| URL for this article is
http://globalresistance.com/articles/doncheva/bulgmed.htm Click here for printable version. www.tenc.net Bulgaria Meddles in Yugoslav Vote 'Monitor,' [Bulgaria] September 22, p. 1-2-3
By a Monitor Team Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marin Raikov, is most probably behind a plan for parallel Yugoslav President vote counting from Sofia, [Bulgaria,] a high level governmental official told 'Monitor.' On Sunday the UDF Political Academy and the U.S. organisation, "Freedom House," will organise parallel Yugoslav vote counting. The single Information Centre outside Yugoslavia will be in Hall 4 of the National Culture Centre and will closely observe the vote counting. Meantime, in a special statement for Monitor, the Yugoslav charge d’affaires Danko Protic warned about the increased external pressure on his country: Premier Ivan Kostov, broadcast yesterday "the government position" on the Yugoslav election after a lunch in the Embassy of Germany with the NATO countries’ ambassadors in Sofia. The premier warned President Slobodan Molisevic in his Statement not to falsify the Yugoslav citizens’ vote. Kostov’s Threats Premier Kostov threatened that "there will be very strong reactions on the part of all the European governments in case of election manipulation....In case they are not honest, I admit that the actions will be very categorical," Kostov added. But he did not say if Bulgaria would take part in those "decisive actions". "Let’s see what will happen," the Premier said in the German Embassy building in Sofia. Together with the German Ambassador in Sofia, Ursula Zeiler-Albring [sp?], he made a statement after a luncheon meeting with the other NATO countries’ Ambassadors. Official Belgrade Misgivings
[Here there is a photo, not reproduced. The caption is in bold] [Photo Caption:] Premier Ivan Kostov enters the Embassy of Germany in Sofia from where he threatened once again Yugoslav President, Slobodan Mulosevic. [Caption:] After having had lunch with the NATO countries’ Ambassadors in Bulgaria, Premier Ivan Kostov threatened with "sharp reaction" the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic if he falsifies the Sunday elections. The German ambassadress Ursula Zeiler-Albring stayed behind him. [End of caption] The Blue (UDF) Academy and Freedom House commission "scrutineers"[scrutinisers?]
"I want to explicitly underline that it is not a UDF project. It is a project of the Academy, mainly of its expert members. The ideas come entirely from the experts and they are being realised with the help of their colleagues from Belgrade", Duevski claims. The Academy has sent to Belgrade Vassil Zanov, the head of the mathematicians’ group at the Sofia Central Election Commission. His team is to send from Belgrade the raw election results, which will be reworked by the people in the Faculty of Mathematics at "Clement Ohridski," the Sofia University. Zanov is a professor there. The data will be sent to Sofia via E-mail. On Election day Mr. Zanov will work in the office of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade. "That is an analogue organisation to the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections on the territory of Yugoslavia", the head of the Political Academy explained. According to an official press release of the Academy, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade supports Voislav Kostunica, Milosevic’s opponent. Unprecedented vote counting "They have no experience in the parallel vote counting in Yugoslavia. That is why we, with the assistance of Mr. Zanov, have decided to help the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade" Orfei Duevski told. But he could not explain what will be the interaction between 'our' specialists and the official Yugoslavian power and if the Bulgarians have an official authorisation for the elections on September 24. "I hope that the official authorities in Belgrade would co-operate with such initiative which might disprove the accusations from everywhere that the Yugoslav elections will be manipulated", Duevski would only say. However, experts in that field claim that the parallel vote counting will be unprecedented if the Bulgarians are not authorised by the official authorities in Belgrade. According to an official information of the BTA (Bulgarian Telegraph Agency), quoting the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections, "60 of its activists will take part as scrutineers of the presidential election in Yugoslavia". Together with the Yugoslavian Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade they had to form Vassil Zanov team according to the Political Academy. "We will not send any data from Yugoslavia to Bulgaria and we even do not know if we will be allowed to go there", Anton Hidgov said. He is the head of the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections. "We will be only international scrutineers there. I do not want any information to come out from my name that might be used against us and we might not be authorised," Hidgov added. Last week the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections had sent an official note to Belgrade to be authorised as scrutineers for the elections. The Yugoslav Mission in Sofia says that such a demand for authorisation has not passed through them. Who pays "The parallel vote counting project is financed by Freedom House," Duevski explained. It is an American NGO and its members are Republicans and Democrats alike, influential businessmen, Trade Union leaders, experts on foreign policy and former administration employees. Zbignev Bzezinski, Kenet Adelman and Pol Volfovitz are among the more well-known names in the Freedom House Directors’ Board. "I have offered projects of mine many times to the Freedom House, but they react now for the first time", Evgeni Dainov, the member of the Director Board of the Political Academy said yesterday. He thinks though that "the money is not enough". "I am almost certain