site.btaUnion of Democratic Forces Publishes Statement on Occasion of Prague Spring, Reaffirms Position Against Sofia Mayor Nominee Terziev

On August 21 the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) - the coalition partner of GERB, published a statement on occasion of the 55th anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops to crush the Prague Spring.

"Bulgarian troops also took part in the operation, the statement reads. "Responsible for their control and neutralization of any attempt of dissent among the Bulgarian officers and soldiers sent to Prague was General Vasil Terziev. The man whose name, blood and genes are carried by his grandson - the current Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria's candidate for mayor of Sofia."

Communist Bulgaria put a shameful stigma on its reputation and once again proved to be the Soviet Union's most loyal servant, because it was the first country to insist on military intervention in Czechoslovakia, and the last to apologize for its involvement in the suppression of the Prague Spring - by a parliamentary decision in 1990 and later during President Petar Stoyanov's visit to Prague in 1997, the UDF said, adding that the "successors" of the Bulgarian Communist Party continue the "general line that when the Kremlin invades it is always in the right and the invaded country is to blame.  For them, it was normal for Bulgaria to send troops and arms to Prague in 1968 to preserve the influence of the USSR, but it is not normal to give arms to Ukraine to defend its freedom and independence from the aggressor Putin."

The UDF calls for a firm counter of "political cynicism of the pro-Russian parties" in Bulgaria. "Unexpectedly, their serious competition for the rehabilitation of the communist and State Security past has appeared. The urban liberals of Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) have nominated as mayor of the capital a descendant of one of the most influential families of the State Security, and in doing so have done great insult to the democratic community, to the people who suffered from the repression of the regime and to their descendants with a ruined future."

The statement concludes that Bulgaria cannot break with its communist past if "in words we condemn the crimes of the regime and in deed we roll out the red carpet for the descendants of its generals, if we guard the Soviet Army Memorial as if it were the Arc de Triomphe, and not a symbol of occupation and half a century of vassal existence, if we do not cure ourselves once and for all of the Stockholm syndrome towards the Kremlin and realize that our place is in Europe, not in Eurasia."