BULGARIA: Government and U.N. Envoy Go to War

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 1996 (IPS) - A growing war of words between Bulgaria’s U.N. ambassador and its Socialist government has left the nation’s U.N. mission the latest casualty of tensions lingering from the Cold War era.

The ambassador, Slavi Pashovski, contends the government is seeking to get rid of him, and even says they have put a cook on his payroll who monitors the mission, but does not cook.

Prime Minister Jean Videnov’s government counters that Pashovski no longer is serving his government’s foreign policy goals, and should resign.

But Pashovski — appointed to his post by the current, non- Communist president, Zhelyu Zhelev — is sticking to his post, and is sure to embarrass Bulgaria’s official delegation to the next General Assembly plenary, which begins next Monday.

It is Pashovski’s exclusion from the government’s Assembly delegation, traditional for all U.N. ambassadors, that has prompted the flurry of accusations.

Angered that he was not included in the delegation, Pashovski has argued that the new Parliament in Sofia is “attacking the established constitutional order and (is) seeking state power in its entirety.”

The diplomat was selected four years ago when both Bulgaria’s presidency and Parliament represented forces opposed to Todor Zhivkov’s Stalinist, Soviet-backed government. As such, he can only be removed either at Zhelev’s request, or by another successor when fresh elections for the presidency are held later this year.

Although his tenure is secure for a few months more, Pashovski says his work has been more difficult following the return to power of the Social Democratic Party, the renamed Communists, two years ago.

Videnov’s government has vowed to uphold democracy, maintain both free-market policies and a social safety net and strengthen its dialogue with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). But Pashovski insists that the government’s efforts to work around him or force him to go indicates their true colours.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Pashovski wrote in an open letter to Videnov and Foreign Minister Gueorgui Pirinski. “I am not sure that we have any reason to expect that you will throw away your Moscow’s diplomas in order to search for your Bulgarian roots.”

Pashovski implies that the government has resorted to Soviet- style practises to remove anyone deemed as disloyal. The apex of that effort, he says, is the hiring recently of a staff cook, whose duties remain a mystery to the ambassador. “So far, he has not’cooked one meal,” he claims.

He urges the government to discuss its problems with him openly. “Let us start a dialogue on this matter, and put an end to the infamy of the ‘Bulgarian umbrella’ once and for all,” he wrote in his open letter, referring to the assassination of a Bulgarian dissident by a poison-tipped umbrella during the Zhivkov era.

But Pashovski’s behaviour has dismissed Pashovski’s accusations as “regrettable and…a further attempt to discredit Bulgaria before the world organisation and the international community.”

In a statement, the Bulgarian foreign ministry accused Pashovski of failing his responsibilities under the Constitution for implementing his country’s foreign policy. Accordingly, it noted, the government last November asked Zhelev to remove Pashovski, a request which has been rebuffed.

“It is universal practise for a civil servant, particularly a diplomat, who disagrees with the policy of his government, to resign from his post in an honourable manner,” the foreign ministry said.

The United Nations has tried to avoid taking sides in the conflict between the government and its envoy.

As one U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, puts it, “Soon, with the new presidential elections coming up, the crisis may be resolved anyway.” Zhelev is not running for another term.

The conflict is not that different from that which faces many U.N. delegations, given the constant change in world governments and the need to maintain a stable staff at the United Nations.

In Eastern Europe, especially, there has been a series of tense shifts in delegations as former Communist parties have won power anew — this time through elections — in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

But other delegations have battled their governments, and even each other. Most recently, Burundi’s U.N. mission split neatly into two camps that mirror the political divisions in the country itself following a coup in July.

Hutu officials have proclaimed loyalty to Hutu President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, who is in hiding at the U.S. embassy in Burundi, while Tutsis, including Ambassador Nsanze Terence, back the new military regime of Major Pierre Buyoya.

Faced with the divisions in his own staff, Terence this week issued his own guidelines for dissent, in words that the Bulgarian government might envy.

“Any of my diplomats expressing political views different from mine will not be penalised…providing that he comply with the responsibilities inherent in the mission entrusted to us,” Terence said. “But if I am opposed in basic principles to any regime, I must refuse to work for it.”