[Note http://www.globalresistance.com encourages everyone to distribute the following in any way but please include the entire text including this note. ]

Dear Emperors-clothes.com,

Everything fades away when one reads about East Timor…

We here think it has been planned - all the time we have thought there is something rotten in that referendum: we couldn’t believe the US corporations would let go so easily of the oil resources there. But Yugoslavia has been getting bombed and East Timor has slipped away…

(If only the Serbs could have held at least ten days longer!… They could have saved the world - they could have curbed Their appetites at least for some time!…

But the Russians have sold them to US and now there will be no end of the horrors…)

By the way, I am truly impressed by the clamour in the US press on East Timor - why have they kept almost silent on [driving the Serbs, Romany, ("gypsies,") and pro-Yugoslav Albanians from] Kosovo or followed the official propaganda and are now screaming with all their might?

Some of us think they (the US media) have been given the green light for screaming because US and British governments and the other vultures are planning intervention and occupation of East Timor for undefined time (look at Bosnia). Afterwards they will turn it into a protectorate outside Indonesia. (As They will do with Kosovo - at least that is the tendency.)

It seems They like the idea of protectorates very much.

(Albright has declared that the Balkans will be turned into something like USA - the existing countries will be divided into small protectorates and a Balkan United States will result. Look at what they are doing with Yugoslavia. Then our turn will come - god help us!)

So those who insist on US intervention are doing the dirty job. (Yesterday I read a lot about East Timor - a great number of the progressive thinking Americans - see Common Dream News Center - insist on immediate intervention in East Timor - just according to the plan!)

(Look at Holbrooke - we think he is only doing HIS job.)

I am sending this from a public Internet service (my telephone has already been blocked for two weeks and I have problems with my E-mail box. Democracy in action - just as it has been in the totalitarian times: and even worse!)

Below is an article concerning the Bulgarian government's latest boasts about 'improved conditions.' The writer first gives the facts and then has some comments on how we live here.

Best regards to all,
Doncheva
Sofia, Bulgaria
The Balkans

From "SEGA", a daily newspaper, Nr.199, Friday, August 27, 1999: "Our Money Flows From Pocket to Stomach"
by A. A.

Bulgarians’ daily ration in June, 1999

Bread - 400 grams;

Milk - 100 ml.;

Yogurt - 80 gr.;

[My Note: The journalist points out that this was equal to the daily ration in Leningrad at the beginning of the Nazi blockade...]

Meat - 60 gr. (20 gr. more than in June 98 - you see? vast improvements!)

Eggs - 1/3 of an egg (In the bad old days we lacked the democratic skills necessary to divide an egg by three…)

Potatoes - 70 gr.;

White beans - 10 gr.;

Sugar - 23 gr.;

Vegetable Oils - 40 gr.;

In April and May the Bulgarian has added to his diet:

Fresh Fruit - 40 gr.;

Vegetables - 130 gr.

Cost of Electricity: constituted 7 to 9% of family expenditures in April and May.

[My note: Electricity costs have been risen 10 % since July 5, 1999.]

Cost of transport and communications: constituted 7% to 8% of family expenditures in June.

Clothes and shoes: according to the National Institute of Statistics 5-6% of family monthly expenditures are for clothes and shoes, or 7 leva average ($1 = 1,8712, SEGA, August 27 In other words, 1 leva = 53 cents)

A pair of kids shoes price is between 25 and 30 leva.

A blouse or shirt can be bought after several months savings.

Health and personal hygiene constitute 4 to 4,5 % of general expenses.

House repair and furniture: only 3 leva are left free. That is a dollar and a half.

Education and entertainment: 2 % or 2,6 leva, or about $1.25. The average Bulgarian can buy 8 newspapers and half a (cheap) book per month.

Monthly Income: The average FAMILY income in May was 309.789 or, in US dollars, $165.56. That's 32.463 leva more than in May 98, a fact which "the statisticians underline proudly", the journalist says.

Monthly income in May per person - about 110.586 leva or $58.61,an average increase of 10.120 leva a month - or $5.36 - a month. [My note: As you will see, this is hailed by our government!]

General expenses per month: 294.900 leva in May.

So every family could save 14.9 leva. [Assuming we do not over-spend on those home repairs (keep it down to $1.50 US!) or get really reckless and buy an ENTIRE book...]

If the Bulgarian wants to buy a TV set, he must save for it two years (no more!)

The support expenses for one member of a family has reached 102.272 leva.

So, every Bulgarian could save 5.3 leva per month from the common income. (That's $2.81). For a new pair of shoes he must save for only 6 (six!) months.

Nevertheless a Great Step Forward has been made: a year earlier the family could save only 4.5 leva per month from their common monthly income, and every family member - 1.6 leva. A month has been shaved from the time it takes to buy a pair of shoes.

Quotations from the article:

"I do not think there is a shrinking of consumption. I think there is normalization of consumption… Now people have more money", the Vice Premier Bozkov proudly declared on Wednesday (August, 25)." [My note: Bad Guys call him Mr. Ten Percents: they say he pockets 10 % from every privatization deal. They talk in this way out of envy - no doubt about it!]

End of the article:

"…Having in mind those data, announced by an Institute that is subordinate to the Government, it is perverse to boast that people's consumption and money are rising. To argue that based on an increase of 20 gr. of meat or 8 leva is, to put it honestly, impudence."

[My concluding note: According to the independent monthly newspaper "Bulgaria Confidential", September, 1999, 1,5 millions of Bulgarians have been exterminated by the democratic free market open society "reforms". Death by euphemism. ]

If you're reading this article in a site other than Emperors-Clothes.com and would like to see more articles please click here or go to http://www.globalresistance.com