(punct de vedere strict personal)
“Radu Balan ‘isi aminteste’ ca in 18 decembrie la ora 24:00 se indrepta spre IAEM si depasea un grup de zece masini sovietice oprite in 100 de metri de Spitalul Judetean (Rezulta ca in noaptea acea, sub privirile sovieticilor au fost incarcate cadavrele !)” (Radu Ciobotea, revista Flacara, 3 iulie 1991).
THE 1989 ROMANIAN REVOLUTION AS GEOPOLITICAL PARLOR GAME: BRANDSTATTER’S “CHECKMATE” DOCUMENTARY AND THE LATEST WAVE IN A SEA OF REVISIONISM
By Richard Andrew Hall
Disclaimer: This material has been reviewed by CIA. That review neither constitutes CIA authentication of information nor implies CIA endorsement of the author’s views. [Submitted for clearance February 2005; cleared without changes March 2005]
Please Note: This article is not to be cited, reproduced, translated, or used in any form without the acknowledgement and permission of the author.
Part 3: Ruse
A SECURITATE RIDDLE: SOVIET “TOURISTS” AND THE OVERTHROW OF THE CEAUSESCU REGIME
As I have written before, if it was obvious before 18 December, as these Ceausescu regime officials claim, that “Soviet tourists” were involved in the events in Timisoara, then why was it precisely “Soviet travelers coming home from shopping trips to Yugoslavia” who were the only group declared exempt from the ban on “tourism” announced on that day (see AFP, 19 December 1989 as cited in Hall 2002b)? In fact, an Agent France-Presse correspondent reported that two Romanian border guards on the Yugoslav frontier curtly told him: “Go back home, only Russians can get through”!!! The few official documents from the December events that have made their way into the public domain show the Romanian Ambassador to Moscow, Ion Bucur, appealing to the Soviets to honor the Romanian news blackout on events in Timisoara, but never once mentioning—let alone objecting to—the presence or behavior of “Soviet tourists” in Romania during these chaotic days of crisis for the Ceausescu regime (CWHIP, “New Evidence on the 1989 Crisis in Romania,” 2001). It truly strains the imagination to believe that the Romanian authorities were so “frightened” of committing a diplomatic incident with the Soviets that they would allow Soviet agents to roam the country virtually unhindered, allowing them to go anywhere and do anything they wanted.
traducere de catre Marius Mioc http://mariusmioc.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/rich-hall-brandstatter-12/
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An excerpt from
A chapter from my Ph.D. Dissertation at Indiana University: Richard Andrew Hall, Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceausescu Romania (defended 16 December 1996). This is the original chapter as it appeared then and thus has not been revised in any form.
(traducere de catre Marius Mioc 18-19 decembrie 1989 )
18-19 December 1989: The Timisoara Crackdown in Ceausescu’s Absence
Considering the centrality of the “foreign tourist” scenario to Securitate-inspired accounts of the December events, it is interesting to note the actions taken by the Ceausescu regime on 18 December 1989. At the close of the emergency CPEx meeting on Sunday afternoon, Nicolae Ceausescu had announced:
I have ordered that all tourist activity be interrupted at once. Not one more foreign tourist will be allowed in, because they have all turned into agents of espionage….Not even those from the socialist countries will be allowed in, outside of [North] Korea, China, and Cuba. Because all the neighboring socialist countries are untrustworthy. Those sent from the neighboring socialist countries are sent as agents.[5]
On Monday, 18 December 1989, in typical Ceausist-style it was therefore announced that Romania would not accept any more tourists because of a “shortage of hotel rooms” and because “weather conditions” were “not suitable for tourism.”[6] Ironically, the only ones exempted from this ban were: “Soviet travellers coming home from shopping trips to Yugoslavia”(!)[7]
Thus, it is intriguing to see how former Securitate Colonel Filip Teodorescu tailors his characterization of Timisoara on 18 December to account for this change:
There were few foreigners in the hotels, the majority of them having fled the town after lunch [on 17 December] when the clashes began to break out. The interested parties remained. Our attention is drawn to the unjustifiably large number of Soviet tourists, be they by bus or car. Not all of them stayed in hotels. They either had left their buses, or stayed in their cars overnight. Border records indicate their points of entry as being through northern Transylvania. They all claimed they were in transit to Yugoslavia. The explanation was plausible, the Soviets being well-known for their shopping trips. Unfortunately, we did not have enough forces and the conditions did not allow us to monitor the activities of at least some of these “tourists.”[8]
[Page 7
Document 4
Informational Note from the Romanian Embassy in Moscow
to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Bucharest)
21 December 1989, 8:00 am
Cde. Ion Stoian, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Cde. Costantin Oancea, Deputy Foreign Minister,
DR1
During the evening of 20 December 1989, I was invited in audience at I. P. Aboimov,
Deputy Foreign Minister of USSR….
