Word: bulgaria
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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During the past month, the American press has given considerable publicity to the recent African student riots in Bulgaria. Reports have implied that this one incident in Sofia represents a universal discontent of foreign students within the Soviet block The reports seem to imply, in addition, that such a situation could hardly exist in the United States...
...Bulgaria, 200 African university students on Communist scholarships marched down Sofia's Lenin Boulevard toward the office of Premier Todor Zhivkov to protest government restrictions. Instead of sympathy, they were met by 600 Bulgarian militiamen, who flailed the Africans with clubs and hauled them off to jail. All the students had asked for was permission to maintain an all-Africa Student Union...
Like other Africans in Eastern Europe, the 350 African students in Bulgaria found more segregation than brotherhood, more indoctrination than education. After the riot, Ghana's ambassador lodged a strong protest with the Bulgarian government, and just about all of the Africans in Sofia decided to pack up and seek education elsewhere. "We have been insulted in every possible way," said Ghanaian Agricultural Student Robert Kotey as he arrived in Vienna. "We were molested in the streets, called 'black monkeys' and 'jungle people,' and people used to spit out before us on buses and trains...
Earlier this weak African students demonstrated in the street of Sofia, Bulgaria, after being prevented from forming their own student organization. The importance of the incident could, and most likely has been overemphasized by the Western press, just as the so-called riots at the Helsinki Youth Festival were totally distorted by non-objective reporting...
There are two reasons for the students' unrest in Bulgaria. The principal reason, an it was in Helsinki, is most likely a rude realization that the basic aim of the Soviets' benevolence is proselytism...