Radio România Internațional

Tag: miners’ riots

  • Miners’ riots in the early 1990s

    Miners’ riots in the early 1990s


    The
    violent outbursts of June 13-15, 1990, having miners’ arrival in Bucharest as
    their momentum as well as the miners’ lashing out at Romanian capital city’s
    civilian population meant that Romanian society was backtracking on democracy,
    within six months since Romanians had regained their freedom in December 1989.
    The events back then proved that a society that had freshly emerged from a
    totalitarian political regime still had the demons of the past to fight before
    it healed completely. In June 1990, it was for the third time that Bucharest
    had been stormed by the miners, in a bid to back the then National Salvation
    Front against opposition parties. Among other things, miners’ riots were in
    fact a manifestation of hatred and intolerance against democratic pluralism
    which at that time was very difficult to become functional in Romania. Against
    the backdrop of the protest rallies mounted by the Opposition in April 1990 and
    in the aftermath of the election held on May 20, 1990, won by the National
    Salvation Front, tension was literally spiraling. On June 30, 1990, the state
    institutions tried to quash the protest rallies in University Square, which was
    the beginning of three-day long violent clashes that eventually claimed the
    lives of 6 people, leaving 750 other wounded.


    What
    happened over June 13-15 was a one-of-a-kind event. The historian Cristian Vasile told us what was so very unique about that
    event.


    Some of the historians placed it against the backdrop of the time span
    that occurred immediately after communism in Romania, describing it as the last
    repression of a communist origin ever to have been staged in the country. And
    they are right, I think, because manifestations back then, consisting in the
    reprisal of part of the civilian population, have certain points in common with
    what happened in national history immediately after 1944. An explanation of
    that could be the fact that the political staff and political practices of
    March, 1945, continued even after that date. The common political practice of instigating
    civilians against one another was also implemented in June 1990.


    It has
    been said that miners’ riots of June 1990 were made possible by the state
    institutions being weak, by the riot police failing to quash protest rallies on
    June 13.

    Historian Cristian Vasile:

    I also tend to believe in the theory of the riot police being weak and
    unable to contain certain forms of popular unrest. If we have a closer look at
    how things developed over June 13 and 15, mostly on June 13 as that is the
    climactic day, we can indeed see the riot police slackening, but there are also
    a couple of issues that have been hitherto unexplained. There are several recordings,
    real recordings, there are those radio interventions of then the deputy
    Interior Minister, general Diamandescu, who said something like we are going
    to set the buses ablaze, as agreed, to the recipient of his messages. What are
    we to make of that kind of exchange? Then there are concordant testimonies
    whereby there were not the rioters who set fire on the police building in the
    capital city, but the building was set ablaze from the inside. Also unexplained is how hundreds of policemen retreated with no defense, leaving
    the Interior Ministry building also unprotected.


    The
    new power embodied by Ion Iliescu had to be strengthened through the
    manipulation of the crowds, so most of those who analyzed miners’ riots view
    that as a meaningful explanation of events back then.

    Historian Cristian Vasile:


    The unrest that flared up in University Square and Victoria Road was
    quashed around midnight on the night to of June 13 and all through to 3 am, on June
    14. Riot police managed to have everything under control, rioters had been
    arrested. The miners came a little bit later, they were welcomed by the then
    president Ion Iliescu. Instead of defusing the tension, telling the miners the
    army and the police had everything under control, Ion Iliescu invited them to
    occupy University Square. What was the purpose of such a move, since a couple
    of hours earlier the police and the army totally controlled the situation? That
    utterly reckless invitation led to the violent clashes that broke out on June
    14, in the morning, and on the following day. So all in all, it was an
    absolutely pointless instigation to violence, a criminal act which was worthy
    of the Criminal Code.




    The miners’ riots of June 1990 were one last
    convulsion of the communist mindset, in a society that had but newly emerged
    from the collapse of the communist regime in December 1989.

    Cristian Vasile:

    Why the miners? Attempts were made with other categories of workers,
    even over June 13 and 14. There is official evidence of a call being made for
    workers from Bucharest, of several factories and plants, of the August 23 Plants
    and suchlike. Quite a few of the unions turned down the proposal and refused to
    intervene, on the grounds that the conflict was of a political nature and it
    was not for them to set things to rights. Yet it appears that the miners as a
    category were more receptive to the propaganda of the then National Salvation
    Front, of Iliescu’s regime. As for Ion Iliescu, he has been defending himself
    claiming he did not make his call to the miners alone, but to all responsible
    social forces. But that is an aggravating circumstance for somebody who is the
    president of a country. And it is here that the tragedy of those episode lies,
    there was the buoyancy of part of the Bucharest population who literally gave
    miners rounds of applause for what they were doing. And what they did was to
    beat young students to a pulp, as well as bearded men or women wearing
    mini-skirts. Which was a stark reminder of Ceausescu’s policy, of rockers being
    hunted in the 1970s.

