Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0043/00437.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00437}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Romania
The Provisional National Unity Council is Set Up}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{V. Lucretia, G.H. Calin}
$Affiliation{News Agency Rompres}
$Subject{square
government
national
political
council
university
hungarian
parties
representatives
june}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Title:       Romania
Book:        Romania December 1989-December 1990
Author:      V. Lucretia, G.H. Calin
Affiliation: News Agency Rompres
Date:        1990

The Provisional National Unity Council is Set Up

     Six weeks after the toppling of Ceausescu's dictatorship the
Provisional National Unity Council was set up as prelude to the institution
of parliamentary democracy that was to be sanctioned by the May 20
elections.

     In their February 1 meeting representatives of political parties and the
NSF Council agreed on the creation of a Provisional National Unity Council.
It was formed by restructuring the NSF Council so as to assure representation
of people who had actively participated in the Revolution, of prominent
scientific and cultural figures, workers, peasants, intellectuals, young
people, students and national minorities, as well as equal representation of
the parties created until that moment half of the total number of seats
was assigned to the parties representatives each of them had three
representatives seated in the PNUC.

     After the restructuring of the NSF Council as the highest body of State
power and its separation from the Front, the latter became a political
organization having its own structure and platform.

     On February 9 representatives of political parties and the National
Salvation Front Council met in the first session in plenum which, following
the consensus reached on February 1, consecrated the creation of the
Provisional National Unity Council as law-making and State power body until
the free elections of May 20. After controversial and heated debates in the
first part of the founding session, representatives of political parties and
the NSF Council consensually decided that the new law-making body of the
country which was to function until the elections consist of 105
representatives of the newly-created parties and political formations, 106
representatives of the NSF Council, 27 representatives of ethnic unions and
3 representatives of the former political prisoners' Associations - i.e. a
total 241-strong membership. They decided on the establishment of a 21-man
Executive Bureau including the President, five Vice Presidents, 1 Secretary
and 14 members. Mr. Ion Iliescu was chosen President, Messrs Ion Caramitru,
Cazimir Ionescu, Karoly Kiraly, Radu Campeanu and Ion Minzatu - Vice
Presidents and Mr. Dan Mar-tian - Secretary. Over its three months' life the
Provisional National Unity Council passed 68 decree-laws in important areas
of economic and social life, civil rights and freedoms and operation of State
bodies.

     February 18, 1990. A genuine palace coup attempt was made on February 18
for the purpose of diverting the Romanian Revolution from its democratic
objectives. A group of Bucharesters gathered in Victoria Square, pressing
ahead political and social claims and criticizing the interim leadership.
By the same time, a group of rowdy, club-wielding persons violently forced
their way into the government building and took to smashing windows,
maltreating and injuring military and policemen on duty there, devastating
the building and offices of government members. Their display of extreme
violence wrought considerable damage. On learning of those deeply disturbing
events more than 4,000 miners in the Jiu Valley coalfield left for Bucharest
they arrived the next evening and went to Victoria Square to defend the
government building against the vandals.

     Having gathered to examine questions related to the February 18 violent
bout, the Executive Bureau of the Provisional National Union Council ruled on
working out a decree-law stipulating practical measures for efficient
protection of State bodies, public institutions, all seats of parties and
other political organizations as well as public order. They also demanded
firmness on the part of order-keeping bodies in applying the rules
concerning public rallies and demonstrations so that political destabilization
attempts may be averted.

MARCH 15-20

     On the 142nd anniversary of the 1848 Revolution of Budapest the
authorities of the Hungarian Republic had requested the Romanian authorities
to permit the Hungarian ambassador in Romania to lay garlands at Nicolae
Balcescu's and Sandor Pet"ofi's monuments in Transylvanian localities. The
anniversary, however, served as a pretext to citizens of the Hungarian
Republic who on March 15 crossed the border into Romania in large numbers
and ostentatiously paraded the Hungarian state coat-of-arms in the streets
of Satu Mare, Tirgu-Mure-s and Sovata. Moreover, they tore down Romanian
sings of localities, commercial units and public institutions which they
replaced with Hungarian ones, sang songs and shouted slogans apt to incite
anti-Romanian displays.

