Mafia Retains Bulgaria in Bush Orbit

by Yavor Mihaylov, Global Voices

 
In early April, a crisis that had broken out as a result of the exposed
corruption in the circles of the interior ministry, exacerbated even further.
The public was outraged by the fact that the interior minister Rumen Petkov had
meetings with the Galevi brothers, who are allegedly among the biggest mafia
bosses in Bulgaria.
Secret services' records of conversations between alleged traffickers, in which
minister Petkov is referred to under the nickname of the Match Lighter,
emerged.
As minister Petkov was unwilling to resign, a blogger started a short story
contest, asking contributors to describe a scenario that would end in the
minister’s resignation. On April Fool’s Day, the most popular joke was that
Rumen Petkov has indeed tendered his resignation. The teasing made people laugh
and made them feel nervous, as they all were in tense expectation of what was
going to happen. The Bulgarian blogosphere was full of photos and collages of
parodies of the official.
Or briefly – for the first time it is openly said in the media that the
dirty business of the secret services has never been privatized. It is in the
“banned list” or precisely - the dirty business of the red mafia is “exclusive
state property.” And the “exclusive state property is not for sale.” It is only
lent on concessions. The titular holder remains the state through the interior
ministry services, and the clauses are secret – a trade secret of the mafia.
The concessionaires came and went (usually with their feet foreward), but the
Contract was still in force, along with the secret of the trinity: state
security–organized crime–ministry of the interior. A public secret, but still a
secret.
Today the secret is gone. The ugly truth is before our eyes and it is so
important that each public position measures up to it. One either supports the
“operatively interesting” or is on the side of the operatively uninteresting.
You either stand behind your sponsors or in front of the people who voted for
you. You are either “a president of all Bulgarians” or “a president of the
Galevi brothers.”

These days there is mayhem in the blogosphere: every other
post is “Rumen Petkov resigned,” “The Match Lighter in gone,” toasts,
enthusiasm. If extraterrestrials had landed in front of the National Palace of
Culture, they would not have received so much attention. Well, I am not going
to write about that. I see no point. I am more interested in where we have
brought ourselves to, when the replacement of a totally failed minister (a
totally routine procedure in the civilised world) should be welcomed in our
country as the resurrection of Christ. To what extent have we accepted
lawlessness and political impertinence as normal and unavoidable, that a
belated denouement elated us so much.
And Konstantin Pavlov writes in
another post (BUL):
“I am more and more in favor of the URGENT ABOLITION of the nation state as
an institution that protects my interest…”