    The
    price Romania had to pay for miners’ riots of June 13-15, 1990, was its own
    international isolation. Specifically, that meant the agreement with the IMF
    being frozen, but also the impossibility to contract another loan.
    Politically, miners’ riots of June 1990 stalled Romania’s gaining accession to
    the Council of Europe. It was not until 1993 that Romania became a member of
    the Council of Europe, much later than many other countries of the former
    Soviet Bloc.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)


  • The court case into the miner riots of 1990

    The court case into the miner riots of 1990

    14 persons have been indicted in connection to the miner riots of 13-15 June 1990, six months after the fall of communism. Some high-profile names that dominated the Romanian political scene at the time are about to appear before the High Court of Cassation and Justice: the former leftist president Ion Iliescu, the former prime minister Petre Roman, the former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu, the former director of the Romanian Intelligence Service Virgil Magureanu and Miron Cozma, the former trade union leader of the miners in the Jiu Valley coal mines, in the centre-west.



    The miner riots occurred less than a month after elections that had validated Ion Iliescu’s regime. Not everyone was convinced, however, that the latter was committed to democracy, the rule of law and a market economy, and many continued to voice their opposition in the street. Ion Iliescu said the right wing was trying to stage of coup and called on the population to defend the democratic institutions. Thousands of miners then came to Bucharest and stormed the University building and the headquarters of the oppositions parties and of some independent newspapers. Army prosecutor Marian Lazar explains:



    “These incidents occurred as a result of the diversion and manipulation of public opinion by the state authorities represented by the defendants, who presented the situation in a distorted manner and spread the idea that they were the product of a so-called far-right, legionnaire-type, rebellion. The protesters expressing their own political opinions were presented as criminals, extremists and reactionaries and described by the president elect of Romania as ‘hooligans’. The persons forcefully detained in the University Square and others believed to be connected to the protests were taken to police barracks, subject to unlawful arrests and held in unsuitable conditions. They were kept in detention without being formally charged until 21st of June 1990 at the latest.”



    Four people died from gunshots, almost 1,400 suffered physical and psychological abuse and 1,250 were detained for political reasons, according to prosecutors. Inquiries into this case were resumed at the beginning of 2015 following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that obliged the Romanian authorities to identify the people responsible. The initial case had been dragged on for almost 20 years before being closed in 2009 without anyone being found guilty. The people now sitting in the defendants’ box, in particular Ion Iliescu, repeatedly said they are not responsible for the events of June 1990. (Translated by C. Mateescu)

  • Miners’ raids file makes headlines again

    Miners’ raids file makes headlines again

    On May 20, 1990, five months after the fall of Nicolae Ceusescu’s repressive regime, his former minister in the 1970s, Ion Iliescu, generally seen as a leader of the 1989 Revolution, won the first free presidential elections in Romania with 85% of the votes. His party, a heterogeneous combination of genuine revolutionaries and second-hand communists also won two thirds of the seats in Parliament. In Bucharest, University Square that had been occupied, ever since April, by students and proclaimed ‘free of neo-communism’, was empty, as protesters had to comply with the result of the elections.



    Only several tens of hunger strikers that seemed unable to cope with the disastrous outcome of the elections were still in the square that had previously hosted tens of thousands of exuberant and peaceful people. On the night of June 13, the riot police cracked down on protesters with such disproportionate force that it evoked the violent repression during the Revolution. It is still unclear if those who reacted the next day by engaging in street fighting against the riot police and storming the offices of the Interior Ministry and the National Television had any real connection with the Square or not.



    Ion Iliescu called them ‘legionnaires’, an allusion to the interwar far right movement, and, in spite of the fact that the army had already reinstated order, he called on people to come and rescue democracy, which he said was endangered. The miners in the Jiu Valley, in South-Western Romania, answered the president’s call. For only two days, on June 14 and 15, they took control of the capital city and acted as supreme authority. Time enough for them to kill at least four people, injure several hundreds and throw over one thousand people behind bars. The miners devastated the Bucharest University building, the head offices of several parties and of several independent newspapers.



    To Laura Codruta Kovesi, the former general prosecutor and current head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, the inquiry into the miners’ raid was one of the biggest failures in the history of the Public Ministry. Pundits say that the case would have probably been closed for good if it wasn’t for the European Court of Human Rights that ordered Romania to continue investigations in the case. Aged 85, Ion Iliescu is currently the honorary president of the Social Democratic Party, the main party in the government coalition.



    A former defense minister, general Victor Atanasie Stanculescu has already served time in prison for his involvement in the violent repression of protesters during the 1989 Revolution. In his turn, the ex-Intelligence Service chief, Virgil Magureanu, also gave testimony before prosecutors about his own role in the incident. All three of them are now answering for their involvement in this incident that marred the countrys transition from communism to democracy.