юго-наглост / Политика, Свят / Македония

сърфирайки из Нета, се натъкнах на нещо много интересно. Годината е 1998, в Дреница сръбските сили трепят косоварите безпощадно. В този момент, белградското списание "Меджународни проблеми", издание на Института за международна политика и икономика, има безочието да публикува статия, в която се твърди, че България продължава да подтиска своето турско малцинство. Какво ще кажете?

Branko PAVLICA

TURKISH MINORITY IN BULGARIA (article in Serbian)

SUMMARY

In this article the author analyzes the position of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. At first author presented some general demographic data in the period since the 1900 census up to the present days, and the figures and proportional share of national minorities in the total population of the country. The data show that the Turkish national minority has always been the most numerous in Bulgaria - actually, in 1900 there had been 539,656 or 14.41 per cent of the Turks, while in 1992 there lived 750,00 or 9.4 per cent of them. The author points to the fact that, in spite of the assumed international commitments, the Bulgarian authorities have throughout its history pursued the policy of a "peaceful or forced" expulsion or assimilation of national minorities, this particularly applying to the Turks. This policy was most prominent after the Second World War, when in 1948 the process of "bulgarization" of the Macedonians firstly commenced, and then followed, in 1951, by the forced assimilation of "the Bulgarians of the Turkish origin". Simultaneously with those processes the actions of forced expulsions of members of the Turkish minority were also taken. "Voluntarily or by taking coercive" measures 770,727 members of the Turkish national minority have been expelled from Bulgaria since 1880 till the present days. Pursuing of the policy of "homogenization of the country" and creation of "the Bulgarian socialist nation" had commenced as early as in 1956. It reached its peak in late 1970s and early 1980s when the existence of national minorities in Bulgaria was totally denied. There were taken the measures of "registration of citizens" not including in the questionnaire the item on the nation they belonged to, the campaign of "rebirth of the nation", "reconstruction of Bulgarian names" (changing of names of members of the Turkish minority to Bulgarian ones carried out by compulsion). In 1985 it was "proclaimed" that PR Bulgaria was a single nation state. The Turkish minority offered resistance to such policy of the Bulgarian authorities. This caused clashes with the police and army what brought victims (1951, 1964, 1971, 1974, 1981, 1984 and 1989).

In the author's opinion, "the obliteration" of all measures of the coercive assimilation policy pursued by the new Bulgarian authorities after the fall of the communist regime of Todor Zhivkov in 1989, did not imply full granting of rights to the Turkish minority. After several protests of the Turks, in January 1990 the Movement for Rights and Freedoms was established. Struggling persistently, after a year and half it succeeded in becoming legal as a movement that gained the right to participate in elections. In the 1991, 1994 and 1997 elections the Movement achieved a prominent success and it even participated in the coalition government that was formed in 1994. The author concludes that, in spite of the new approach proclaimed by the new authorities to obliterate the coercive assimilation policy pursued by the previous regime, they have not fully abandoned the old policy. This is for the fact that fundamental rights and freedoms recognized by the international treaties and agreements have not been granted to minorities. In his opinion Bulgaria has not included in its legislation's the international commitments on protection of national minorities, continuing to pursue the policy of denationalization, expulsion and suppression of rights of national minorities.