Media Noise
About Tsarevo
When there is no official information or trust in the local authorities dealing with refugees, people become paranoid

Tsarevo doesn’t have a population; it has citizens. There is no denying that people here are trying to take the city’s fate into their own hands. They are trying to govern this small community themselves, so as not to be governed by others. But how did it get to be this way? How did the beginnings of a civil society create such hysteria in the media that it caused the image of refugees in Bulgaria to seriously suffer? How did a few ordinary and humble people incite these borderline xenophobic slogans?

The main factors leading to this strange situation in Tsarevo are the people’s lack of information and the deepening of an older, local conflict. The rumor that a refugee camp was being planned in the town came to light at the moment when the dragon had already been awakened and conflict was already about to break out. On one side of this conflict is the ”Group of Ten,” which comprises 10 city councilors (of the 16 total), including the chair of the municipal council and acting mayor Daniel Kolev. According to the people, the thing that unifies this group is its interest in beachfront real estate. ”Here parties don’t play a role,” said one of the locals, because among the ”Group of Ten” there are representatives of all political powers.

On the other side of the conflict are the majority of the citizens of Tsarevo. They stand behind the former mayor G. Kostadinov, who resigned in September 2001 because of the impossibility to work together with the majority of the members of the Municipal Council. Despite his popular support, he stands on the sidelines of political quarrels and the civic dissatisfaction has begun to consolidate itself within the structures of the so-called ”Initiative Committee.” According to the people, the Group of Ten has only made the city’s problems worse, and the only thing that is certain is that their machinations with municipal real estate will continue. A series of protests were organized, and the last one, on 21 October 2001, was met with a rough display of police violence. After that it became clear to the citizens of Tsarevo that ”The regional governor is one of them [of the Group of Ten],” as one local restaurant owner commented.

Citizens of many small towns have this same kind of mistrust for the central administration. In the case of Tsarevo, however, where there is also deep distrust of local authorities, the rumors about the refugee camp, combined with the lack of any official information, drove people to real paranoia. People think that someone is trying to trick them. They feel like they have been the victims of one attempt after another by the local politicians to keep them out of the loop. Moreover, the hysteria is fueled by the profoundly contradictory statements of some of the authorities here, such as the regional governor, as well as by the silence of those organs that should have been responsible for explaining things to the people.

Things became even more absurd when the local authorities, controlled by the Group of Ten, announced that they had gained access to one of the government’s ”Secret Plans.” They meant the Plan for Action in the Unexpected Event of Masses of People Arriving to Seek Refuge in the Republic of Bulgaria. This plan, however, is not the least bit secret.

Upon my insistence, the former mayor agreed to comment upon the situation. He told me that, ”The problem stems from the fact that things were not explained to the people on time. Because of a poor understanding of the word ‘secret,’ and perhaps also because of fear of the people’s reaction, the central and local organs provided contradictory explanations. On top of that, we saw the combination of some attempts to cover up information with this never-ending syndrome of media sensations. The one good thing that came out of this was that the local authorities then turned to the Initiative Committee for help. But this also showed the weakness of those authorities.”

The mayor’s final sentence was a reference to the local authorities’ attempts to seek support from the people and from the Initiative Committee. According to citizens, however, the authorities’ behavior was actually an attempt to build up credibility just before the upcoming mayoral elections.

The essence of the problem with the possible building of a refugee camp in Tsarevo was explained to me by a resident of Vasiliko - the neighborhood closest to the now-closed army base that is the planned site of the ”secret plan’s” refugee camp. He said, ”Every summer the same vacationers come to our town for the season. They come here for the security, the comfort, and that is what we give them. They come to be free for a while. They walk around naked, because they know us and the other vacationers well. Czech girls in monokinis! This is no place for a camp - not even a temporary one.” Another resident added that the army base was also a problem in its time, and that they were glad when the soldiers left the town.

The former army base would indeed be difficult to transform into an appropriate camp. The facilities have been stripped, and it would be impossible to make the base ready for refugees in the real event of an unexpected and urgent situation. Only one of the buildings has windows, the plumbing is primitive, and the installations for heat and hot water have been stripped. Because of the recent scandals surrounding the facilities, their condition is well known. What is interesting, however, to wonder about the facilities in other cities that are intended for use in the Plan for Extreme Situations - what conditions are they in? Are they in any better shape for possible refugee situations than the army base in Tsarevo is, or is someone just pulling one over on us again?

By Svilen Ovcharov,
Refugees’ and Migrants’ Legal Protection Program of the BHC

Daniel Kolev,
acting mayor of Tsarevo:
Our People are Looking
to Save Their Bread

- Mr. Kolev, when did you hear about the plan to build a refugee camp in Tsarevo for the first time?
- It all started around the end of November and the beginning of December 2001. At that time, it was just an unofficial rumor. In the Municipal Council we tried to explain what was really going on, but even before that there had been a proposal to deactivate the region of the army unit, whose buildings had been state property, and to give that land to the municipality. Later we passed that proposal and it was submitted to the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Defense.

- Did you seek official information from the relevant organs?
- Actually, I just got back from Sofia (on 25 January - ed.), where I had meetings to do exactly that. As early as the middle of January I got a copy of the ”Plan for Action in the Unexpected Situation of Masses of People Arriving to Seek Refuge in the Republic of Bulgaria” from the regional directorate. I could tell that they had good intentions to solve the problem. The next bit of news is from today. Interior Minister Petkanov said in Burgas that there will be no camp in Tsarevo. That does not settle it for me, though. Until we get official confirmation of this news, the problem is not solved. Tomorrow I have another meeting on this topic in Sofia. This meeting will be with Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi. I do not think that the conditions here are appropriate for that kind of camp. Our village is known as a national vacation resort, and we do not think that such a thing belongs on our territory. There are other problems with the Plan, too. But those do not affect Tsarevo. Anyway, this plan is not well thought out.

- Do the local authorities understand that this is not really a question of a refugee camp, but rather a question about a plan for action that will only be implemented in an extreme situation? As you probably know, the crisis in Afghanistan has almost passed...
- Yes, I understand that. And I also understand that in any case it would only be a temporary camp. I want to solve the problem once and for all. Because just the threat of such an unexpected situation could ruin a whole tourist season for us.

- Have you noticed any difficulty communicating with the central administration before now?
- There have been instances of poor communication. I know that the central authorities are busy and that they have a lot of other problems, but they still should have asked us before they planned to use our town. Our citizens did not have a chance to think it over or talk about it. I’m not blaming anyone, but I hope they learn a lesson from this. We have had no problems with the district administration, though.

- Don’t you think that all the hoopla that has been raised over this issue might actually work against Tsarevo as a vacation resort?
- If we succeed and the Plan for Action is officially changed - and I don’t just mean speeches and promises - everything will come out in our favor in the media and the tourists will feel fine about Tsarevo.

- But another side suffers from all this hoopla. It has created an image of refugees as a threat to tourists. Do you think that some residents of Tsarevo have xenophobic attitudes?
- That is not the problem here. Everyone knows that refugees have suffered in the countries they came from. There is no xenophobia in the Tsarevo issue. Our people are just looking to save their bread. They have no other way to feed themselves.

- According to the citizens of Tsarevo, the local authorities told them this plan was confidential. You said the same thing at a press conference in Burgas on 23 January.
- Well, yes. On the plan it says that it is for internal use*.