BULGARIA, STUNG BY PAPAL CASE CHARGES, CRACKS DOWN ON SMUGGLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100140081-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 81
• Publication Date: May 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100140081-0
/ARTICLE AP THE WASHINGTON POST
7 ON PAGE A/- 15 May 1983
B~IgariStuig b ~ Papal GChr.
ase
sT
Cracks Down on SmtaPg
By Jonathan C. Randal
- shington f o t fbreign Service
SOFIA Bulgaria -This : Commu-
nist state, evidently ?embarras"sed by
allegations of participation in the
1981 papal shooting and=4 variety of
other illicit - activities, has.-started
cracking down on.-international drug
and arms traffickers who -have op-
erated -here poi more than ?a decade..
In the ' new. -antismuggiing eam-
paign,-Bulgaria in recent :months has
tightened --spot checks at -airports,
land frontiers and -seaports. The
state-controlled press has trumpeted
a series-of-arrests.
The effort-appears to constitute
indirect acknowledgement ?of ;past
laxity in :dealing with international
criminal circles
Revelations of Bulgarian wrong-
doing have been spurred ;primarily
by attempts to shed lighten the in-
quiry into the attempt to ?b-11 Pope
John -Paul IL Bulgaria's role as a
clearinghouse for Warsaw Pact
weapons sales to friendly countries
and -to Mess ideologically compatible
customers has received scrutiny ,that
the Bulgarian authorities found un-
welcome.
For instance, the international
media in the past year has given
prominence to charges by govern-
ment. officials and court investigators
in Italy and Turkey that .Bulgarians
were involved in narcotics and.. arms
smuggling partly aimed at destabil-
izing the two NATO countries. This
pattern of politically motivated
wrongdoing suggests that Bulgaria
may have been willing to attempt
the more dramatic crime of trying to
silence the pontiff because of his
support for the banned Solidarity
union in his native Poland.
A desire to earn hard currency,
however, evidently rivaled political
Pais in Bulgaria's illicit activities.
Danish authorities have uncovered
Bulgarian involvement in a smuggl-
ing ring funneling arms through
South Africa to guerrillas battling
the left-wing government of Angola.
Likewise, :Bulgaria supplied weapons
-to right-wing "Christian militias in
Lebanon until local ' communists
asked it. to stop.
,:Bulgarian authorities -are notice-
ably ill at ease concerning these rev-
.elations,partly because ? they...;ad
hoped in recent years to forge anoth-
er-image abroad. Bulgaria's -economy.
-was improving from a 'low base,-;and
authorities made a conscious effort.
to promote Bulgarian nationalism
without .unduly straining its '-sadi-
tional status as the Soviet floc's.
most obedient member. -
Diplomats, intelligence analysts
and Eastern European affairs ape-,
-cialists. have theorized that Bulgar-
is's success :-in eluding large-scale
,exposure of its illicit dealings at
home and -abroad lulled it -into a
false sense of .security.
Yet as long ago as 1972, columnist
.Jack - Anderson disclosed the exis-
tenceof a'Central Intelligence Agen-,
cy report alleging Bulgaria's impor-
tance as a 'new center directing
arms and drug trafficking between
Western Europe and the Near East.
Anderson said Bulgaria was a
"safe haven" for putting together
major narcotics smuggling deals, that
Bulgarian trucks were widely used
for the trade and that even if caught
smugglers were often let off with 'a
light fine and their merchandise was
returned. .
The attempt on the pope's life-
linked with other znveetigatians in
Italy-in the past year has focused
the media's spotlight on charges of
.Bulgaria's unsavory roles in other
fields. 'An Italian magistrate has .
charged three Rowe based Bulgarian
government employes with cornpilc-
ity in the shooting.
Suddenly dredged up from the
past was the 1978 assassination in
London of Bulgarian dissident
Georgi Markov, who died after hav-
ing been pricked by an umbrella.
equipped with a pinhead-sized plat-
inum pellet containing a poison
called ricin. Western intelligence
sources say that the Bulgarian secret
service planned the killing.
Also receiving prominence were
revelations -from Turkish documents
indicating that Bulgaria sold arms to
both left-wing and right wing terror-
ist factions-in Turkey before the mil-
itary takeover there in 1980.
One well-documented case -in 1971
involved a ship named Wasoula that
Turkish. customs. authorities stopped
in Turkish -waters carrying 495 gre-
nade 4auncbers and 10,000 rounds of
ammunition that had been loaded in
the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Bur-
In Lebanon in 1974 and.1975, just
before the civil war, Bulgaria sold
several Toads of a=s to right-
wing Christian militias until the
local Communist - Party protested
that the - weapons would be used
against its members and their left-
wing and Palestinian allies.
Last winter Danish - authorities
uncovered a vast traffic that had
been going on for -years -involving
Bulgarian arms sakes to Armscorp,
the South African state arms firm.
Bulgaria, they said, sold shiploads of
Soviet Bloc weapons to South Africa,
which passed them on to antigovern-
ment rebels in Angola.
The investigations established
that not only were Danish compa-
niesdefying a United Nations ban i
on arms sales to South Africa, but
also that Bulgaria was providing
-weapons for use against the Angolan
government. Thousands of Cuban
troops have been there for years as
symbols of the Soviet Bloc's concern
for that government's survival.
The Sunday Times of London
alleged that the deal was arranged in
Vienna by Ivan Slavkov, the head of
the -Bulgarian Olympic Committee,
who once was married to the late
daughter of Bulgarian Communist
leader Todor Zhivkov.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100140081-0