Cambodia: Why Bulgarian Rangers 10 Years Ago Were Neither Lunatics, Nor Criminals

Author: Lyuben Lachanski

Original title: “Emergency Court .. Or Why Bulgarian Rangers 10 Years Ago Were Neither Lunatics, Nor Criminals”

According to Washington Times, a bestseller entitled Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Matters has been launched in the USA around June 1. Its authors – amateurs and ex-UN officials claim that all Bulgarians who participated in the peacekeeping contingent in Cambodia under the UN auspices in 1992 – 1993 were either criminals or lunatics.

The names of the self-proclaimed “engineers of human soul”, dealing with both fiction and psychiatry, are Heidi Postlewait, Andrew Thompson and Kenneth Cain. But since their claims against Bulgarians are absolutely false and insolently manipulative, I tend to believe that behind these names quite different persons who have decided to earn some money writing on this rather old topic are hiding. I was there at that time.

I can prove in a very documentary way that before my flight to Pnompen in 1992, I have never been in a prison or a madhouse; I was coming from the editor’s office of a military magazine. I traveled for the strange kingdom by means of well-arranged accreditation, a document which still could be found somewhere in my archive. I suppose that other people will also think over their psychic abilities and moral today, a dozen of years after the military voyage to the country of Norodom Sianuk, and they will file claims with court against the so called authors Postlewait, Thompson and Cain. I quote after a publication in a Bulgarian daily:

“...The Bulgarian Government, which was suffering shortage of hard currency, offered inmates in the prisons and psychiatric wards a deal: put on a uniform and go to Cambodia for six months, you’re free on return.” In compensation for its participation, Sofia has received from the UN financial compensations (...) The Bulgarian government wanted the money, but didn’t want to send their best trained troops. Cain describes the Bulgarians as a battalion of criminal lunatics (who) arrive in a lawless land. “They’re drunk as sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women and crash their U.N. Land Cruisers with remarkable frequency.”

In my capacity of a military correspondent in that period, I did not see a single Yankee coming and getting interested from the situation in the Bulgarian battalion. I would not say that there were no clashes and malpractices, no discontent and unrest among the Bulgarian reservists who formed the peace-keeping Bulgarian battalion. It was inspired only by the lack of experience of the top military commandment in Bulgaria, which was completely unaware about the enormous difficulties we were going to live through in Cambodia. And after the top commandment did not care, what could we say about the almost illiterate drivers of Roma origin who came to earn a dollar or two, thinking that such kind of missions are sweet dream, while the Army Commandment or at least its majority were clearly committing a sabotage against the reforms,carried out by the first democratic government of Philip Dimitrov.

Then the communists of Videnov came into power. And Lyuben Petrov, the Head of General Staff of the Bulgarian Army at that time who is a communist party Member of Parliament and a violent opponent of NATO nowadays is keeping silence, hiding his warrior’s and commander’s ignorance behind the MP status. And his current inadequate political behaviour.

Anyway, let us go back to the claims of the cowboys who have put their names on the Emergency Sex...

It is practically impossible in a small country as Bulgaria to recruit at one and the same time 850 criminals or lunatics, as the number of men in the army battalion was, and send them by planes to Cambodia. This would have left the prison and mental hospitals guards without work. And the rangers should have been complete fools, and not criminals, to go on a peaceful strike to demand the receipt of their perdiems, instead of taking them by force using all these weapons they had at their disposal. The rate of these notorious perdiems was 1 US dollar per day. It was not worth anything! There are many versions why the blue helmets did not receive their money. The most popular one is that somebody was profiteering by short-term depositing the humble dollars against a serious interest in a Cambodian bank. A mandatory period of time had to pass before the money could be withdrawn by the battalion treasurer. Well, were the criminals or lunatics guilty for the unrest? In any other army the official would have been lynched in public under the national flag of the respective army for doing such thing, instead of soldiers writing open letters to the media, and the writer of this would have not turned into a priest in order to calm down the enraged men. We had been suffering similar attitude for 48 years. Not a single criminal, sentenced by court, was hiding in the battalion. There were three persons who were investigated for pilfering before that, and their illiteracy made them so ashamed at the foreign continent that they could not even go on a leave without a companion, which made it impossible for them to perform any crime. The Cambodian mafia was also doing its job!

Well, it is true that some Cambodian women enjoyed Bulgarian men caresses, however anyone who was there at that time should be aware that for a half loaf of bread and a can of famous Bulgarian chopped meat Roussensko Vareno, a whole choir of virgins was ready to provide sex services to anybody and even wash his foot-wrappings. They were far from crying that that they were raped. There was a case of rape, but it happened while the battalion was trained for the mission in Vratsa (Northern Bulgaria) and the offender was immediately sent to prison.

As far as the Bulgarians were “drunk as sailors”, I am obliged to clarify that even in Cambodia you have to get alcohol for money. Even the worst one. And as I have already said, the notorious dollars were not paid at all, not to talk about any “legendary salaries”. The battalion was positioned at three distant sites and there were no supermarkets selling alcohol in the vicinity, due to which no store was broken into and ravaged because of the alcoholic abstinence of the Bulgarian rangers. In contrast to Libya and other Arabian countries, no brandy could be distilled from Cambodian bananas and other fruits. Thus this misdemeanor accusation also drops.

The only accusation which remained is the one of crashing the Land Cruisers, which the UN has provided to our contingent. This is really idiotic. The UNTAC commandment provided just two Land Cruisers of Japanese make to the Bulgarian contingent, which were driven by the battalion commander and his deputy. These senior officers would hardly take part in races along the Cambodian roadways shattered by rains and mines. All other soldiers were serviced by the notorious GAZ-vehicles, which, I am ashamed to say, we are still driving even in Karbala. I would like to remind the American colleagues who are writing memoirs a funny detail – many local people wanted to buy these wrecks of military vehicles, as they were more suitable for their roads. However, during my stay there not a single GAZ-vehicle was “privatized”, although they were paid by UNTAC and their return to Bulgaria was extremely expensive and inefficient. Anyway I think there was an investigation in that respect...

I have opened a rather humble edition of 1995, entitled rather pretentiously Mission in Cambodia by some Roumen Stefanov of Dolen Chiflik town, Varna district. According to the colour photo and biographical notes, this person used to be a police observer in North Cambodia during that period. The graduate of the Higher Institute for Officers’ Training and Research at the Interior Ministry wrote in the foreword: “Colleagues told me that some persons who were wanted for crimes and who hoped to evade criminal prosecution by leaving the country were taken off the plane before departure. We have traveled with part of the military contingent to Pnompen, and the more we flew, the more people clad in military uniform, who apparently had too many drinks came to my view. I was rather impressed by one of them whose face had traces of a recent quarrel between drunkards.” Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? Well, the tone of the American accusations apparently is taken from or supported by the memories of this patriotic policeman from the region of Varna. And I wanted to send to court the American graphomaniacs who said I was a lunatic and a criminal!