an interesting letter depicting Western reforms in Bulgaria (in an open letter to the Serbian opposition)
A Letter to the 'Serbian Opposition' from a Bulgarian woman
by Doncheva
I was an activist in the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) until June
1993. UDF is the mirror image of the Serbian Alliance for Change (the
United Democratic Opposition).
The Bulgarian Union of Democratic Forces or UDF received a lot of
money in 1990 - cars, computers, luxurious placards (transported from
abroad in big trucks) for the 1990 elections and the next ones - until
the consolidation of the UDF in power. We think that a certain amount
of money continues to flow, but now it is directed only to the UDF
officials presently in power.
You all know what the Bulgarian government of the UDF did during the
US war against neighboring Yugoslavia. I will remind those who might
happen not to know or who have forgotten.
* It provided FULL SUPPORT for the USA.
* It gave the US and NATO all the asked-for corridors - in the air
and on the ground. (There is talk that Southern Serbia has been
demolished by US planes flying over Bulgaria from a US Turkish
base.)
* For the first time since the end of the 500 year Turkish Yoke last
century Turkish ground force passed through Bulgaria.
Here's an easy question: "From whence does money for the UDF (and now
for UDF leaders) mainly come?" You get one guess.
So. We, here in Bulgaria, have had US-style democracy since 1989. For
10 years already.
MY TEN MOST AWFUL YEARS.
What happened during that most awful period of my life on Earth?
Through the ardent UDF leaders in power, the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank are successfully devouring Bulgarian industry,
destroying the social fabric and opening national boundaries. (Our
national boundaries, mind you, never those of the US or Germany.)
Three ways they devour Bulgarian industry
- privatizing the Bulgarian plants and factories and liquidating them
afterwards;
- directly liquidating them;
- selling them for twopenny-halfpenny to powerful foreign
corporations. For instance, the Copper Metallurgical plant near the
town of Pirdop producing gold and platinum as well as electrolytic
copper was sold in 1997 to Union Miniere, Belgium for next to nothing!
Conclusion: Bulgarian industry and infrastructure (the roads for
instance) have been most successfully demolished - and this WITHOUT
bombing! - in less than ten years. All this, just from doing what the
Serbian opposition is saying the Serbs should do.
* A popular joke here during the US war on Yugoslavia: two Turkish
pilots, flying over Bulgaria, are looking down at the Bulgarian
landscape. One of them says: "I wonder... Have we dropped bombs
here?" "Don't be silly," answers the other. "It is Bulgaria! They
look like that without bombing.")
Side results: - hordes of unemployed, as you can well imagine.
Beggars in the streets.
Children dying in the street from drugs and malnutrition.
Old people digging in the rubbish containers for some rag or moldy
piece of bread.
* In 1989 my friend mother's pensions had been 105 leva. Now it is
46 leva at $1 = ~1,87 leva. - August, 27. So, calculate for
yourselves how much dollars that 75 year old woman receives per
month!
* Yesterday my brother in law told me he had seen the former
headmistress of his son's school to dig in a rubbish container!...
The Infant death rate has increased.
The Birth death rate has increased. The reasons in most of the cases:
mothers suffering of shock and malnutrition).
The Death rate generally has increased.
Young people refuse to marry and have children.
Will there be a Bulgarian nation in the 21 century? What have the Big
US think-tanks planned for Bulgaria? The answer is getting clearer
with every year...
Eating away social privileges.
Before 1989 Bulgaria was a SOCIAL state: Free medical care, FREE
education, social help and privileges for the mothers and the elderly.
According to the old (totalitarian) pension law people retired at 55
years of age for the women and 60 years of age for the men.
According to the new (U.S.-democratic) pension law and the adopted new
system there will not be any retired people here.
The new system demands gathering of 90 points for the women- age plus
number of years in service - and 95 points for the men. The small
number of people about 55 still at work will managed to retire at
about 58 years of age (for the women) and 63 (for the men).
But what about the people at 35-40-45 years of age, some of them
unemployed for years on a run already?
How will they gather the number of years in service, necessary for
retiring?
Nobody needs them, nobody wants them at work, nobody offers work to
them.
When you open the newspapers at the pages with job offers you see the
repeated demand for age of 30 for the eventual applicants. Even if the
offer is for building workers or scrub women!
So, if you are under 30, you have some chances to slave for 12 hours
for next to nothing for a newly hatched businessman.
All the others are expendable and the only open exit for them is the
crematorium. Amen.
And the IMF and WB aim will be achieved: less population, less
pensioners, less children...And THEY (the Global Super Rich?) will get
closer to their Global Aim of providing an Earth inhabited only by the
Golden Milliard [billion] (after the messy job of clearing away the
redundant/unwanted 6 milliards...)
