Bulgarian Archives Prove 1989 Ethnic Purge against Turks
Growing tensions and fears of separatism prompted communist Bulgaria to orchestrate an ethnic purge against its Turkish minority in 1989, newly published archive documents showed this week.
On May 29, 1989, Bulgaria opened its Iron Curtain border with Turkey -- sealed until then -- and urged Ankara to follow suit and accept part of its 750,000-strong Turkish minority.
"If we do not make 200,000-300,000 of these people leave, in 15 years' time Bulgaria will not exist," communist dictator Todor Zhivkov told a closed session of top party officials on June 7, 1989, according to newly published archives from the former communist party.
Publicly, the party denied any forceful action at the time, presenting the exodus of 370,000 people to Turkey between July and September 1989 as voluntary.
The Turkish minority in Bulgaria was seen as a fifth column of the enemy NATO member state.
"These Muslim people are very simple... even primitive. They are so strongly led by a herd feeling that they can at any moment take the direction the Turkish propaganda wants them to take," Panteley Pachov, a party leader from the central region of Plovdiv, said at the meeting with Zhivkov.
"So we need to parry (Turkey's) manipulation of these people and conduct it ourselves. We have the opportunity to do that," he added.
Zhivkov also noted there was a massive desire among ethnic Turks to leave Bulgaria, adding that the looming exodus was "necessary and welcome for us."
Without that, Bulgaria "will become another Cyprus," he warned, referring to the east Mediterranean island which became divided after Turkish troops invaded its northern part in 1974.
A total 370,000 ethnic Turks eventually left Bulgaria, although 155,000 later returned, according to researcher Mihail Ivanov who has studied the Bulgarian secret services' archives.
-- Tensions over compulsory name changes --
Seething tensions between the communist authorities and the 10-percent Turkish minority were already visible in the mid-1980s, the newly published party archives also revealed.
"There have been calls for autonomy. Especially after the events in Cyprus, the Turkish nationalists have become more active," interior minister Dimitar Stoyanov was quoted in a transcript of a May 8, 1984 meeting.
"Turkish flags have been raised and calls have been heard for the gathering of arms and preparation of terrorist acts," he added, noting that authorities had uncovered groups who "conducted espionage, sabotage or other subversive activities with nationalistic motives."
"We must expel most brutally certain (Turkish) nationalists," Zhivkov responded at the same meeting.
"This will work... expulsions are what they fear most," he added.
Tensions emerged after ethnic Turks were forced to adopt Bulgarian names in 1984-1985.
In a 37-page decision, Zhivkov had outlined in 1984 a series of assimilation measures for Bulgarian Turks that encouraged mixed marriages and banned the use of the Turkish language in public.
Following protests by the Turkish minority over the obligatory name change, Bulgarian authorities deported by force those who were at the heart of these demonstrations.
All other Bulgarian Turks were encouraged to leave Bulgaria after the border was opened.
The purge -- which sparked fears within the communist party of a labor shortage -- was not supported by Moscow and sped up Zhivkov's ousting on November 10, 1989, after 35 years in power.
An investigation into the so-called Revival Process, namely the renaming and exodus of Bulgarian Turks that began shortly after the fall of communism in 1989 is still dragging on due to the prosecution's insistence on questioning all its victims.
A total 2,459 documents from the communist party's executive committee were published this week on the website of the state archives agency, or www.archives.bg/politburo.
Source: Agence France Presse
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