TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012990/0129009.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.3 KB | 154 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

EASTERN EUROPE

Below the Speed Limit


As Communist leaders cruise slowly toward reforms, the people
urge swifter action -- and perhaps new drivers

By DANIEL BENJAMIN -- Reported by Kenneth W. Banta/London, John
Borrell/Warsaw and James O. Jackson/Berlin


    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 on the
job.

    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.

    By the standards of most young revolutions prior to the
annus mirabilis of 1989, the event was rather tame. There was
even some speculation that the Communist government had fomented
the trouble to spread fear of disorder. Nonetheless, the sacking
of Stasi headquarters epitomized a rising impatience with the
pace of change in several East European countries. Increasingly
aware of the strength they can wield in open demonstrations,
many East Germans, Rumanians and Bulgarians seem to be growing
more restive, more insistent in their demands. Their sights are
often set, as they were in East Berlin, on the efforts of
Communist officeholders to cling to their old jobs, or to any
jobs. Yet the protesters also seem intent on bringing about open
confrontations, and this has thrown into question just how
orderly life in these countries will remain.

    In East Germany, even before the raid, the Modrow
government acceded to demands that the issue of resurrecting a
state security ministry be left until after elections are held
on May 6. Even so, the question of order loomed larger, and the
spectacle of the rampage discomfited the government and
opposition alike. Said Konrad Weiss, a leader of the Democracy
Now movement and an organizer of the protest that preceded the
riot: "We found out that radicals in this country can easily
misuse a peaceful demonstration."

    Fears of unrest were also sounded in Bonn, where
authorities are worried about ferment within East Germany and
the continuing tide of immigrants to the West, which is still
running at about 2,000 a day. A top official of Chancellor
Helmut Kohl's government, wary of calling too brazenly for
unification, urged another formulation. East Berlin, he
suggested, should declare that a federal state binding together
the two Germanys is the goal of both countries. That, West
German officials felt, might help reassure would-be immigrants
and stanch the flow.

    If Modrow's grip on power is slipping, the authority of
Rumania's new government seems to be splintering completely. Two
weeks ago, 1,000 demonstrators converged on the headquarters of
the ruling National Salvation Front in Bucharest, screaming,
"Death for Communists!" The Front, whose eleven-member ruling
board is made up entirely of former party members, immediately
outlawed the Communist Party.

    But after other members of the Front criticized the quick
capitulation, the government reacted with a remarkable display
of indecision. First the leadership declared that it would hold a
referendum to decide the fate of the party and whether the death
penalty, which was abolished after the execution of Nicolae
Ceausescu and his wife, should be reinstated. Three days after
the announcement of the referendum, the Front reversed itself
yet again. Yes, the Communist Party had been dissolved, but
anyone who wished to do so could start a new one. The death
penalty would still be banned. Commented a Western diplomat in
Bucharest: "We're amazed that they [Front members] are hanging
on, but the danger of this spinning out of control also seems
very close."

    The fragility of the Bucharest leadership gave a measure of
credibility to rumors circulating in the Rumanian capital that
the army might take administrative control of the country,
though there was no hard evidence to support the notion. There
may, however, be a popular desire for exactly that kind of
intervention. Said a Rumanian journalist: "We are all now
thinking that the military could take power. Even if they don't,
with ex-Communists running the country who were Communists last
month, people are wondering whether anything can really change
here. The atmosphere is full of fear."

    The same desire to sweep Communists out of privileged
positions is being voiced in Poland. Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki denounced moves by the nomenklatura to purchase state
companies at giveaway prices as Poland attempts to privatize
sectors of its economy. He also called for elections at the
local level, a last bastion of Communist power, in April. By
picking an early date, Mazowiecki hopes to keep the boulder of
reform rolling.

    Although Bulgaria's political life has been so dominated by
explosive ethnic strife that issues of democratic change are at
times obscured, the country has also been struggling with the
realities of an emboldened populace. In Sofia last week tens of
thousands of Bulgarians called for the immediate resignation of
the Communist government of Prime Minister Petar Mladenov,
multiparty elections and the disbanding of the Bulgarian secret
police. Possibly prodded by the demonstration, the National
Assembly ended the leading role of the Communist Party the next
day. The angry crowds may have given a fillip to the United
Democratic Front, an umbrella group of twelve pro-democracy
organizations that is negotiating with Bulgarian officials for
reformist measures and a date for elections.

    The starkest evidence of how the regime has been put on the
defensive had nothing to do with elections or institutional
change. On Thursday the government announced that it had
indicted Todor Zhivkov, 78, the man who ruled Bulgaria for 35
years, on charges of corruption (he is said to have owned some
30 homes and hunting lodges around the country) and fomenting
ethnic unrest.

    Since Zhivkov was the architect of the country's
discriminatory laws, his arrest seemed to signal that the
government is determined to resist demands that limits on
Turkish civil rights be restored. But it also showed how the
government had been pushed by the crowds to cut ties with its
past and how it was forced to scramble to maintain a modicum of
support. After all, it was the same Petar Mladenov who lavished
praise on Zhirkov for "his long and loyal service" when the
veteran leader was eased from office only ten weeks ago.