'Causescu's execution greeted with joyful demonstrations'

Scan page 12

Student rally underscores suspicion of new gov't 12 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990 The following is a Jan. 6, 1990, interview with iwo students, Danilscu Calin, 21, and Jeannette Tare, 22, at the University of Bucharest. While the campus was officially on break, many students were present organizing for a rally the following day to launch the new Independent Romanian Student Socialist Action: I understand that the action which initiated the revolutionary events that swept Causescu out of power was a demonstration on Dec. 17 in Timisoara. Was this demonstration spontaneous and what provoked it?

Danilscu: Yes, it was an entirely spontaneous demonstration. It occurred when the authorities tried to force a Protestant priest to move to another town. He was a priest of the Hungarian minority here and had spoken out against Causescu.

On Saturday the 17th, there was a peaceful and calm demonstration against this persecution. But the Securitate fired into the demonstration, killing many, many women and children because they were in the front ranks of the demonstration.

Elena Causescu gave the order to fire, because Causescu was out of the country in Iran.... But in the following days the people of Timisoara continued to demonstrate in even larger numbers, and the Securitate continued to shoot into the crowds.

S.A.: What occurred next?

Danilscu: On Dec. 21 Ceausescu returned from Iran and ordered a demonstration in Bucharest against the demonstrations in Timisoara. He forced the assembling of a crowd of 100,000 in the Palace Square in front of the Communist Party headquarters.

He was so self-deceived as to assemble such a crowd at this time. It was a real reflection of his megalomania.

He began his speech by telling us that the people demonstrating in Timisoara were terrorists and loafers and were organized from the outside by enemies of Romania.

S.A.: How did the crowd react to his speech?

Danilscu: At first a lot of people started to cry. Then people started to shout "Down with Ceausescu!" And more people joined in shouting "Down with Ceausescu, Down with his lies!"

And people got angry and began chanting in unison, "Causescu, don't forget we want shoes made of your skin!" [Ceausescu traces his supposed proletarian roots to his claim that he worked as a shoemaker in his youth.—ed.] And the crowd chanted this over and over. In Romanian the chant rhymes and has a very distinctive rhythm.

Ceausescu was completely stunned by the crowd's defiance and ran away. He left the balcony and the next day as demonstrations continued he fled the capital by helicopter.

Immediately demonstrations broke out in towns and cities all across Romania. In my home town of Ploiesti my brother called me and told us of a demonstration of 50,000! Mostly workers from the petro-chemical industry.

Almost all these demonstrations outside Bucharest were peaceful but in Bucharest, almost from the moment Ceausescu left the balcony, the Securitate began shooting into the crowds, killing many people. But the people were not afraid any longer and we fought back and the soldiers, who refused Ceausescu's orders to fire on the crowds, joined with us against the Securitate.

The terrorist actions of the Securitate continued right up until the time Ceausescu was finally caught hiding in a little town about 100 kilometers from Bucharest and executed on Christmas Day.

Ceausescu's execution was greeted with joyful demonstrations. These demonstrations also were characterized by very creative slogans that rhyme in Romanian. "Today is the Christmas the crazy man died!" "Ceausescu and his wife, they destroyed our childhood!"

S.A.: How many people were killed by the Securitate in this fighting?

Danilscu: On Dec. 21, the day of Ceausescu's speech, I think over 1000 were killed in Bucharest.

S.A.: But what is the figure for the entire week throughout the country? In some news accounts I've seen figures as high 60,000 mentioned.

Danilscu: No. The 60,000 figure would be for the entire 25-year length of Causescu's regime. But in the fighting to overthrow Causescu I think the figure must be close to 10,000 killed.

S.A.: What is your opinion of the National Salvation Front? People seem very suspicious of the Front. There is even a dispute in the press as to when it came into existence; spontaneously during the uprising against Causescu, or secretly as long as six months ago.

On Sunday, Jan. 7, over 3000 students rallied at the Bucharest Polytechnical Institute and proclaimed a new Independent Romanian Student Union.

The student-organized rally also gave clear indications of growing friction between the students and the National Salvation Front. A speaker representing the Front was given a less than warm reception by the assembled students.

The rally, originally scheduled to be held in Victoriei [Victory] Plaza in downtown Bucharest, had to be shifted at the last minute to the Polytechnical Institute on the outskirts of town because authorities refused to issue a permit.

Although the National Salvation Front rescinded Ceausescu's decree prohibiting demonstrations, they instituted a new regulation requiring a three-day notice to obtain a permit to demonstrate.

