The European Parliament on Thursday voted a resolution on marking 30 years
\nsince the anticommunist revolution of 1989 in Romania. This is the first time
\nParliament adopts an official standpoint on the events of ’89, which altered
\nthe course of the country forever. Debated in Monday’s plenary sitting, the
\ndocument says that 1,142 people were killed, another 3,000 were gravely wounded
\nand a few hundred were detained illegally and tortured. The European Parliament
\nthus commemorates the event, paying homage to the victims’ families, saying
\nthat people’s sacrifice at the time enabled Romania’s transition to democracy,
\nthe rule of law and market economy, and helped integrated the country in NATO
\nin 2004 and the European Union in 2007. MEPs called on Romania to strengthen
\nits efforts to clarify the truth in relation to the events of the revolution. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Parliament
\nalso called on the institutions of the European Union and its Member States,
\nincluding Romania, to do their utmost to ensure that the crimes of communist
\nregimes are remembered, and to guarantee that such crimes will never be
\ncommitted again. In Bucharest, President Klaus Iohannis hailed the adoption of
\nthe resolution, which again confirms that the sacrifice of Romanians in
\nDecember 1989 is a cornerstone of democracy in Romania. The President admits
\nthat the state needs to acts swiftly to ascertain the truth behind the events
\nof ’89, and to bring the guilty to justice. In December 1989 Romanians said
\nno to communism and they paid for that with their lives. Today, Romanians are
\nagain part of the European family, MEP Traian Basescu said in turn. Back in
\n2006, during his term as president, Traian Basescu officially condemned the
\ncommunist regime, labeling it criminal and illegitimate. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Set up in Romania at
\nthe end of the Second World War with the occupation of Soviet troops, the
\ndictatorship in Bucharest is considered by some historians as some of the
\nharshest behind the Iron Curtain. In the first two decades, the repressive
\napparatus of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, a sympathizer of Stalinist Russia, some
\n600 thousand people were imprisoned, from democratic high-ranking officials to
\nsimple peasants who would not give up their lands, from Eastern-Catholic
\ncardinals to students who loved their country. Having succeeded Dej, Nicolae
\nCeausescu fueled, for a short while, the illusion of domestic liberalization
\nand the breakaway with Moscow. In time, his regime became a one-man
\ndictatorship, centered on a grotesque personality cult and imposing a severe
\nausterity on the population. His pathological thirst for power would eventually
\nturn Romania into the only country in Central and Eastern Europe where the
\ntoppling of the communist regime resulted in bloodshed.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated
\nby V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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