Premeditated Disaster

In the 42 years since Bulgaria declared her independence of Turkey, the Turkish minority in Bulgaria has lived peaceably. They are hard-shell Moslems, but they get along with their Christian neighbors, stay out of politics.

Last week Bulgaria's Turks were the bewildered victims in a typical Communist game of mischiefmaking. Their troubles began Aug. 10, when the Sofia government brusquely demanded that within 90 days Turkey admit 250,000 Bulgars of Turkish descent.

Among possible motives of Bulgaria's Communist government were: 1) a horde of homeless, propertyless refugees, arriving as winter began, would severely tax the strained Turkish national treasury; 2) it would rid Bulgaria of an unassimilable group, living near its strategic frontiers; 3) it would make even more docile the 600,000 Turkish Moslems who stayed behind; 4) it would provide an excellent avenue for sneaking into Turkey hundreds of Red agents.

The Turkish government demurred, insisted that the immigrants be properly screened and that Turkey get time to make arrangements to care for them.

Sofia took to the radio and shrilled: "The doors of Turkey . . . open only to spies and murderers, to the hirelings of the imperialists and to the enemies of the people."

When the Bulgars slipped nearly 1,000 passportless gypsies into a Turkey-bound contingent, the Turks closed the frontier and threatened to appeal to the U.N. The Bulgarian Reds were at their most disarming: "What is there here to discuss?"

The Turkish-Bulgarian agreement of 1925 provided that emigrants could take their movable possessions, sell their fixed property. But the emigrants who crossed into Turkey (a peak of 15,000 in August) brought only personal effects worth $2 each. Said a refugee carpenter: "When I applied for a passport I was asked if I had overdue taxes. When I showed all receipts I was informed that my grandfather Ahmet owed 4,000 leva on a house I'd sold. I told them this couldn't be so, and that my grandfather's name was not Ahmet but Osman. They answered: 'Then he must have changed his name.' I paid the overdue debt of grandfather's." Another refugee paid 4,200 leva, plus a 6,000-leva bribe for the "military exemption fee" of his four-year-old son.

Last week, under orders from Ankara, state governors prepared for a rush of refugees. Most of the intended immigrants had been forced to get rid of their land, cattle and shelter; they would die unless allowed to get out. A high-ranking Turk said bitterly: "A few years ago the Erzincan earthquake caused the death of many thousands. It was Kismet and we bowed to it. This today is not Kismet. This is a premeditated disaster sent by the devil in human form."

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