Bulgarian Police Break Up Protesters’ Blockade of Parliament By DAN BILEFSKY, MATTHEW BRUNWASSER and GEORGI KANTCHEV Published: July 24, 2013 PARIS — The Bulgarian police ended a blockade of Parliament on Wednesday that had trapped about a hundred lawmakers and ministers inside the building for more than eight hours as protesters vented their frustration with poor governance and rampant corruption and called for the center-left government to step down. Seized by a spirit of popular dissent that has recently galvanized people from the squares of Istanbul to the streets of Rio de Janeiro, thousands of mostly young and educated Bulgarians have demonstrated over the past 40 days in Sofia, the country’s capital, demanding better democracy and new elections in what had been largely peaceful rallies. But Marina Karakonova, a protester and freelance journalist, said the protesters had lost patience. “The gentleman’s agreement between protesters and police is broken,” she said. “There is no trust.” Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at a bus that the police were using to evacuate the officials early Wednesday, witnesses said. Protesters then used garbage cans to build barricades. Witnesses described an indiscriminate police response in an “unnecessary, poorly planned and provocative action,” according to a report by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights organization based in Sofia. It said dozens of people had been beaten or manhandled by officers. Reuters reported that 20 protesters were treated for head injuries, citing a hospital official, and that two police officers had been injured. But Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Kristian Vigenin, said Wednesday that some protesters appeared intent on stoking violence and disturbing the peace. “Last night I saw people go with pure intentions, but also people who were obviously there to create tension,” he said. “What happened should worry us, because with paving stones being thrown, more people could have been injured, even killed.” Analysts said the outburst of violence, while short of a tipping point in Bulgaria’s political crisis, had intensified growing pressure for early elections. Opinion polls show that about 60 percent of Bulgarians disapprove of the way Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski has run the country since forming a government after inconclusive elections in May. Officials from the European Union, which typically treads carefully when it comes to the domestic affairs of bloc members, have offered tacit support for the protesters. Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, but poverty, lawlessness and corruption have remained rife. Few expect the government to survive its full four-year mandate. What began this year as a political crisis over utility prices has been transformed into a wider venting of frustration with a state that many Bulgarians feel has failed to live up to the promises of the 1989 revolution that overthrew communism, or even to improve their daily lives. Iveta Cherneva, a Bulgarian author who has attended most of the demonstrations, said the protesters saw themselves as part of a larger global movement. “In many places there is deep underlying discontent with governments which are not responsive to the people who elected them,” she said. “And since last night, the protests here are similar to the others in one more way: the police started using disproportionate force against peaceful demonstrators — something we in Bulgaria thought would never happen.” Metodi Litsev, 34, who has participated in the protests, compared them to clashes in Turkey and the Occupy movement, saying, “If there weren’t protests in Taksim or Wall Street, we might not have found the moral example to seek our emancipation.” So far, Mr. Oresharski has stood his ground against calls to step down, buttressed by hundreds of supporters who have also held regular demonstrations, and now by the police. Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a research institute based in Sofia, said domestic unrest, coupled with external criticism from the European Union, had undermined the new government’s credibility. “Even if the government stays in power, it is not in a position to govern,” he said. The daily demonstrations were initially provoked by the appointment of Delyan Peevski, an influential media mogul who has close ties to the government, as head of the national security agency. The appointment was immediately rescinded, but that did not quell discontent over what some demonstrators insisted was an example of shadowy business interests capturing the state. On Tuesday, protesters were infuriated by the government’s decision to borrow about $676 million, which would raise the budget deficit to 2 percent of gross domestic product. They saw the move as unnecessary and damaging to the economy. In a sign of mounting concern in Brussels and elsewhere that Bulgaria was not living up to the European Union’s standards, the French and German envoys to the country issued a rare statement on July 8 urging leaders to sever links with oligarchic circles and expressing concerns about the state of affairs in the country. “Belonging to the European Union is a civilized choice,” they wrote. “The oligarchic model has no place in it, neither in Bulgaria nor elsewhere.” On Tuesday, before the clashes erupted, Viviane Reding, the European Union’s justice commissioner, added further pressure on the government by siding with the protesters at a public debate. A spokesman for the European Commission, the union’s executive branch, called on all sides to “show the necessary restraint.” Analysts like Daniel Smilov, a professor of political science at Sofia University, said that while the protests were politically destabilizing and threatened to undermine investor confidence in Bulgaria, the European Union appeared to be greeting the unrest as a possible catalyst for long-overdue change. “Bulgaria has always been a pariah to the European Union,” he said. “But now the E.U. sees the protests as a possible means to solve the long-term problems of the country.” Dan Bilefsky and Georgi Kantchev reported from Paris, and Matthew Brunwasser from Kutaisi, Georgia.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 05:03:33 +0000
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