Informers And Collaborators
Some of the countries that were formerly under the Iron Curtain have released at least some of the archives of the former state security forces that once enforced communist rule. A few have kept the files secret. Poland, however, has gone into full disclosure mode and has started posting their files onto the internet.
WARSAW (AFP) - Nearly two decades after the fall of communism, Europe's former Moscow-dominated states are using the Internet to make public the files of the security services that helped keep their regimes in power.
In the latest step, the body in charge of Poland's communist-era secret police files began Tuesday posting documents related to top officials, including the President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
The material on the special site of National Remembrance Institute (IPN) — http://katalog.bip.ipn.gov.pl/ — was hardly shocking, and simply confirmed that both Kaczynskis were spied on and harassed by the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa police because of their anti-communist activities in the 1970s and 1980s.
But the possibility of peeking into the SB archives — which cover people who were spies, victims, or both — was such a draw for Poles that users swamped the IPN's site.
The IPN started posting the files of the Kaczynskis and other officials such as the speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament, top prosecutors, and the judges of the constitutional tribunal and supreme court, under new legislation which came into force earlier this year.
The Kaczynskis, who came to power in 2005, have made coming to terms with the communist past a major plank of their policy and pushed to vastly increase the number of people affected by come-clean rules from 30,000 to 700,000.
It is a bit odd when you read about who is - and who is not - releasing this information. Bulgaria, once one of the most reliable of the Soviet satellites, is requiring the posting of all names of people who worked with their secret police. But Germany has never released the East German files and has no plans to do so.
This should be a reminder that eventually the truth comes out. People might want to remember that. Sometimes payback is swift and final, sometimes a bit late in coming. But it is there in the end.
World news | Gaius Wednesday, 26 September , 2007
By Anthony (Los Angeles), Wednesday, 26 September , 2007 @ 10:08 pm
Nations following the path of openness are making the right decision for the long-term social health of their societies, I think. It’s best to get all this out in the open, rather than let suspicion fester.
You might be interested in “The File,” by British analyst Timothy Garton Ash. It’s his memoir of returning to Berlin after the fall of East Germany to have a look at his own file, and his observations of what people had to do to survive life in a police state.
By David M, Thursday, 27 September , 2007 @ 11:27 am
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 09/27/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.