România Liberã
22 December 1989 - the Romanian Revolution
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Diary of a Revolution
>17 November1989
In the city of Timisoara, a small group of faithful followers forms outside the home of a popular Calvinist pastor called Laszlo Tökes. He has long been a thorn in the side of the Securitate for his criticism of the Ceausescu regime and finally his bishop has called in the police to evict him from his church-owned home - he has refused to take up a new post in a less "sensitive" rural parish. This intervention provokes the initial demonstration and some reports suggest that a picket continues outside his house through the following weeks. 15 December has been set as the deadline for his departure
>27 November1989
Ceausescu defiantly denounces the political changes sweeping across Eastern Europe at the 14th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party. None of the 3308 members vote against his re-election. However, security is tight, flags are flying and for a while the borders are sealed and international flights cancelled. The atmosphere on the streets is tense and there are a number of isolated incidents of defiance.
In Cluj there is a brief panic when the words "Down with Ceausescu" are written in the snow of Piata Libertatii one evening. There are other minor incidents and an unusual feeling of excitement and expectation which largely goes unreported.
>1 December 1989
The famous gymnast, and Olympic gold medallist, Nadia Comaneci, arrives in New York after defecting from Romania.
ripped from the centre quickly became
he symbol of the "Revolution"
>15 December 1989
Back in Timisoara, the deadline arrives for Tökes to be evicted. His parisioners gather outside and sing psalms and read prayers. The crowd swells to several hundred people including women and children. The mayor arrives and asks them to disperse but they refuse to move and are still there the following morning.
>16 December 1989
The protest continues and the crowd continues to grow through the afternoon, the original core of Hungarian-speaking Calvinists now far outnumbered by ordinary, ethnic Romanians. In the evening an even bigger crowd marches into town shouting anti-communist and anti-Ceausescu slogans for the first time and demanding democracy. Another group marches on the town hall and the Communist Party HQ, destroying files and throwing portraits of Ceausescu and Communist literature onto a bonfire they have made in the street. A shout goes up when a flag appears with a hole in the centre where the communist logo has been torn out - the Revolution has a symbol. The regime has lost control of Timisoara but the Army and Securitate have not yet opened fire on the crowd, they had not anticipated the scale of the uprising. Meanwhile, Tökes and his wife are areseted by the Securitate and held prisoner in a farmhouse in the countryside.
>17 December 1989
The factories around Timisoara go on strike and the demonstrations continue. Ceausescu becomes aware of the situation and the failure of the army to act decisively. He calls a meeting of the Politburo, launches a scathing attack on the defence minister (General Milea) and chief of Securitate ( General Vlad) and threatens to dismiss them. Finally, after receiving a pledge that the army will shoot to kill, he embarks on a State visit to Iran, confident that the situation has been contained. Elena takes control. It should be noted that Ceausescu still does not realise that HE is the target of the demonstrations - he believes that they are the result of foreign spies and agents trying to destabilise the country - for many years he has been only fed with what he wants to hear!
Representatives order to shoot by Ceausescu himself arrive in Timisoara that afternoon. At 17:00 water cannons and tear gas are used against the people, tanks and APD's enter the streets and the shooting begins at about 18:00. They fire indiscriminately into the crowd. This was the watershed of the Revolution - differentiating it from previous demonstartions such as strikes in the Jiu valley and the 1987 roits in Brasov. News spreads quickly, especially by foreign TV and radio transmissions from neighbouring countries. The scale of the massacre becomes more and more exaggerated with reports of up to 60,000 dead in Timisoara. The borders are closed so frustrated reporters cannot verify anything (actual figures later published were 97 dead and 210 injured in total). That same night there are sporadic anti-Ceausescu riots in other towns including Arad.
1 18 - 20 December 1989
Confusion about what is happening in Romania reigns in the West. The Romanian embassy in London are being elusive but advise that there are new visa requirements which require a delay of at least 20 days. Press reports liken Timisoara to the Tienamen Square massacre while fresh riots in Cluj and Iasi are reported. A crowd of some 50,000 in Timisoara continues to demand Ceausescu's resignation. The workers of a nearby petro-chemical complex have delivered an ultimatum to the military to leave by 15:00 or the plant will be blown up and the city with it. The army withdraws and refuses to shoot even when Ceausescu returns from Iran and orders an immediate crackdown in the city. He decides to make a direct appeal to the people that evening. He talks of "international and terrorist actions by imperialist circles and foreign espionage agencies" designed to "provoke disorder and destroy the institutions" of the country. He ranted and rambled on praising the army for defending the homeland and suggested that no more than 10 people had been killed. Nobody was fooled. For the first time he was seen as weak and his admission enabled people to read between the lines - there was light at the end of the tunnel!
