site.btaDefence Minister Nenchev Orders Delivery of Military Intelligence Archives to Secret Police Files Committee

Defence Minister Nenchev Orders Delivery of Military Intelligence Archives to Secret Police Files Committee

Sofia, May 27 (BTA) - Bulgarian Defence Minister Nikolay Nenchev
told a news conference here on Wednesday that earlier in the
day he had ordered the Defence Information Service and its
Director to deliver the military intelligence archives,
consisting of more than 30,000 archive units, to the Committee
on Disclosure of Documents and Announcing Bulgarian Citizens'
Affiliation to State Security and the Intelligence Services of
the Bulgarian People's Army.

Under the law, the archives subject to delivery cover the period
between September 9, 1944 and July 16, 1991.

"I am deeply convinced that what I am doing is right, and I do
believe that Bulgaria must finally comprehend in full, open and
read the page of the repressive entities of communism," Nenchev
said. He understands the pressure against this move, and added
that there are still probably other undisclosed secrets, too,
but, as he put it, in 2015, 26 years after the advent of
democracy, "we must continue our progress free of secrets and
dependences."

The Defence Minister believes that this decision is in the best
interest of Bulgarian society, which must know everything about
that period so as to prevent it happening ever again. "This is
the interest of Bulgaria, which must rank along the rest of the
countries like Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic that have
long delivered these archives," Nenchev said.

He pointed out that the law guarantees that the identity of
foreign nationals who collaborated with Bulgarian military
intelligence will not be disclosed. Nenchev added that the
guarantee given by Secret Police Files Committee Chairman Evtim
Kostadinov is essential and the Defence Minister himself asked
for it, and it is also mentioned in the agreement that the two
signed on Monday.

Asked about the guarantee regarding foreign-national
collaborators, Kostadinov commented that the media unnecessarily
exploited the issue and said that such documents will not be
delivered to his Committee. "We neither want the foreign
nationals' files, nor do we have the right to comment on them,"
Kostadinov pointed out.

"The guarantee is our eight-year-old practice," Secret Police
Files Committee member Ekaterina Boncheva commented for her
part. She specified that even now their archives contain foreign
nationals' names but information has never leaked.

The Defence Information Service has long resisted delivering the
archives, and Vesselin Ivanov was even dismissed as its
Director on March 9, 2015 for refusing to comply. Things have
changed since the appointment of Yordan Bakalov as head of the
Service.