What about...
education?
Now the number of children that do not go to school increases with
every year. Only comparatively well to do parents or parents who still
have some saved money can fulfill their children desire for a higher
education.
Health?
People have turned to old grannies' ways of healing.
Going to the dentist is looked upon as a kind of a luxury.
There are talks for a drastic raising of all the medicine prices here
- with 60-70% - from September 1st 99!
The chasm between the handful of rich and the great majority of poor
people is disastrously deepening with every day.
By the way, the last remnants of privileges will be taken away after
the 1st of January 2000.
I have in mind the lower prices for train tickets for students,
mothers with children and the elderly.
IMF demands:No More Subsidized Travel!
Taking away these special, lower fares was one of the INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY FUND (IMF) conditions for the latest loan, agreed to
willingly by the UDF leaders now in power. Note that the UDF is short
for Union of Democratic Forces, whose program is the mirror image of
the Serbian Alliance for change or United Democratic Opposition. Note
that the names are almost the same, aren't they? Bad. A proof of very
poor imagination on the part of the Money-givers. They should insist
on variety in names.
What taking away travel privileges really means
It means additional separation of people, forcing them to stay either
in the towns, where they will die away from hunger, or in the villages
with the same result. Because most of the still active pensioners
presently add to meager family and personal income through some
occasional jobs in the towns or by providing vegetables and fruit for
the winter in their father's village gardens. It is possible and worth
while NOW when they are travelling by train at half the price. After
January 1 it will be senseless.
So the death rate will increase - one of the IMF's apparent goals will
be successfully realized and the servile UDF leaders will be
correspondingly rewarded.
I wonder. How much does it pay to destroy one's own people under the
sweetened slogans of "democracy" (what democracy?) and joining the
"Western civilization" (what civilization are we speaking of.) Does it
pay really well?
Do you, the so-called opposition in Serbia REALLY think that the best
road for you is joining THAT "civilization"? What will be the bitter
fruit later of your efforts now? Cheap labor for the US and Western
corporations and the humiliating agony of a slow torturous death
through wretched poverty for your people!
Look back into your history - a history of tough people able to find
solution of their OWN, to overcome obstacles with their OWN resources!
We saw what our contemporary "Western civilization" actually stands
for during those awful 79 days.When they bombed a sovereign EUROPEAN
country they defined themselves.
Since Yugoslavian capitulation we all are DAILY witnesses what Western
civilization stands for in Kosovo.
Everybody knows now that:
1/ The US and Europe are against ethnic cleansing of the Albanians by
the Serbs.
2/ But THEY are for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs by the
Albanians.
What has happened to the sugared talk about Human Rights?
Ah, sorry, I have forgotten. Serbs are not Human.(With the exception
of those that take the U.S. and NATO countries' money to betray their
people and their country!)
You in the opposition, do you really want to lick the soles of those
cruel greedy Monsters?
Opening OUR boundaries, turning us into an 'Open Society'
As expounded by George Soros, that international financier of
newspapers, radio stations, NGO's and political parties that
facilitate the destruction of previously viable nations. That
philanthropist of the 'open society.'
We have learned the hard way what those pretty slogans about "opening
the boundaries" mean.
* It means KILLING the part of Bulgarian industry that is still
managing to stay alive and thereby give bread to a certain number
of people.
* It means that lots of LOW QUALITY - I use the phrase deliberately:
LOW QUALITY - food products and other goods (socks for instance.)
flow freely through the "open boundaries" into Bulgaria,
undermining the efforts of local producers. We have been perhaps
one of the biggest consumers of the notorious Belgian dioxin
chickens. Result: some of the local producers have gone bankrupt
and sunk into dismal poverty. Some of the salami and sausage
producers have had the same fate. The same holds true for
producers of veal and veal products.
I have a cousin who has a small farm - four cows. He hasn't been
able to sell his calves for two successive years. Two of the cows
have already died. He is smashed. The veal-buying firms explain
that they prefer to work with the frozen meat imported at low
prices ready to be stuffed and turned into salami and sausages.
Never mind the salami and sausages' quality...
"Fasan", the sock and stocking factory in the Danube town of Rouse, is
slowly sinking down (maybe it has already gone bankrupt and hundreds
are in the streets). Because of the Turkish socks, flooding the
Bulgarian market and sold at 0.5 leva a pair. The "Fasan" socks are
sold at about 1 leva ($1 =1,87 leva).
They cannot sell them at a lower price - they will go bankrupt.