     In Satu Mare nearly 4,000 Hungarians were present at the raising of the
Hungarian flag on the Catholic Church tower and the desecration of the
monument honouring Nicolae Balcescu, the Romanians' hero of the 1848
Revolution. The official sign, in Romanian, at the entry into this urban
locality was replaced with one reading its Hungarian name. In Tirgu-Mure-s
instigators availed themselves of the wreath-laying ceremony for hoisting
the Hungarian flag and shouting anti-Romanian slogans.

     Such actions which obviously had nothing in common with a celebration
and degenerated into overt attacks upon the national feeling of the Romanian
people aroused serious concern amid the Romanian population.

     Those anti-Romanian chauvinist-nationalistic and revisionist
provocations heightened tensions and intensified violent displays in
Tirgu-Mure-s in the next days. The Romanian government took measures to
restore quiet and public order in all localities in the zone. Their
application, however, was undermined by acts of Hungarian officials which
culminated in the March 18 appeal of the interim President Matyas Szuros to
the Hungarians in Romania sticking to the idea that Transylvania allegedly
is "an ages-old Hungarian land", he called them to increase their
militancy and organize better.

     In the context, the point was reached at which the demonstrations that
the Romanians and Hungarians of Romania had staged shoulder-to-shoulder in
support of the December Revolution's ideals degenerated into extremist actions
arousing big concern and aggravating strain and suspicion. On March 19 in the
evening violent clashes erupted in Tirgu-Mure-s in which both Romanians and
Hungarians were injured. The same as all people in this country, the
government denounced violence and ruled on the application of measures
capable to placate the conflict. Despite that, further clashes erupted the
next afternoon which took a bigger toll. In the heat of the indesirable
incidents in Tirgu-Mure-s seats of parties and political organizations were
ravaged and a large number of victims (dead and wounded peoples) was made.

     Victims let aside, the interethnic clashes in Tirgu-Mure-s, tragic by
themselves and portent of a tragedy whose dimensions may spill beyond the
Transylvanian space, generated widely diverse reactions, becoming the source
of political guesswork and recriminations that people in both countries
and their governments traded each against the other.

     Whether deliberately - more often than not - or from a regrettable
lack of knowledge the international media offered news meaning to accredit
the idea of an anti-Hungarian pogrom. E.g. on March 20 an Irish tv reporter
filmed a hair-raising episode: a man down on the ground kicked beastly until
he remained almost lifeless. A terrific image that shook the whole world.
The Irish reporter's film pretended the man down was a Hungarian maltreated
by the Romanians. In reality, the man was a Romanian peasant of Ibanesti,
a village near Tirgu-Mure-s, Mihaila Cofariu is his name, who surely was
not beaten to death by his Romanian brothers.

     On March 20 the Executive Bureau of the Provisional National Unity
Council established a parliamentary inquiry commission to investigate those
regrettable in incidents. The commission, with help from local bodies and
ethnic organizations of the Romanians and the Hungarians in the region,
managed to appease the situation, bring the two parties into a frank dialogue
and agree on the necessary measures. They conceded that the ethnic Hungarian's
provocations which peaked in incredibly violent acts triggered a Romanian
response which, unfortunately, was violent. Proof of the planned and studied
nature of the Hungarian's action is the fact that in a region where the
Romanians make up the majority population two-thirds of the victims' toll
taken by those grisly incidents were Romanians.

     Our Prime Minister sent letters to the prime ministers of European
countries, the U.N. Secretary-General, other high officials as well as to
international institutions which expressed Romania's stand with respect to
what had happened in Transylvania. In the context in which certain political
circles, official Hungarian circles too, were inspiring grave acts of
chauvinist-nationalistic and revisionist instigation against Romania, the
government of this country showed that adequate solutions may be found to
national minorities questions on the basis of respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms.

THE UNIVERSITY SQUARE: APRIL 22 - JUNE 13

     Starting April 22 illegal meetings were staged in Bucharest which
hindered normal traffic and disturbed order in the area of University Square.

     Groups of people amassed in the area bordering on the Intercontinental
Hotel, the National Theatre and the University were carrying signs showing the
organizations present there: the pro-Democracy Independent Group, the
December 16-21 Association, the People's Alliance Association, the League
for Human Rights and Restoration of Freedom, the December 21 Association
there were also representatives of the former political detainees' Association
and of the Student League. The demonstrators shouted anti-government and
anticommunist slogans. Floor-takers demanded, among others, resignation of
the acting President Mr. Iliescu and the government, elimination of past
structures, consideration by parliament of item 8 in the Proclamation of
Timisoara and its introduction in the election bill, abrogation of the
Ceau-sist law on the status of the Radiotelevision, annulment of the law that
limits freedom of the press, and elections no sooner than the latter half
of the year.