that we will spend more," Dainov added. Raikov’s Role "The Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs has very good contacts with the Serb opposition and it is very probable he offered "parallel vote counting" at some of his confidential meetings with the Serb opposition leaders," 'Monitor'’s source from the Government explained. He could not specify though when exactly Raikov had launched his idea. In the middle of July our Ambassador in Belgrade Ivailo Trifonov personally engaged himself as a translator for the opposition Serb mayors, who were called in Sofia to receive instructions by Sofia Mayor, Stephan Sofianski. Marin Raikov is responsible for the Balkans in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some years ago he was a First Secretary in our Embassy in Belgrade. He is a Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a son of Raiko Nickolov, Bulgarian first diplomat in Yugoslavia for years on a run. Marin Raikov accompanied Kostov at all the meetings that year with the representatives of the Serbs and the Albanians from Kosovo, although they had taken part in the UDF Party building at "Rakovska" 134. Comments An MP commented on the parallel vote counting from Sofia: VelkoValkanov, BSP The parallel vote counting is a drastic and incorrect interference in Yugoslavia internal affairs. There is even a greater manipulation than that one. The West promises to lift all the sanctions and to pour the horn of plenty over the Serbs if they vote against Milosevic. Isn’t that an attempt at buying a whole people, isn’t that the most disgusting manipulation ever known? Our government and the ruling party join to that policy of manipulation. I will be very pleased indeed if the Serb people box the ears of both those Western politicians and our pro Western ones, and vote for Milosevic, refusing to be bought out. A centre of diversion/sabotage in relation to Yugoslavia is being created here, and that press-centre is only the beginning. *** 1) The International Republican Institute has offices in 15 lands including Albania, Angola, Nicaragua, Russia, Yugoslavia and South Africa. It is one of the "core institutes" of the National Endowment for Democracy and therefore part of the network of US government agencies which recruit local activists and set up front groups with the goal of exercising indirect colonial rule in the guise of building what is called "civil society" (which amazingly refers to the groups they set up and fund!) and "Democratic institutions". "Democracy" is here not defined as something the people choose (as one might think) but rather as being aligned with the Establishments in the NATO countries. A rather partisan definition. The Monitor article notes that this particular civil society group (the "Political Academy for Central and Southeastern Europe") works closely with Freedom House, a US NGO, receives funding from the International Republican Institute, and plans to coordinate its "monitoring" with the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade, which, in turn, supports the candidate of the "democratic" coalition in Yugoslavia. Both the Centre for Fair Elections and the Yugoslav "democratic" opposition receive funding and training from US and NATO-country government agencies. For more on how the U.S. is fostering indirect colonial rule in the guise of building "civil society" and "democracy" click here or go to http://globalresistance.com/analysis/scam.htm We received the following letter from Blagovesta Doncheva, who translated the 'Monitor' article: Election Day Dear friends, Enclosed [above] is the rough translation of an interesting, informative article, published in 'Monitor.' Here's my opinion about the "parallel vote counting" discussed in the article. They have repeatedly carried it out here. It is a way to manipulate people on the day of elections! What do they do? All day long they give figures and graphics. In most cases deliberately wrong figures and graphics. And thereby manipulate people most blatantly! (They are usually very active in the afternoon hours of the election day, which is logical.) What will they do now? They will deliberately announce that Kostunica leads with, for instance., 20-30%. They might even insist that he is nearing the 50 %. They will quote towns and whole regions. They will give graphics. Some people who would vote for Milosevich will say to themselves: "What's the use of voting? The other one is already elected!" And they will stay at home. Others will stay at home out of sheer fear. "They have already elected the other one. It is better to lie low now." Etc. Some words about some names quoted in Monitor article. Velko Valkanov is a Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP) MP but he is not a member of BSP. He is firmly at anti-NATO position (a kind of inner opposition inside the BSP Parliamentary group.) I don't know what to make of him: if he is so very much against the pro-NATO orientation of BSP, why is he still in the BSP group? But in this one he is right. Evgeni Dainov - is the most faithful Bulgarian US-government flunkey and a totally amoral ass. Money is his God, his morals, his ethics, his love and his hate. Good is every cause that spews Money. Bad is every one that does not pour fresh Money or especially if it threatens his own Money. If his mother is still alive, and his Money Masters tell him to cut her into pieces, then fry them and last give them to the street dogs against a certain sum (or a position that goes with a nice package of money!), Evgeni the Rat will do it without hesitation. In his comment he reveals that he has given cell phones to the "kids" from Otpor but that monster Milosevich's people have taken them at the boundary. (There was an information that the Yugoslav Customs have confiscated 20 (!) cell phones from Otpor 'activists' on their way back from Bulgaria to Yugoslavia.) It is the Election Day. God help the Serbs.. God help us all.. Blagovesta Doncheva Sofia, Bulgaria www.tenc.net |