Lustration Commission: Academician Ivan Katardziev Collaborated with Secret Services

[VMRO]

http://www.independent.mk/articles/10351/Lustration+Commission+Academician+Ivan+Katardziev+Collaborated+with+the+Secret+Services

Lustration Commission: Academician Ivan Katardziev Collaborated with the Secret Services Katardziev acted under the pseudonym "Marko Maric" and was providing the State Security Service information to for several people. Photo: utrinski.mk

Lustration Commission has declared Tuesday academician Ivan Katardziev collaborator of the secret security services, Utrinski Vesnik daily reports.

The decision to lustrate the famous historian as a former public official was brought last week, and his identity was released Tuesday on the website of the Lustration Commission, after the legally prescribed period of three days expired.

According the lustrators, Katardziev acted under the pseudonym "Marko Maric" and was providing the State Security Service information to for several people.

Since Monday, the names of Veljko Pesic, former director of the Cultural Center "Trajko Prokopiev" in Kumanovo, and Mihail Janushev, former director of the Skopje gymnasium "Georgi Dimitrov" are enlisted in the register of collaborators of the Services.

Lustration Commission so far verified the facts on 143, mainly former and current officials, among which are several members of MASA.

[VMRO]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...ding-historian

Macedonia Names Top Historian as Communist Informer

The most prominent historian from Yugoslav-era Macedonia and the country’s early independence years, Ivan Katardziev, denied allegations that he was an informer for the Communist secret police.

Katardziev, who was accused by the state Lustration Commission of spying on students on behalf of the Communist regime in the 1950s, denied the claims and insisted he was the one who was actually under police surveillance at the time.

“I have never cooperated with the police and I have no ties to what was presented as evidence [before the Lustration Commission]. This lustration reminds me of a medieval inquisition,” Katardziev, who is now in his late eighties, told media.

“On the contrary, during the period from 1955 to 1960, I was under constant police pressure,” he said.

The Lustration Commission, a state office tasked with unmasking collaborators with the former Yugoslav secret police, declared earlier this week that Katardziev was an informant.

The commission said that after reviewing classified police archives, it had concluded that Katardziev was spying on history students who came from Pirin Macedonia in today’s Bulgaria at the time when he was head of the University Library in Skopje and of the Diaspora Office, as well as secretary of the Macedonian National History Institute.

“A document codenamed ‘Characteristic’ states that he was used as informer since January 1950 to control the students originating from Pirin Macedonia. It is stated there that ‘he is good as an informer but cannot be used fully as member of the KPJ [Communist Party of Yugoslavia]’,” the commission wrote in its decision.

Katardziev however insisted that the ruling was based on false information.

“The only thing that is true is that as head of the Diaspora Office, I had to submit reports to the authorities by virtue of my position,” he said.

Macedonia is following in the steps of many former Communist states that have brought in lustration laws as a way to address past injustices stemming from politically-motivated prosecutions.

People lustrated by the state commission are denied the right to hold public office.

Since the Lustration Commission started work in 2009, it has combed over 29,000 personal files and duncovered more than 140 people who allegedly collaborated with the Yugoslav Communist-era police or ordered surveillance of others for ideological reasons.

But ever since its start, the process has been marred by controversy.

Many human rights NGOs and the opposition argue that it has been misused to target government critics. In 2012, the opposition removed two of its members from the commission in protest.

Katardziev, who was born in today’s Western Bulgaria in 1926, is a leading authority on national history.

In the past few years, he has publicly opposed the tendency of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party to rehabilitate some Ottoman-era revolutionaries who were blacklisted in Communist Yugoslavia for being too close to the Bulgarian cause.

Although Bulgaria recognises Macedonian independence, it has not recognised the Macedonian language as separate from the Bulgarian.

Many Bulgarian historians also fail to recognize Macedonian national identity as separate from the Bulgarian. The opposing historical views have ceated rifts in the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Katardziev told local media that he has no intention to submit a complaint to the administrative court about the commission’s decision.

[VMRO]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...-of-informers?

Macedonia Demands Sacking of ‘Communist Police Informers’

The Macedonian state office tasked with rooting out communist-era informers has asked for them to be sacked from their jobs, but critics say suspects are being targeted for political reasons.


The Macedonian Lustration Commission.
The head of the Macedionia’s Lustration Commission, Tome Adziev, said he has sent letters to various institutions informing them of their legal duty to sack people from public office if they have been declared informers, after a court this week upheld many of commission’s disputed decisions.

“Many of the state institutions have not yet dismissed such people, but they will have to,” Adziev said, adding that this included professors who work in public universities as well as members of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU.

“The law is clear; stating that lustrated persons cannot hold public office, [carry out] public activities and have public authorisations. This includes university professors and members of MANU,” he said.

Macedonia is following in the steps of many former Communist states that have brought in lustration laws as a way to address past injustices stemming from politically-motivated prosecutions. People lustrated by the state commission are denied the right to hold public office.

But the former head of the Constitutional Court, Trendafil Jovanovski , who was pronounced an informer by Adziev’s commission and contested the decision in court this week, said people are being prosecuted for political reasons.

He insisted that the demand to sack them from their jobs, especially if they are not prominent public office holders, adds insult to injury.

“The goal of this government is to additionally eliminate the public influence of free thinkers and progressive people who are government critics by removing them from work,” Jovanovski said.

“University professors cannot be sacked from work because they do not hold high public office, but carry out a public service,” he added.

This week 24 people, including many prominent public figures lost their case in the Macedonian High Administrative Court, where they were contesting the commission’s decisions to declare them collaborators.

The court rejected their appeals, ending their scope for legal action in Macedonia. The European Court for Human Rights would be their next recourse.

Among those who lost in court were the head of the Open Society Institute - Macedonia, Vladimir Milcin, who is a vocal critic of the government, historian Kosta Balabanov, writer Paskal Gilevski and politician Sefedin Haruni.

Since the Lustration Commission started work in 2009, it has combed over 29,000 personal files and uncovered more than 140 people who allegedly collaborated with the Yugoslav Communist-era police or ordered surveillance of others for ideological reasons.

But ever since it began, the process has been marred by controversy.

Many human rights NGOs and the opposition argue that it has been misused to target government critics. In 2012, the opposition removed two of its members from the commission in protest.

The last to be pronounced a communist collaborator was the most prominent historian from Yugoslav-era Macedonia and the country’s early independence years, Ivan Katardziev. He denied the allegation.

[sydney]

Hi VMRO, do you have any of Katardziev’s works in soft copy that you can share?