Word: bulgarians
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SOFIA, Bulgaria--The Bulgarian Parliament yesterday ousted former Communist leader Todor Zhivkov as head of state and approved a series of government changes that forced out several Zhivkov supporters and put reformers into positions of power...
...seemed a small thing, hardly ground for arrest. For two weeks a tiny group of Bulgarian environmentalists called Ecoglasnost manned a table in a Sofia park to gather signatures on a petition calling for public debate on two controversial river-diversion schemes. They had collected nearly 7,000 names, when police and militia units suddenly swooped down, scattered bystanders and arrested seven of the organizers...
...members of Ecoglasnost were later released, but the crackdown was a crude warning to Bulgarian political activists to watch their step. It was one more indication of just how nervous Eastern Europe's remaining hard-line regimes have become as a result of the year's dramatic political changes elsewhere in the bloc. The obdurate rulers in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Rumania refuse to imitate their reformist neighbors but can't help looking anxiously over their shoulder. "They are all worried about the fallout from change elsewhere," said a Western diplomat in the region. A Bulgarian proverb captures the fears: "When...
Alarmed by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, Bulgaria launched its toughest drive ever to assimilate the Turks in late 1984, when it tried to force them to adopt Bulgarian customs. Last May violent protests erupted throughout the country; 60 Turks were killed and 200 others injured in clashes with Bulgarian security forces...
...relief operation mounting, Ankara has been pressing Bulgaria to allow ethnic Turks to dispose of their property before departing and to take their liquid assets with them. So far, the departing Turks have had to leave their homes and most of their belongings behind. According to their new Bulgarian passports, they are merely going on vacation. Not so, says Miemin Durmusev, whom the Bulgarians renamed Ana Ivanovna Dimitrova. "We're never going back...