At I. P. Aboimov’s question, I described the events regarding the situation of pastor
László Tökes, as described in your memorandum, stressing that this information does not have an
official character. I presented, in no uncertain terms, the decision of [the government of] Romania
to reject any attempts at interference in the internal matters of Romania. I expressed the decision
[of the Romanian leadership] to take any necessary measures against disruptive and diversionary
actions perpetrated by reactionary, anti-Romanian circles, by foreign special services and
espionage agencies (servicii speciale si oficinele de spionaj staine). With regard to the issue of
tourists crossing the border in Romania, I said that I did not posses an official communication in
this regard. I suggested that some temporary measures were adopted due to the need to limit
access of certain groups of tourists [in the country]. [Those limitats were imposed] due to
difficulties in assuring their access to hotel rooms and other related essential conditions. Those
limitations do not apply to business travel or tourists transiting Romania. I reminded [I. P.
Aboimov] that the Soviet government had introduced at different times such limitations on travel
for Romanian tourists to certain regions [of the Soviet Union] (Grozny and Armenia), which
[had] provoked dissatisfaction.
4. The conversation took place in a calm, constructive atmosphere.
(ss) [Ambassador] Ion Bucur (CWHIP, “New Evidence on the 1989 Crisis in Romania,” 2001)]
This raises the question of why, if the Soviet tourists were the ones suspected from the first of being behind the unrest, it should have been exactly they who were given continued access into Romania? One of the most effective rejections of the “tourist” scenario came in 1991 from “a group of [Army] officers from the Timisoara garrison.” In an open letter, they proclaimed:
If they [the tourists] appeared suspect to the special forces of the Securitate and counter-military intelligence, why did they not attempt to keep them under surveillance? During this period, did the Securitate and the counter-intelligence officers not know how to do their jobs? Did they somehow forget why they were paid such weighty sums from the state budget?[9]
As we mentioned earlier, in an interesting psychological twist the former Securitate sometimes appear to attribute their own actions to others, especially the convenient phantom-like “foreign tourists.” Some of the Securitate’s arguments also appear to be based on the manipulation and perversion of real information which has been ripped from its context and placed in another one which suits the Securitate’s institutional interests better. For example, the comments of the Yugoslav News Agency (TANJUG) correspondent at the Vatin border post on 20 December 1989 may give us a hint as to where the idea of “foreign tourists travelling in convoys of cars” originated from:
People who spent a long time at this crossing point today say that the Romanian government is even accompanying private cars of tourists returning home via Romania. They usually wait until five or six of them assemble and then let them continue in convoys led by official Romanian cars.[10]
Finally, we will recall that the French journalists, Portocala and Weber, support their claims of “foreign intervention” by referencing the court statement of the Securitate’s “master spycatcher” (Colonel Filip Teodorescu) that during the events he arrested “foreign agents” in Timisoara. As it turns out, Teodorescu does indeed appear to have arrested “intelligence agents” at a major Timisoara factory. However, they were members of DIA, the Army’s intelligence unit, and not agents of foreign security services.[11]
Throughout Monday, house-to-house searches and arrests continued in Timisoara. Protesters attempted to gather again and began chanting the most tragic slogan of these days: “We want our dead!” Regime forces responded by opening fire again. At least seven people were killed and more than one hundred injured on 18 and 19 December alone. Securitate men are alleged to have shot some of the injured demonstrators in their hospital beds. This rumor seems to be confirmed by the observation of an Army soldier who witnessed the exhumation of twenty-seven bodies from the Timisoara “Paupers’ cemetery” in January 1990: some of the corpses bore clear signs of treated wounds.[12] Upon the orders of Elena Ceausescu, during the night of 18/19 December the Securitate and Militia removed the cadavers of forty dead protesters from the morgue of the county hospital and transported them to Bucharest where they were incinerated.[13] Just as on the night of 16/17 December when the regime had gone to absurd lengths to make it appear as if nothing unusual had happened the previous evening at the county party headquarters building–by repairing all the physical damage in the area–this incident reflected the belief that “where there are no identity papers and no bodies, there can be no dead.” The Orwellian reflexes of the regime never left it even in its greatest moment of crisis.