They cannot sell them at the only possible-for-them price - and they
have gone bankrupt. Amen. Rest in peace.
So much for "open boundaries." So much for Mr. Soros' "Open Society".
I hope you have now a clearer picture of what U.S.-type democracy has
brought Bulgaria and its people. Of the real, practical meaning of the
sugared phrases.
What breaks my heart
I personally live in abject misery. I pay my Internet fee at the
expense of great limitations in food, forgoing other needs as well. I
do not know how long I will be able to support it.
But it is the sight of the old men and women, digging into the rubbish
containers that is breaking my heart.
And the old people begging in the streets... the outreached trembling
hands...the tears of pain and humiliation in the eyes...They make me
cry.
Because, you see, street beggars might be only part of the New York
scenery. But it is a new and very shocking sight for us here, and our
hearts are bleeding.
Prices - before U.S. 'Democracy' - and after
I enclose a comparing table of some prices in 1989 and 1999 from
"Appeal", the monthly newspaper of our activist group.
Prices in leva 1989 and 1999
$1 = 1,87 leva (as of 8/27/99)
Bread, 1 kg (white flour) 0,48 0,63
Bread, 1 kg (wholemeal) 0,15 0,45
Salami 1 kg 2,80 3,60
Yogurt 0,22 0,32-0,75
Tram ticket (Sofia) 0,06 0,25
Steam Heating, average 14,0 80,00-150,00
El. energy,1 kwh:day/night 0,042/0,022 0,08/0,04
Luxury lady shoes 30-40 100
Suit, average price 100 300
Lighter, ordinary 0,20 4,00
Books 1-2 6-10
Cinema ticket 0,40-0,80 4-8
Salary, average 200 150
Pension, average 100 50
And so on and on and on ...
All genocides not equal in their eyes
The USA started bombing Yugoslavia officially because of the still
unproven genocide on the poor Albanians by the Serbs, the Demons.
Meanwhile they are carrying out invisible at first sight but very
effective genocide on my people in Bulgaria. As in all the countries
in the deadly grip of the US type of democracy and its envoys, the
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND and THE WORLD BANK.
What are the Serbs thinking?
I am truly amazed at some Serbian people's reactions lately. I have
never looked upon them as being a nation of suicides.
What are they striving for? What do they want? The dismal, hopeless
life of their Bulgarian neighbors?
Do they REALLY want to see their old people dig in the dung
containers?
Do they REALLY want to stop their children from going to school
because of lack of money for shoes and text-books?
Do they REALLY want to slave for the American or German corporations
12 hours per day for miserable pay? Because think: what is the
greatest attraction for a foreign corporation in a devastated country
like Yugoslavia? The cheap labor! That is it!
The so called Sweatshops.
I cannot believe my eyes and ears! AFTER 78 or 79 DAYS OF AMERICAN
BOMBS at that! Over the bodies of killed Serb children by the A M E R
I C A N bombs!
It is simply UNBELIEVABLE!
And after the good example of what the US kind of "democracy" has done
to Bulgaria, the Yugoslavian neighbor.
I do not want to vindicate myself for having been an activist of the
UDF till 1993. I only would like to point out that at that time we all
believed the totalitarian state [the former, Communist Bulgaria] was
simply lying about the USA. That all the warnings about the USA were
simply propaganda lies. We had not heard anything about the IMF or the
WB or the transnational corporations and their expansion policy in
1990. We fell for the seductive talk about democracy and openness and
the rest.
But it is impossible to say the same for the so-called Serb
Opposition.
Especially after the U.S. war on THEIR country!
They, the Serb Opposition, are even not ashamed of the $100 million of
US "help", arrogantly announced in the face of the whole world! [This
refers to US aid openly given to help the opposition in Serbia]
Don't you, all the Serbs that are hanging at the lips of that US or
German flunkey, [Alliance for Change leader] Djindnic, feel humiliated
at having chosen to work for the US and West European interests
against your own people?
When the blood of the Serbian children is still fresh on the money
they are giving you?!
SHAME, SHAME ON YOU!
Desanka Maksimovic has a poem saying:
My forebears and fellow-villagers
Have never been traitors.
They have gone since times immemorial
Where Justice has called them...
She is lucky she is not alive today.
What is at issue?
The issue is not Milosevic. US and the "Western civilizations" are
reaching greedily for your country. Their geopolitical interests and
their corporations demand it: they need the land and what resources
you have -
They DO NOT NEED PEOPLE on that land.
Just as They DO NOT NEED PEOPLE in Bulgaria...
We are expendable.
Doncheva,
Sofia, Bulgaria
the Balkans
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