Justice Under the Table Rumen LEONIDOV There is hardly a single person in our country who had been sentenced by the communist “people’s government” for political reasons to internment and jail, and was recognized as repressed, but who, in a blatant violation of current legislation is denied the one-time compensation to which he is eligible under the Amendments and Supplements to the Political and Civil Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons Act. However, such a person does exist. His name is Stoyan Gerasimov Vasilev, born on September 10, 1948, in the village of Klyuch, Blagoevgrad Region. Yes sure, you might say, yet another active fighter against socialism. As it goes, they will exceed in number the former active enemies of the royal-fascist government. Mr. Vasilev’s odyssey began in 1965, in his home village at the border. The frontier post commander, major Zlatev, acting upon order by the local authorities and with the assistance of his border guards, killed two youngsters. For what reason? The same “people’s government” that had forced the parents to declare in their passports that they were Macedonians in the past, now wanted their sons to declare themselves Bulgarians. The youngsters wouldn’t have that, though. They refused to change their nationality, sang (forbidden) Macedonian songs, created not only a bad impression but also set a dangerous example for their fellow villagers. The local leaders were enraged. Then, the old Stalinist maxim came to the rescue: “If there is a man, there is a problem; no man, no problem”. A rumor spread that the two young men, convinced in their Macedonian nationality, had illegally crossed the Bulgarian-Greek border. But when residents from the surrounding villages found their buried bodies, they were riddled with bullets from assault rifles. 17-year-old at the time, Stoyan Vasilev, driven by adolescent gusto, righteous anger and offended sense of justice, started writing and disseminating leaflets in the Petrich region. Suspected by the Militia, he was interrogated twice, but wasn’t caught until he became an accomplice in the theft of an OPTIMA typewriter from the medical offices in the village of Skut. He was sentenced to five months in jail at an initial general regime of serving the sentence. At that time, Stoyan was single, a literate worker, without prior convictions. The theft was proposed by Krim Tipov, 50-year-old party member, who was a party secretary in Skut after 1955 and prior to that, an active member of the Young Communist League, the Communist Youth and the Communist Party. Here is an excerpt from sentence ¹/1/25.IÕ.1970 of the Blagoevgrad Court: “In 1965, this man, a former shift manager at the agricultural cooperative, assumed a 1 OBEKTIV
wrongful position on the Macedonian question and during the elections began publicly defaming the economic and state policy of the people’s government. For this behavior, for this defamation of the party policy, for his nationalist activities on the Macedonian question, in 1966, his Party membership was terminated.” Thus, the leader of the group, Timov, was sentenced to one-year imprisonment, the other defendant, Slavcho Nikolov, was sentenced to eight months for his involvement in other petty thefts. Vasilev got away with five months, for his indirect involvement in breaking into the medical offices. Five years later, on January 25, 1975, the same court sentenced Stoyan Gerasimov Vasilev, divorced, with prior convictions, primary education, a professional fitter with no party membership, for his unwarranted absence, together with Iliya Tevilov, from the communities in which they were settled under the proper administrative procedures. They were sentenced to a year and a half in prison and to involuntary resettlement for a period of one year. Tevilov was sent to the village of Y a n k o v o , Shoumen region, while Vasilev, the other fugitive, was resettled in the village of Krastets, Gabrovo region. Despite all the protocols, certificates, files, witness affidavits and other documents submitted by Stoyan Vasilev to different Bulgarian institutions, this story could have been regarded as purely criminal. His story could have been questioned because there are many similar sets of court cases and belated jabber of relatives. I would have questioned it, too, had I not seen a copy of the “Operative plan for conducting surveillance activities under THE NATIONALIST FSC* created for Stoyan Gerasimov Vasilev with regard to “MACEDONIAN NATIONALISM”. Dated 16/10/1976, Ref. ¹ 4963, classified “Top Secret!”, Copy 1, Directorate VI, Department IV, State Security (SS), 13/10/1976, proposed * FSC - Field Surveillance Case
by SS inspector Major St. Bonev, approved by deputychief, regional directorate of the Ministry of the Interior SS, Lt. Col. N. Shopov”. This document contains four pages of detailed measures, including implementation timelines, which we need not quote. Without this State Security document, however, the political grounds for the two sentences against Stoyan Vasilev could be questioned because of the light sentences. But the 13 items of the Plan, written in line with the specific style of operative secrecy rules, come to prove that this is not just the next petty thief pretending to be a politically repressed citizen. You would be right to ask: Why are you telling us this personal drama? The drama is not personal but legal. At the age of 17, Vasilev determined himself as a Macedonian and, despite being persecuted for his national self-determination, despite being recognized (in writing) as being repressed for political reasons, after 17 years of democratic government, our state, represented by the Ministry of Justice, has refused to pay Mr. Vasilev the one-time compensation that he is eligible to under the respective Act. Why is that? Because the gentleman is a traitor. He identifies himself as a Macedonian, but wants compensation from the Bulgarian state. However, no one would admit to this. Because this is also a type of repression. No
matter whether we like the term or not. Mr. Vasilev was recognized as an “active fighter against communism” back in the distant 1993. Since then, he has been unable to materialize his rights. And what follows from all this? The government is concerned that if it admits that the repressions against Mr. Vasilve were on political grounds, it may need to admit that the persecution of all other “Macedonians” in the Pirin area were also political. As the case described here is hardly isolated or unique... I come from a Macedonian family myself in the Republic of Macedonia. My great-grandfather is a national hero, a prominent freedom fighter from the Gevgeli area praised in an amazing folk song dedicated to Leonid voyvoda’s last battle. A street in the Gevgeli neighborhood in Sofia is named after him, but in our country he is not very well known even at a neighborhood level. The reason I am telling you all this is not because I share Mr. Vasilev’s national self-determination; after all, everyone is free to feel as he likes. However, even though our 17year-old democracy is just coming of age, I would like to see our country’s laws applied by the rules of democracy. The law makes no distinction between locals and strangers, all Bulgarian citizens have equal rights and obligations. If Mr. Vasilev had been repressed by the totalitarian regime - a fact supported by ample evidence - he should get what he is entitled to by law. Otherwise, the present Bulgarian state is telling him: “If you are not Bulgarian, get out of town and all the way to Macedonia and try to get your money there, since you have fought for Macedonism”. Which is dumb, no matter how you look at it. First of all, because in our opinion, in a historical aspect, a Macedonian nation does not exist. So where are we sending this person then? By our legal inaction, we are abusing a compatriot and are forcing him to seek help outside the “bugars”. Secondly, Macedonian or not, Mr. Vasilev has been a political prisoner. And today he probably feels politically abused as he wanders between different institutions that discriminate him simply because he determines himself as a cousin and not as a brother of our people. In the years of immature socialism, I had often heard people whose families originated from the Macedonian region, disgusted by the state, the government and the oligarchy of that time, say: “I am ashamed of being Bulgarian! I might become Macedonian. Then, at least, I won’t have anything to do with this Bulgarian savagery!” Our savagery was as Bulgarian as it was Soviet. Now that the Soviets are gone, only our own ignorance remains. In the past, we regarded Yugoslavia as an example of socialist freedom, access to work abroad, open criticism (not against Tito, of course), good chewing gum and magazines featuring half-naked women. Today, we have all of this in excess. At the same time and in the same measure, however, it seems that we still have some remnants of our socialist mindset. To me, this is justice under the table - available to some, always denied to others! OBEKTIV 2