[5].. See Mircea Bunea, Praf in Ochi. Procesul Celor 24-1-2. (Bucharest: Editura Scripta, 1994), 34.
[6].. Belgrade Domestic Service, 1400 GMT 20 December 1989, in FBIS-EEU-89-243, 20 December 1989.
[7].. Agence France Presse, 19 December 1989, in FBIS-EEU-89-242, 19 December 1989.
[8].. Filip Teodorescu, Un Risc Asumat: Timisoara decembrie 1989 (Bucharest: Editura Viitorul Romanesc, 1992), 92.
[9].. Un grup de ofiteri din garnizoana Timisoara, “FRICA DE PROPRIUL POPOR… [Fear of your own people]” Romania Libera, 15 October 1991, 2a.
[10].. Belgrade TANJUG, 2137 GMT 20 December 1989, in FBIS-EEU-89-244, 21 December 1989, 80. Disinformation is frequently thought of as synonymous with the “big lie,” but indeed the most effective disinformation always contains a kernel of truth. Frequently, real facts are merely presented out of context. It is also intriguing to note the almost Freudian mirror-imaging quality of this disinformation–a characteristic common to totalitarian regimes. This is especially the case when it comes to the accusations of foreign powers being engaged in “terrorist actions”–an eerily accurate description of the Ceausescu regime’s own actions.
[11].. On this bizarre and slightly comical incident see “FRICA DE PROPRIUL POPOR” and Ilie Stoian, Decembrie ‘89: Arta Diversiunii. (Bucharest: Editura Colaj, 1993), 17-18. In spite of Teodorescu’s steadfast allegations regarding the role played by foreign agents, he admits that those he arrested were DIA officers (Teodorescu, Un Risc Asumat, 96). The circumstances surrounding this incident remain unclear; however, it may be an indication of the inter-institutional rivalry which permeated much of the December events.
[12].. Liviu Stefanut, interview by Dan Preisz, “Teroristii Timisoarei,” Romania Libera, 21 April 1994, 6. Although Securitate Colonel Teodorescu vehemently denies this allegation, his description of what went on during these days at the county hospital only serves to heighten such suspicion (Teodorescu, Un Risc Asumat, 87-89). Hospital staff maintain that the Securitate conducted brutal interrogations and that no medical staff were present, see the comments of Curpas Florica in Titus Suciu, Reportaj cu Sufletul la Gura [Reporting with Your Soul in Your Throat] (Timisoara: Editura Facla, 1990), 145.
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In English and Romanian, see, for example, the following on the episode mentioned above
The mask of the red death: The evil politics of cremation in Romania in December 1989
Marius Rotar
Mortality: Promoting the interdisciplinary study of death and dying, 1469-9885, Volume 15, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 1 – 17
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a919672850
Jean Jaures (1859-1914)
This article presents an analysis of an episode which had great reverberations in Romanian society during the revolution of December 1989. It is focused on the cremation at the Cenu
a Crematorium in Bucharest of 43 bodies belonging to people who were killed in Timioara on the 17 December 1989 during the riots against the Communist regime. The Romanian communist authorities aimed to delete the traces of the repression in Timioara. The explanation given to the families of the people cremated, namely that they had fled from communist Romania, also served this purpose. This incident reveals the ways in which politics and death merged in communist Romania, and it presents a typical case of what Douglas Davies calls the evil politics of cremation.