Using Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze's visit to Bucharest that day as an excuse, they denied the students the use of Victoriei Plaza one day before the rally. For a while, the angered students debated among themselves whether to go Danilseu: Yes, we are very suspicious of the Salvation Front. Who chose them? How is it that while some people were fighting the Securitate in the streets, other people had the time to set this front up? I don't like it that Iliescu [President of the National Salvation Front] is an old schoolmate of Gorbachev. I suspect it's true that the front was set up six months ago.

Why is it that they have not put more food into the stores? Romania is a very rich agricultural country. Why do the shops still not have sufficient bread and potatoes, meat and butter and milk?

I think we must unite with the workers to demand that this food be brought into the Lynn Henderson/Soclalist Action ahead with an illegal rally or change the site.

The young people were also angry because an official in the new government-who had been sympathetic to them and arranged for a student spokesperson to appear on TV-had suddenly been shifted from his position without explanation. Some students had even heard a rumor that he had been charged with counterrevolutionary activities.

Demands at the rally included a call for an "End to the bribery system," where some professors demanded money payments for passing grades. Students also demanded an end to the required purchase of meal cards for meals that were inedible. Another popular demand was the right to choose optional courses rather than being restricted entirely to required courses, especially required ideological courses.

A few ex-members of the apparently disbanded Communist Student Union also spoke and got a generally cool reception. Showing their solidarity, members of the Independent Polish Student Union were present with a large banner reading "We Are With You."

The Salvation Front has also done some positive things. They have cancelled a number of the laws and decrees proclaimed under Ceausescu, including rescinding all of Ceausescu's honors, titles, and medals.

The Front has abrogated Causescu's Scientific Feeding Program. Causescu wanted to export most of Romania's agricultural production to make payments on the debt to foreign banks, so he told us that eating too much would make us ill and under the Scientific Feeding Program we were limited to 2000 calories per day.

S.A.: How was this limit enforced?

Danilscu: All the basic foods were rationed. One kilo of sugar per month, one half kilo of flour, 750 grams of edible oil, one kilo of popcorn, 200 grams of rice. These were monthly amounts! It was incredible.

Jeannette: Ceausescu had two dogs, and now we discover that he was feeding them more meat in one day than was allotted a person for two days under his so-called Scientific Feeding Program.

Danilscu: And of course black market prices were incredible; the official price for a kilo of coffee was 100 leu, the black market price 1500 leu; one kilo butter, official 50, black market 150; one kilo meat, official 30, black market 100. On average the black market price was 300 percent more. And the average worker's wage is only 2500 leu per month. [$277 dollars at the official exchange rate of 9 leu to $1.] S.A.: Was anything else beside basic food rationed!

Danilscu: Yes, petrol. We were rationed to 25 liters per month. Of course there was a black market; an official price of 9 leu per liter and a black market price of 25.

Also, only half the cars were allowed to be used on Sundays and legal holidays, determined by whether the last number on your license plate was even or odd. [Romania has a six-day work week. Sunday is the only day off.] Jeannette: And we were not allowed to use cars during certain weeks in the winter, regardless of whether the winter was harsh or not. We were cynically told this was to protect us from injuring ourselves in accidents (much laughter), but everyone knew it was to restrict petrol and travel.

Ceausescu's law making abortions illegal has also been rescinded. Ceausescu made abortions illegal in 1966. I am 22 and the result of that first year of the anti-abortion law. Many of the young people that shouted down Causescu in the square on the 21st were the product of the first, second, third, and fourth year of that law.

The generation that Causescu so desperately wanted didn't want him. Oh yes, they wanted him-to be judged. To be done away with.

Before Causescu's anti-abortion law, abortions cost 30 leu [a little over $3]. Now you can again have a legal abortion for 30 leu.

S.A.: Under Ceausescu were there a lot of illegal abortions?

Jeannette: Of course. I had someone in my own family die as the result of a bad illegal abortion. I heard a doctor on the TV just in the last few days explain that Romanian medicine has become expert in treating bad and dangerous abortions as the result of the last 20 years.

Also, women were subjected to regular gynecological examinations at their workplace, and if they became pregnant were monitored to prevent them from having an abortion. This law was criminal, more than criminal.

S.A.: Did Ceausescu pass this law to try to increase the population?

Jeannette: I do not think that was the main reason. We have heard that many abandoned children were sold abroad for dollars. Also the orphanages were used as training grounds for the Securitate. They were taught to look to Ceausescu and his wife as their mother and father.

Jeannette: There was also a law requiring that all typewriters had to be registered and a sample of their type face was taken so anything typed with them could be identified. This law was abrogated.

Danilscu: The TV broadcasted for only two hours a day (more laughter). Now it broadcasts continuously.