     The Provisional National Unity Council appointed a commission whose
mission was to start a dialogue with the protesters and hear their demands,
but its efforts got nowhere. Although on April 24 in the morning the police
tried to restore conditions for normal traffic and the people's unperturbed
way to their job, the human barricade made by political organizations
continued to keep the city's most important thoroughfare barred to traffic
and to disturb public order.

     The University Square sit-in continued. Claims multiplied by the day.
The April 27 communique demanded: item 8 of the Proclamation of Timi-soara
which prohibited holders of rather important offices in the communist party
leadership from running in the elections for two terms should be adopted
as amendment to the election Law a commission which should purge the
government, the juridiciary and the procurator's offices of the communist
nomenklatura free flow of information legislation of t.u. rights in keeping
with international conventions in the field legislation of real university
autonomy adoption of the decree-laws recommended by the December 21
Association for aiding the victims of last December repression immediate
dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Mihai Chi-tac.

     Since part of the protesters remained there overnight 12 tents were
erected in front of the National Theatre.

     The first hunger-strikes were declared on April 30. By May 2 there were
sixteen hunger-strikers. The sealed off precinct was declared
"neocommunism-free zone".

     A tv statement of the December 16-21 Association on May 4 announced that
the Association quit the University Square protest because attempts had been
made to involve it in politically-motivated actions it also showed that the
Christian-Democratic National Peasant Party was trying to manipulate the
sit-in.

     On the 14th day since the beginning of this unofficial protest movement
there were on the green lawn in front of the National Theatre about 80
hunger-strikers who continued their protest on the ground that item 8 of the
Timi-soara Proclamation had not been assimilated into the election Law.

     On May 4, the PNUC Vice President, Ion Caramitru attempted to mediate
a dialogue between representatives of the organizations involved in the
University Square protest and the PNUC President, Mr. Ion Iliescu it was
agreed that dialogue would start on May 8. On May 4 Mr. Iliescu met with
a group representing the Timi-soara Society, the aim of those discussions
being to defuse the political and social tensions emerged in Bucharest.
The dialogue scheduled for May 8 could not start because not all members of
the delegation designated by the University Square protesters arrived for
talks and unacceptable demands were made.

     For all that, the opening of dialogue was not slammed shut on May 12 a
PNUC delegation including Messrs Ion Iliescu, Radu Campeanu, Cazimir Ionescu,
A. Ple-su, M. Dinescu, D. Haulica, N.S. Dumitru, A. V. Vita and S. Butnaru
was ready for dialogue with delegates of the University Square protesters
this time too, no dialogue could commence for the latter chose to be absent.

     Taking into account the Bucharesters' countless demands for normal
traffic in the central area of the city as well as the need for sanitation
engineering operations, on May 14 the city Mayor addressed those in the
square an insistent appeal to leave the place so as to prevent its becoming a
hotbed of epidemics.

     On May 21 the Minister of Justice and the Secretary-General of the
government went there to hear the hunger-strikers' complaints and report
them to the government. No dialogue could start as the two officials were
forbidden from entering the zone where there were the hunger-strikers and
the tense atmosphere in the square crippled any discussions.

     In light of the health risks assumed by the hunger-strikers, on May 24
the December 21 Association, the pro-Democracy Independent Group, the
Student League and the Association of Architect Students issued a communique
recommending in lieu of the sit-in a regular protest on the every 21st and
every Thursday - a symbol day in the country's history.

     On June 11, a governmental commission met at the government building
in Victoria Square with representatives of the protesters and of the
hunger-strikers. The parties signed a protocol taking note of the
hunger-strikers' decision to renounce their action. Leaders of the
political demonstration in the square, present at the dialogue, expressed
their discontent with the government's refusal to discuss questions of
parliament competence as well as with the content of the protocol that
ended the sit-in in the square by the parties' agreements. They threatened
further violent protests and forced the signatories of the protocol to rescind
on their initial agreement the same evening they started storming the
government building in Victoria Square and the Television.