Keywords: communism; revolution; cremation; scandals
http://mariusmioc.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/a-inceput-constructia-bisericii-popesti-leordeni/#more-8198
http://mariusmioc.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/tatulici-tatomir-povestea-timisorii-13-furtul-cadavrelor/
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also in relation to a correction by Marius Mioc
romanianrevolutionofdecember1989 said
Regarding the following sentence from Chapter 6 (written in 1996), “This rumor seems to be confirmed by the observation of an Army soldier who witnessed the exhumation of twenty-seven bodies from the Timisoara “Paupers’ cemetery” in January 1990: some of the corpses bore clear signs of treated wounds.[12]
[12].. Liviu Stefanut, interview by Dan Preisz, “Teroristii Timisoarei,” Romania Libera, 21 April 1994, 6. Although Securitate Colonel Teodorescu vehemently denies this allegation, his description of what went on during these days at the county hospital only serves to heighten such suspicion (Teodorescu, Un Risc Asumat, 87-89). Hospital staff maintain that the Securitate conducted brutal interrogations and that no medical staff were present, see the comments of Curpas Florica in Titus Suciu, Reportaj cu Sufletul la Gura [Reporting with Your Soul in Your Throat] (Timisoara: Editura Facla, 1990), 145.
Marius Mioc claims that I confused the Paupers’ cemetery (cimitirul saracilor) and the Heroes’ cemetery (cimitirul eroilor) in this passage and that there were 10 not 27 corpses (see http://mariusmioc.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/rich-andrew-hall-rescrierea-istoriei-revolutiei-triumful-revizionismului-securist-in-romania-2-18-19-decembrie-evenimentele-din-timisoara-in-absenta-lui-ceausescu/). My words, however, are based on those of the soldier (Liviu Stefanut) who was interviewed. Here is what Stefanut said:
“In fata unitatii [UM 01864/I au fost 3 sau 4. Cei mai multi au fost impuscati la baricada, dupa ce s-a iesit din unitate. Nu s-a mai spus, pana acum, ca acesti 18 morti–intre care si o fetita de 10 ani–au fost ingropati, ca inca vreo cativa, cu excavatorul, in Cimitirul Saracilor, chiar pe Calea Lipovei, la o statie de troleibuze de unitate…Stiu ca au fost descoperiti pe 20 ianuarie, de noi, pentru ca s-a aflat ca au fost ingropati cu excavatorul. Si eu am asistat la dezgropare, la primii 17…Dupa aceea, nu am mai rezistat…Deja era o luna si patru zile de cand fusesera impuscati. 18 dintre ei au fost omorati la baricada din Calea Lipovei. Au fost mai multi ingropati, vreo 27, am impresia. Deci, au fost impuscati, dusi la doctor, operati, scoase gloantele, cusuti. S-ar putea ca unii dintre ei sa fi fost vii cand au fost scosi din spital, dusi acolo, ingropati, daca nu cumva ingropate de vii.”
It is unclear here whether Stefanut is conflating the two cemeteries, mixing elements of the two different events toegether or basing his knowledge of the events on more hearsay than he is willing to admit. Nevertheless, what he describes here, based on the date, is as Marius Mioc points out NOT the Paupers cemetery (cimitirul saracilor), but the Heroes cemetery (cimitirul eroilor).
Marius Mioc thus does us an important service in clarifying this confusion…because as is well-known the case of the Paupers’ cemetery with unearthed corpses that turned out to not have been from those who died as a result of the bloodshed became a cause celebre, particularly among those of a post-modernist bent. The terrible, tragic irony is that while publications such as Le Figaro and other French press were reporting in late January about the supposed “false massacre” in Timisoara–based on the Paupers’ cemetery incident–they were overlooking the real elements of the Timisoara massacre–the 15 January 1990 discovery of 10 bodies in the Heroes’ cemetery, including the tragic better-known cases of Luminita Botoc (age 14, shot on 17 December) and Sorin Leia (age 23, shot on 18 December).
