Word: stasis
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Under the old East German regime, no institution was more loathed than the Stasi -- the nickname for the Staatsicherheitdienst, or state security police. So it was hardly a surprise that the angriest protests since the November revolution were ignited last week when the government of Communist reformer Hans Modrow proposed that the Stasi, declared defunct on Dec. 17, be revived in a revamped form. It was also revealed that the ministry, which had 85,000 employees when it was officially disbanded, still has some 50,000 agents...
What did seem shocking was the violence of the protest. While an East Berlin crowd of more than 100,000 cheered from outside, several thousand demonstrators tore through part of the huge, 3,000-room building complex on Normanenstrasse. In November protesters entered Stasi offices, but only when accompanied by ordinary police and as part of an effort to ensure that records were not destroyed or spirited away. This time there was no such decorum. The invaders ripped through desks and files, shattered windows and upended furniture...
Some citizens seemed determined to take matters into their own hands. In one incident, about 100 people halted a man who was leaving an East Berlin office of the dreaded Stasi (secret police) with two suitcases in tow. When the man was handed over to the police, they discovered currency worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that was believed to be intended for party officials. Two days later the man was found hanged in his jail cell. The 25,000-man Stasi, meanwhile, was partly defanged by the dismissal of its directorate and the reassignment of some 7,000 agents...
Krenz is also regarded with suspicion by many because of his connections with the Stasi, or secret police. Few citizens seem persuaded that Krenz had a true change of heart when he ordered police forces to stand back during the demonstrations that continue to spread like a brush fire, last week drawing 100,000 people into the streets of Leipzig. Many point instead to his comments on recent trips to China and West Germany, during which he expressed support for the Beijing leadership's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement...
...DGSE, and an as yet unnamed commander at the French naval commando center in Corsica, where underwater demolition divers are trained. The two are being held on charges of murder, arson and conspiracy. Police are searching for four alleged accomplices. More damaging evidence emerged last week from Politician Bernard Stasi, a member of the centrist opposition who was France's Minister of Overseas Territories in 1973 and 1974. Stasi told reporters that the intelligence agency had begun plotting as long as ten years ago against Greenpeace, which opposes, among other things, nuclear testing and the killing of whales...