Dan Voinea, D.S.S. (Securitatea) Direcția a-VI-a – Anchete Penale, and the CPADCR (“Tismaneanu Commission”) Final Report’s Chapter on December 1989
The authors/editors of the chapter on December 1989 in the CPADCR (“Tismaneanu Commission”)’s Final Report–publicly, at least, to include Stelian Tanase, Sorin Iliesu, and Vladimir Tismaneanu–based its conclusions on the existence/inexistence of Ceausescu loyalists in December 1989 on the claims of Prosecutor Dan Voinea:
Prin televiziune s-au făcut majoritatea diversiunilor, cea mai eficientă fiind reprezentată de „pericolul de moarte” omniprezent întruchipat de „teroriştii fideli dictatorului Ceauşescu”; acesta a fost arestat în 22 decembrie, într-o unitate militară din Târgovişte. Pericolul părea total credibil întrucât în perioada 22-27 decembrie au fost înregistraţi 942 de morţi şi mii de răniţi. Majoritatea au fost ucişi şi răniţi pe străzile din centrul capitalei şi al altor oraşe martirizate ca urmare a acestei diversiuni. Ulterior nu a fost acuzat şi judecat nici un terorist….Potrivit declaraţiilor generalului-magistrat Dan Voinea…„În decembrie 1989 scopul era deturnarea caracterului anticomunist al revoluţiei şi preluarea puterii prin teroarea instalată”17. [pp. 623-624]
Voinea’s findings and claims on December 1989–as I have demonstrated repeatedly on this site–are, however, replete with painfully bad mistakes, omissions, and outright lies. There is no doubt that, at a minimum, he is just bad at his craft (see the devastating comments of Laura Codruta Kovesi about Voinea when he was dismissed, http://evz.ro/kovesi-despre-revolutia-ratata-a-lui-voinea-a-gresit-ca-un-incepator-868918.html ).
I have increasingly come to believe, however, that there may be something more at work here: Voinea appears to have been a member of/or at least be compromised by his links to Ceausescu’s communist “secret police,” the Securitate, specifically the Sixth Directorate, charged with “criminal/penal investigations”. Does this matter? Does this have relevance for evaluating his investigations of December 1989–where he, unambiguously, denies the existence and responsibility for bloodshed post 22 December 1989 of Securitate “terrorists” fighting on behalf of Nicolae Ceausescu? In a word: YES!
I recently came across my notes from the B.A.R. (Biblioteca Academiei Romane) from March 1994, where my reading of the anti-FSN/Iliescu GDS periodical 22 from 1990 led me to write, dryly: “Dan Voinea, Dir(ectorate) VI (Securitate) Cerc(etari) Penale, later SRI,” after reading articles by the dissident Radu Filipescu and Dan Pavel. One has to understand the context of the time: Voinea was still a relative unknown. Universally known for his role in the perfunctory trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu on 25 December 1989 but little else. When I read this, I thus read it through the lens through which it was written and presented: Dan Voinea as a foot soldier in the emerging holdover regime of Ion Iliescu and Co.
from 23 March 1994
“In cladirea fostei directii de cercetari penale a Securitatii Statului, ancheta a fost condusa de procurorul Dan Voinea de la Directia de cercetari penale a Armatei, transformata apoi in directie a SIR (sic.) (Serviciul de Informatii Roman).”
http://revista22.ro/nou/arhivapdf/14_1990.pdf
This probably explains, Dan Badea’s description from 2009: “…iar ofiţerii trecuţi în rezervă de la „cercetări penale” urmau a fi înlocuiţi cu procurori. Interesant, aici, este faptul că unul dintre procurorii care au fost repartizaţi pentru scurt timp la această ultimă direcţie invocată (Cercetări Penale) a fost procurorul Dan Voinea, cel care avea să se ocupe apoi de Dosarele Revoluţiei.” http://www.presadeinvestigatii.ro/2009/10/12/doi-si-un-sfert-este-avortonul-consiliului-sigurantei-nationale/ . The talented, but unfortunately also serial plagiarizer, Madalin Hodor, lifted this without citing it as follows: “…că ofiţerii de anchete penale ai Direcţiei a VI-a trecuţi în rezervă urmau să fie înlocuiţi de „procurori“ (Dan Voinea a fost detaşat în această unitate embrionară pentru o scurtă perioadă înainte să „se ocupe“ de Dosarul Revoluţiei)…” http://revista22online.ro/70263419/marile-famiglii-mama-sipa-si-tata-dipi-ii.html
Dan Pavel (p. 11) “La sfirsitul lunii februarie a.c., amintirea Departumentului Securitatii Statului nu ramasese doar in dosarul anchetatorului. Colonelul de justitie pe care il insoteam (pe nume de Dan Voinea si despre care ma intreb daca esta una si aceasi persoana cu Coriolon Voinea, colaboratorul generalului Gica Popa), mi-a oferit garnatii cu efect contrar calmului: mi-a aratat pistolul ascuns discret in mapa dinsului.”