A look at some of the most influential, or at least sensationalist literature (for example, Michel Castex), on the December 1989 events in Romania, reveals much discussion of the alleged “staged massacre that never happened” of the Paupers cemetery–referred to as “The Timisoara Syndrome” by some–is coupled with NO mention of the 15 January 1990 discovery of real victims of the December bloodshed in the Heroes cemetery.
Witness two classic cases:
Jean Baudrillard (trans. Chris Turner), The Illusion of the End (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994), pp. 54-61 “The Timisoara massacre.”
p. 55 “It was not the dead that were the scandal, but the corpses being pressed into appearing before the television cameras, as in the past dead souls were pressed into appearance in the register of deaths.”
p. 60 “And yet there will, nonetheless, have been a kind of verdict in this Romanian affair, and the artificial heaps of corpses will have been of some use, all the same one might ask whether the Romanians, by the very excessiveness of this staged event and the simulacrum of their revolution, have not served as demistifyers of news and its guiding principle…Who can say what responsibility attaches to the televisual production of a false massacre (Timisoara), as compared with the perpetrating of a true massacre?”
Andrei Codrescu (well-known poet and National Public Radio commentator), The Hole in the Flag. A Romanian Exile’s Story of Return and Revolution (New York, William Morrow and Company, 1991), pp. 203-204 (in February 2005 in Jurnalul National, Vladimir Tismaneanu described Codrescu’s account unreservedly and memorably as “impeccably accurate”):
“The Romanian ‘Revolution’ was entirely televised, all those of us who believed for years with Gil Scott-Heron that ‘the revolution will not be televised’ were shaken by it. In truth, there were two revolutions: a real revolution that was not televised and that continues, particularly in Timisoara, and a studio revolution that fooled the entire world. Who could forget the piles of corpses stacked like cordwood in front of the Timisoara cathedral?…Or the image of the mother and child shot with a single bullet, lying in the arms of death? Watching these images in New Orleans via CNN, I was moved and enraged, along with millions of others in the world. We now know. The mass graves discovered in Timisoara and presented to the world as proof of the Hitlerite insanity of Securitate were in fact bodies dug out of a pauper’s cemetery with autopsy scars visible. Many of them were in an advanced state of decay…And the extraordinary picture of the mother and her baby killed with the same bullet, seen thousands of times on all the world’s TV screens, was a gross collage. A woman who had died of alcoholism had had an unrelated dead baby placed on her chest for video purposes. Someone made a neat bullet hole in both bodies.”
Marius Mioc brings us back to reality, however, explaining how desperation to find loved ones, and not some grand “staged” event, led to the frantic digging up of the graves on 22 December 1989 in the Paupers cemetery…and how some of those being sought were only discovered in the common grave dug up in the Heroes cemetery on 15 January 1990…
“Despre sute de cadavre filmate eu n-am auzit, am auzit de 2 filmări, una din 22 decembrie 1989 şi una din ianuarie 1990, fiecare cu vreo 10 cadavre. Că de la o filmare cu 10 cadavre unii ajung să-şi închipuie că au văzut sute sau mii de cadavre e problema lor şi a psihologilor.
Filmarea din 22 decembrie a fost cu cadavre dezgropate din cimitirul săracilor. Aceia nu erau morţi din revoluţie ci sărăntoci fără familie îngropaţi pe cheltuiala Primăriei. Familiile celor morţi în revoluţie, care nu găseau cadavrele celor dragi (fuseseră incinerate, dar nu se ştia asta pe atunci), în disperare au căutat pe unde le-a trecut prin minte, şi au dezgropat şi morţii de la cimitirul săracilor. S-a crezut atunci sincer că aceia sînt morţi din revoluţie.