     In that situation, the Office of the Procurator-General demanded
the Ministry of the Interior to take due action against violators of the law.

BUCHAREST: JUNE 13-15

     On June 13 in the morning an important police force was deployed in the
zone of University Square for the purpose of restoring public order and
returning to traffic streets and thoroughfares that groups of people with
an offending behaviour had blocked for a long time. In the beginning, the
mopping-up action did not create any incidents. Those in the square tried
to react violently. Workers of the sanitation engineering department did
their job so that traffic and life in the zone could come back to normal.

     Later, the police which was trying to end a weeks-long illegal
demonstration found itself in a difficult situation. Compact groups of
people who were hard to say which party or organization they belonged to
break the policemen's cordons and re-entered the "neocommunism-free zone"
police vans and cars in the vicinity of the zone were set ablaze the
"rostrum" in the balcony of the University was re-activated and appeals
were once again heard urging people not to quit the place and resist the
police forces. A group of violent persons, wielding knives, crowbars and
incendiary bottles, attacked the policemen and urged force.

     The rising tide of violence literally paralyzed the central zone of
the city. A critical situation appeared at the Television were clashes
lasted for hours. People forced their way into the building in large
numbers, pilfering offices, destroying equipment and the filmotheque
and maltreating the personnel. No broadcast for one and a half hours.
Broadcast could resume only after paratroopers stepped into action.

     In the heart of the city, restaurants, cafeterias and shops were
looted. The headquarters of the police and the Ministry of the Interior
were set afire rioters stole fire arms. In that situation the President
of Romania addressed a tv appeal to all democratic forces of the country,
calling them to "aid in the liquidation of the Iron Guardist rebellion and
cooperate with order-keeping forces and the army to the end of restoring
order, isolating and arresting the extremists".

     On June 13 in the evening forces of the Ministry of National Defence
moved into action to defend the government headquarters, the Television,
the Radio, the Telephone Palace and other buildings, seeking to neutralize
the violent rioters who had attacked fundamental institutions of the country
and ordinary people. Together with order-keeping forces thousands of people
stood guard at the government building in Victoria Square. The next day at
dawn two trains carrying a first contingent of 3,000 miners arrived in
Bucharest. Before noon, many people from Constan-ta, Craiova, Boto-sani and
R-esi-ta were already here joining their countrymen from Arge-s, Giurgiu
and Prahova who had already been in University Square. In the meantime, the
miners' contingent had soared to 10,000 people.

     While the military were defending the major institutions in the city
and the police forces their seats, miners took to "mopping up" operations in
the central zone they were checking cars and passers-by going as far as to
arrest a number of persons, mainly students, whom they suspected of
participation in the violent outbreaks of June 13. Regrettable abuses were
committed. Force, sometimes incredibly brute force, was the characteristic of
what happened on June 14 and 15, and to an equal extent, of the events on June
13.

     Lots of people were injured, hundreds of men and women - many of them
innocent - were arrested. Miners got the nickname of the unofficial arm of
repression.

     The communique issued by the government showed that "the police,
misreading the government's tolerant attitude, displayed weakness, indecision
and lack of professionalism". It also explained that on the backdrop created
on June 13 "the government had to apply to people's support so that
large-scale bloodshed and disorder could be averted".

     At the press conference that followed those tragic events (June 13-15)
the Prime Minister said that "they had been fomented by well-organized Iron
Guardist groups that had jumped into action according to a pre-established
plan intending to disrupt the life of the country and remove its legal
leadership". As concerns the miners and the risk that they supplant the
order-keeping forces, the Prime  Minister showed that neither the government
nor other echelon of power had explicitly called them into the capital. In the
face of the soaring tide of violence their reaction was predictable. They
arrogated a number of prerogatives and acted without any possibility of
control over them.

     Since violence commonly breeds violence, abuses were also committed on
June 14-15 when public order was being restored - i.e. persons who were not
directly involved in the events were subject to molestation and seats of
parties and public institutions (the University) were devastated all such
acts run counter to the principles of law.

     Taking into consideration that the mid-June events caused human victims
(dead and wounded people) and considerable damage, that they did serious harm
to our sociopolitical life, to our transition to the civic society and the
State of law, Romania's Parliament decided on the creation of an inquiry
commission to investigate the causes and conditions that had generated and
facilitated those events.