Bulgaria's Diaspora Minister to Resign over Communist Secret Service Past

Politics » DOMESTIC | December 18, 2010, Saturday // 14:33
Bulgaria: Bulgaria's Diaspora Minister to Resign over Communist Secret Service Past Bulgaria's Diaspora Minister Dimitrov promised will resign on Monday. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov has declared that he will be resigning his post on Monday in order not to compromise the government’s move to recall all Bulgarian diplomats who were agents of the secret service of the former communist regime.

Dimitrov has told briefly the Bulgarian National Radio that he will step down on Monday, shortly after earlier on Saturday Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov said he expected his Diaspora Minister to resign on his own as the government is being accused of double standards in the treatment of civil servants and diplomats who were agents at the former communist secret service.

Detailed information about Bozhidar Dimitrov READ HERE

"Foreign Minister Mladenov and I are going to offer President Parvanov to recall all ambassadors and consuls who were collaborators and informants of the former State Security, while on Monday we will recall all such diplomats that our government appointed so far. I am going to talk to Bozhidar Dimitrov on Monday because I don't want to offend him, and I don't want to make him a scapegoat. I expected him to resign on his own," Borisov stated on Saturday, shortly after opening the new Daskalovo highway junction west of Sofia.

Late Friday night Borisov suggested a kind of a tit-for-tat deal with the President, i.e. that he would dismiss his Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, a former collaborator with the communist regime's secret service once President Parvanov recalls all ambassadors with the same kind of record.

After earlier this week the so called Files' Commission, an independent body digging into the records of the former State Security (DS), i.e. the intelligence and secret police of communist Bulgaria, announced that 41 acting Bulgarian ambassadors and consuls were DS collaborators, the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov have been tangled in a war of words with President Parvanov.

Borisov and Mladenov have demanded the recall of all "discredited" diplomats arguing those have lost the trust of the respective host nations, while Parvanov, who in 2006 himself was revealed to have worked as an agent under the name "Gotse", has defended the people with communist secret service past. Parvanov's signature will be necessary to recall any of the diplomats in question.

Parvanov and the Socialist Party that he formerly chair have slammed Borisov for double standards since Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, a prominent historian, is a member of the Cabinet despite being known to have worked for DS himself.

Dimitrov is a well-known Bulgarian historian working in the sphere of Medieval Bulgarian history, the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question. He is a former director of the National History Museum, and is known for his nationalist views.

Dimitrov was formerly a member of the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party before leaving and switching to the center-right GERB party of Borisov months before the 2009 elections.

In June 2009, it became clear that Dimitrov collaborated with the so called State Security, the intelligence and secret police during the communist regime. He is known to have penetrated the secret archives of the Vatican where he was granted access in his capacity as a scholar.

In Bulgaria's Parliamentary Elections on July 5, he was elected Member of Parliament as a majority candidate for the GERB in the Eastern electoral district of Burgas.

Speaking on Saturday, Borisov explained he was worried Dimitrov might feel as a scapegoat in the entire “ambassadors-agents” scandal. The Prime Minister has previously defended Dimitrov’s appointment as a member of the Cabinet saying the latter is a notable historian, and was elected a MP from Borisov’s GERB party in the 2009 Parliamentary Elections without hiding his record as a collaborator of the former DS.

On Tuesday, a special Bulgarian panel, investigating the communist-era police files, known as the Files' Commission, revealed that 192 Bulgarian Foreign Ministry employees have had ties with the former communist State Security.

Among those 192, 33 are diplomats currently working abroad Nikolay Mladenov pointed out, these include Ambassadors, Consuls and Deputy Directors of diplomatic missions in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the UN (New York and Geneva), Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Russia, China, Sweden, Romania, Norway, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia, Greece, the Vatican,Slovakia, Albania, Georgia, Armenia and Venezuela are among those exposed as former Bulgarian State Security's collaborators.

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Tags: Nikolay Mladenov, Foreign Minister, Bulgarian President, Georgi Parvanov, Ambassadors, diplomats, DS, State Security, collaborators, state security files, communist regime, Communist Bulgaria, Boyko Borisov, Bozhidar Dimitrov, Diaspora Minister, intelligence, resignation, Minister for Bulgarians Abroad, Minister without Portfolio

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