În ianuarie 1990 s-a descoperit o altă groapă comună, la cimitirul eroilor, iar aceasta era într-adevăr cu morţi din revoluţie, îngropaţi cam prin 27 decembrie fiindcă nimeni nu-i revendica şi mirosea urît la morgă, nu mai puteau să-i ţină. Cazuri concrete sînt Sorin Leia http://timisoara.com/newmioc/11.htm sau Luminiţa Boţoc http://timisoara.com/newmioc/33.htm”
http://piatauniversitatii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=974
Here is the case of Luminita Botoc and her father: his fruitless search first on 22 December 1989 at the Paupers cemetery, and then tragically finding his dead daughter on 15 January 1990 at the Heroes cemetery:
Gasita in groapa comuna http://timisoara.com/newmioc/33.htm
Botoc Luminita Florina
nascuta in 16 aprilie 1976 la Timisoara, eleva, gasita in ianuarie 1990 in groapa comuna din cimitirul eroilor
Botoc Virgil (tata):
nascut in 1952 in comuna Focuri, sat Fintinele (jud. Iasi), cioplitor in marmura
In 17 decembrie pe la ora 19-19,30 am auzit o coloana de manifestanti care treceau prin fata blocului (str. Pomiculturii – n.n.) strigind “Jos Ceausescu!”, “Romani veniti cu noi!”, “Si voi sinteti romani!”.
Fetele Luminita, Cristina si Lacramioara au coborit. Luminita s-a dus cu manifestantii.
Dupa un timp am iesit pe balcon si am vazut ca s-au tras trei rachete rosii. I-am zis nevestei: “Ceva nu-i in regula! O sa se deschida focul!”. Peste 5-10 minute am auzit focuri de arma.
Am vazut ca Luminita nu se intoarce. M-am gindit ca a vazut ca se trage si a ramas la o prietena peste noapte.
Dimineata m-am dus in Calea Lipovei si m-am intilnit cu colegul Avadanei Stefan care mi-a povestit ca au fost morti. I-am zis ca si fata mea a fost printre manifestanti iar el mi-a spus ca printre morti se afla si o fata cu fis rosu, asa cum era imbracata Luminita. Avadanei mi-a spus ca toti ranitii si mortii au fost dusi la Clinicile Noi. Am plecat la Clinicile Noi. Acolo, autopsierul mi-a spus ca fata mea a fost moarta si a trimis-o la morga, la spitalul judetean.
A 2-a zi (19) am fost la spitalul judetean. Am mers la doctorul Dressler care s-a uitat in registre si a spus ca nu este nici un mort in morga. Am intrebat cum nu este nici un mort ca de la Clinicile Noi fata mea a fost adusa aicea. Un soldat in uniforma M.Ap.N., de vreo 18-19 ani, a venit cu arma asupra mea si a spus de ce fac galagie si sa plec imediat ca ma impusca.
In 20 sotia s-a dus cu o vecina la spital s-o caute pe Luminita. A vorbit cu un militian, i-a spus de fata. Militianul a dus-o in spital. Acolo erau trei domni imbracati in halate albe si cu arme la ei. Nevasta le-a dat datele fetei si o fotografie, iar domnii aceia i-au spus sa mearga acasa linistita, ca o sa ne anunte ei daca Luminita e ranita sau moarta.
In 22 dimineata la cimitirul saracilor s-au dezgropat niste morti. Am fost si eu acolo sa vad daca n-o gasesc pe Luminita. Aici era o groapa comuna, o alta groapa cu un singur mort si inca un mort in capela. Mortii fusesera ingropati dezbracati. Unii erau cusuti cu sirma, cel din capela avea si picioarele legate cu sirma. Am scos mortii, i-am pus pe niste cearsafuri.
O masina a trecut pe Calea Lipovei si anunta de la o statie de amplificare ca Ceausescu a fost prins.
La spitalul judetean n-am mai fost fiindca mi se spusese ca acolo nu mai sint morti si auzisem ca mortii de acolo au fost dusi la Bucuresti.
In 24 decembrie am fost la procuratura, am dat declaratii si fotografia fetei. Procurorul Balan mi-a spus ca are 60 de teroristi arestati si va cerceta daca recunoaste vreunul fotografia.
In 15 ianuarie iar am fost la tribunal si procurorul Balan mi-a spus ca pina acum nimeni n-a recunoscut-o pe fiica mea. Dupa ce am iesit de la tribunal, am aflat ca in cimitirul Eroilor s-a descoperit o noua groapa comuna. Am mers acolo. In groapa erau 11 morti, printre care si Luminita.
18 martie 1995
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The Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 