to the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian Peoples Army. Pursuant both laws, the specially constituted commissions act as independent state authorities. The second act stipulates the establishment of a centralized archive of documents of the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian Peoples Army. Whether measures of the type, pursued almost 20 years after the changes were the desirable pathway to progress and whether an adverse impact is in store, is a pending question for the Bulgarian society. The society fears that the most prominent State Security agents destroyed their dossiers and, currently, the archive contains only the dossiers of those, who worked for the intelligence and the counter-intelligence, which maintain the population’s security and ability to counteract to terrorist actions, attacks to cultural heritage and identity. 3. Raising the public awareness Modern history of Bulgaria is doubtlessly a matter, included in the History subject in schools. Given the unaccomplished process of building up the pupils’ personalities, knowledge about this period should be delivered cautiously and without extremities. Controversial historical events normally cause differentiation of public opinions, and the goal should be not to give a next reason for splitting the society and an impetus to revenge, but to consolidate efforts of the youth for activities to the benefit of the society. Therefore, the admission of the facts should be supported by explanation of the negative consequences of extreme actions. In addition to the History textbooks, even more details on the near past are topical in historical research, the media, books and movies. Literature, journalistic reports and art products present particular facts of the secret archives of the State Security and even of Russian archives, related to Bulgarian policy in the period 1944–89. Quite important information is offered by 187
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TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Lovro Št
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IV. REMEMBRANCE, RECOGNITION AND PU
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crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

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