>21 December 1989
Ceausescu organises a rally as a massive show of support in the Piata Republicii in front of the Central Commitee Building. 100,000 supposedly loyal workers are bussed from their workplaces with banners and placards to hear Ceausescu speak, the tape recorders are set to blast out the chants and Party songs. Such stage-managed public rallies were once commonplace. However, shortly after he begins to speak, shouts of "Timisoara" begin to rise from the back of the crowd, the protest becoming louder with jeers, boos and whistles. Ceausescu hesitated but continued for a while. Now banners were being ripped up too. He slowly comes to a stop, losing his moment and waves. Confusion reigns on the balcony where Ceausescu is still being filmed. The live TV broadcast is cut but it is too late ... The "Conducator" who is whisked inside has appeared weak and vulnerable before the entire nation ... he is no longer an object of fear. The TV broadcast resumes showing the dictator now being applauded by the faithful. He rants on offering wage increases in desperation but people begin to walk away. However, the crowds in the city grow as more amd more people leave their homes and head into the streets burning posters and photographs of the dictator, overturning cars and chanting "Timisoara". Tear gas was was fired into the Piata Universitatii where many of the demonstrators were gathering but they just kept coming, ignoring the intimidating presence of tanks. Police, Securitate and the Army open fire on the crowds, the shooting continuing throughout the night, but the people returned in even greater numbers in the morning.
>22 December 1989
Ceausescu has the Minister of Defence shot for not obeying his order for the Army to quell the uprising. Radio Bucuresti announces that Milea is a traitor and has committed suicide. Army units had already begun to defect to the side of the protesters as soldiers realised that Ceausescu is not worth killing for and now officers joined them. The cry "The Army is with us" resounds around the city. A disillusioned Ceausescu emerged once more on the balcony of the Central Committee building with a loud hailer and immediately became a focus for the rage of the crowd who stormed the building. Ceausescu, his wife, and entourage just manage to escape in an overloaded helicopter from the roof. The pilot takes them first to their villa in Snagov where Ceausescu makes a number of calls, still believing he can regroup and launch a counter revolution, They set out again for a military base at Titu but the pilot lands by a road short of the base claiming there is a problem with the aircraft because it was overloaded. A car is requisitioned and what remains of the party finally reaches Targoviste. The couple finally end up in an army barracks where they are turned over and detained.
Meanwhile, Securitate troops still loyal to Ceausescu continue to shoot at the demonstrators but the represenatives of the "Revolution" are already speaking from the balcony where Ceausescu had once stood and the television station is taken over and begins to broadcast that Ceausescu has been overturned. There are demonstrations in other cities, some of them peaceful, others such as Sibiu, more violent with opposition from the Securitate. Snipers continue to fire through the night leading to rumours that Ceausescu has released specially trained troops from other countries. Until it is announced that he has been captured there are rumours that he has fled to Iran or North Korea.
>22-24 December 1989
An interim government of former dissidents, outspoken writers and poets emerges. It appears that this organisation, the National Salvation Front, headed by Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman, had been waiting for its moment and is accused of hijacking the Revolution. Later, many of the initial founders abandon it as being unrepresentative of a free Romania and containing too many Communists. Nevertheless, the party won free elections and stayed in power until 1996.
The fighting with the Securitate continued despite the news that Ceausescu had been captured,
>25 December 1989
Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu are tried by a court set up by the newly created National Salvation Front. It lasts 55 minutes during which time the accused refuse to acknowledge it and are sentenced to death. They are taken outside and shot by a firing squad. Despite the trial being a farce and the outcome already decided most Romanians believe it was necessary to calm the situation in the country. The gunfire eases though the atmosphere remains tense for a couple of weeks and there are still sporadic outbursts as Securitate snipers continiue to be hunted down.
jubilation and celebration. Overnight the people had discovered the freedom of speech.
However, much of the euphoria was short-lived as talk about a conspiracy became rife, and then when students
began to demonstrate against what they saw as a new pseudo-communist government, Iliescu invited
his miners to town ... they rampaged through Bucharest as thugs beating anybody opposed to the Government ...
so much for Democracy
The result was extremely slow progress, especially when compared to other former Eastern Bloc countries, until the
late 1990s when Constantinescu gained power and privatisation was accelerated. Now Iliescu is back and already there
are ever more reports of corruption and nepotism, while inflation is beginning to rise again. Recently the EC and USA
warned Romania about corruption but while the former communists cling on to power, and the gulf between
the very rich few and considerably less fortunate majority continues to widen, the future seems uncertain.
The SRI, the former Securitate, is very much active and dis-information is agin rife, particularly on state owned TV channel TVR1.
An example has been the much touted "Dracula Park" - a grandiose theme park project which was promoted heavily on television
with daily announcements of prestigious western investors and even the support of Greenpeace. The investors didn't
exist so state workers received shares in lieu of Christmas bonuses ... and Greenpeace? Well the "real" Greenpeace has
threatened legal action against the phantom "Greenpeace Romania" which counts among its members the prime minister!
The Press is free though the State could control ink supplies and by early 2002 was proposing a bill to curb its
powers in the wake of a series of anonymous reports entitled "Armageddon" which exposed specific examples of
serious corruption and asked questions of certain ministers and their business interests.
For uptodate press reports please refer to the Romanian Press Review which also has links to Romanian
newspapers such as Romania Libera, Monitorul, Adevarul and Ziua