Ten years ago, the three dark days of Romania began in Bucharest, when police forces and then miners called from Valea Jiului by President Ion Iliescu violently halted manifestations in Piata Universitatii, triggering our country's elimination from European circles for many years.
Following miners' protests on January 12 and February 29 and after events that occurred in Targu Mures in March, violent acts of June 13-15 built the image of a savage country, where "Romanians fought Romanians," according to foreign TV stations. Since then, Romanian society has been inflicted the drama of being split into antagonistic groups, depending on social, political and economic criteria.
Conclusions reached by the Parliamentary commission for the investigation of June 13-15 events show that the miners' protests "led to the suspension of certain economic aids, drove away foreign entrepreneurs and made the European Commission be cautious towards Romania, triggering consequences which are hard to evaluate."
The State Department of the United States considered at that time that "actions authorised by President Iliescu and his government dealt a blow into the heart of democracy." The IMF, the World Bank and private investors limited their support aimed at Romanian economy. Romania's joining the Council of Europe was delayed and we no longer benefited from PHARE aid programme.
The effects of the miners' protests organised in June 1990 subsided only after 1996 elections. Yet, afterwards, once Romania again "got close" to the West, new events determined the caution of international bodies. At the beginning of 1998, Ciorbea crisis burst out, hampering the conclusion of the accord that had been negotiated with the IMF. This is the first serious event showing that parties within the governmental coalition did not have the same agenda. Year 1999 started with two new protests organised by miners, in fact genuine riots against the rule of law. In the year 2000, FNI investors protest violently and the banking system is questioned.
General Dan Voinea, head of the Military Court, yesterday told a debate at the headquarters of the Social Dialogue Group (GDS) that the repression was part of a "plan established at Snagov," by a group made up of FSN representatives. According to the investigation conducted upon these events, some miners were brought to an army unit at the order of Athanasie Stanculescu, where they were dressed up in military clothes, while soldiers put on their clothes. That explains why many "miners" knew where the headquarters of the parties and anticommunist newspapers were and the addresses of some opposition leaders.
Under such conditions, those who are guilty should be looked for somewhere else. Interior minister Constantin Dudu Ionescu yesterday said that miners were "mere instruments in the hands of those who made decisions at that time," considering that "it is the duty of civil society to grant this category moral reparations." He believes however that a new miner riot of the 1990 type is no longer possible, in spite of comparisons made with the incidents which occurred during the protest of FNI investors last week, where one could sense the same "wish to manipulate." The Interior minister also said that he refrained from any manifestation of force in this case, as a "'media scandal would have been sparked."
Most participants in the Social Dialogue Group's debates organised by the Civic Alliance, the Association of Miners' Victims and Timisoara Society said that the events of June 1990 represent a continuation of those of December 1989.
General Dan Voinea believes that "there is a connection between events in June 1990, September 1991, December 1989 and those in 1944, when the "Tudor Vladimirescu Division," came to Romania, imposing the communist regime.
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