All of this puts in a new perspective and yields confirmation for the claims of Ion Baciu in his testimony of 18 January 1990 about the events of 20 December 1989…that he knew Dan Voinea already…
Colonel Ion Baciu: Pe 20.12.89 la orele 1010 la crematoriu a venit Lt. Col Voinea Dan…pe care-l cunosc intrucit inainte…a lucrat la Departmentul Securitatii Statului, directia cercetari penale.
Posted by romanianrevolutionofdecember1989 on December 20, 2013
[documentary evidence in support of the publication entitled: Bullets, Lies, and Videotape: The Amazing, Disappearing Counter-Revolution of December 1989,
strictly personal research, not for reproduction without prior author authorization]
unfortunately, the link is no longer operable here http://dosarelerevolutiei.ro/volumul-203/
luckily, Claude 2.0 http://claude02.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-fost-oare-folosit-virf-impins-mai.html saved an image from my own initial post of this!
23.01.1990 Declaratie: Colonel Ion Baciu, șef al Direcției Economice din IGM,
(my thanks to researcher Mircea Munteanu, formerly of the CWIHP at the Woodrow Wilson Center, for helping me with the following transcription)
Pe 20.12.89 la orele 1010 la crematoriu a venit Lt. Col. Voinea Dan [[proc mil — procuror militar]] din D.P.M., pe care-l cunosc intrucit inainte de activare, a lucrat la Departmentul Securitatii Statului, directia cercetari penale.
Era imbracat civil, insotit de un procuror militar in uniforma. Au discutat cu o femeie, Geta, nu-i stiu numele care i-a spus: “[[Bine]] ca ati venit. Toata noaptea au ars aici si [[oamenilor]] le este teama.” Nu am auzit alte vorbe. Au discutat cu aceia femeie [[ca. –circa]] 15 minute dupa care au plecat.
Cred ca au fost trimisi acolo fie de Popovici, fie de Diaconescu, pentru a vedea cum decurge incinerarea.
Solicit sa fie audiati Popovici Nicolae, fost procuror general, Diaconescu Gh, adjunctul acestuia si cei doi procurori militari…
from Ion Baciu’s hearing 12 March 1990 http://www.banaterra.eu/romana/files/procesul_de_la_timisoara_volumul_II.pdf
Baciu’s courtroom testimony (no reference made to his 23 January 1990 handwritten testimony above) was discussed by Vasile Surcel in the following article:
Iosif Emilian’s lawyer (in September 1991) indeed suggested the involvement of the Prosecutor General in giving the cremations legal cover/legitimacy, hence explaining the presence of Dan Voinea and his colleague at Crematoriul Cenusa on 20 December 1989 (he also references Geta on p. 725). This is from the seventh volume of “Procesul de la Timisoara” available on the banaterra site.
But my use of the term “Orwellian” in the title of this paper is not only designed to capture Voinea’s uncanny ability to make definitive statements that are demonstrably wrong, to argue that black is white and white is black—from his denial of the use of gunfire simulators in December 1989, to his claim that the only “lunetisti” who acted after 22 December were from the Army, to his denial of the existence of weapons and (especially “vidia”) bullets not in the arsenal of the Army, to his denial of the existence of “terrorists,” to his denial that any military unit was attacked during the events, to his denial of the role of foreigners in the events….
I use the term “Orwellian” here as much to describe the ease with which he has gotten and gets away with errors, misunderstandings, and falsehoods that could easily be challenged, if not combated by his interlocutors in the Romanian media and intelligentsia. For it is the fact that he has been able and is able to get away with all this that is truly “Orwellian” and that is indeed a tragedy for Romania’s citizens. The tragedy is thus less the predictable “supply side” of the post-authoritarian lie, than the enthusiastic consumption and appetite for it. This is why I believe, accurately I would argue, that “December 1989” long ago became more about post-Ceausescu Romania than about what happened in December 1989.
The Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 