Reckoning With the Communist Past in Romania. a Scorecard

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Reckoning with the Communist Past inRomania: A ScorecardLavinia Stan aa Department of Political Science , St. Francis Xavier University ,Nova Scotia B2G 2W5, CanadaPublished online: 08 Aug 2012.

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Reckoning with the Communist Past inRomania: A Scorecard

LAVINIA STAN

Abstract

During the rst two decades following the collapse of the communist regime, Romania has reckonedwith the human rights infringements perpetrated from 1945 to 1989 with the help of a range of ocialand unocial, judiciary and non-judiciary, backward- and forward-looking methods pursued by avariety of state and non-state actors. This article summarises the progress registered to date in courttrials, lustration, access to secret les, property restitution, the truth commission, rehabilitation offormer political prisoners, compensation to victims and their descendants, the opinion tribunal,forensic investigations, rewriting history books, unocial truth projects and memorialisation.

THE TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE LITERATURE HAS GROWN exponentially, but Romania remainsan under-studied case, even though several authors have examined de-communisationeorts in that country. Grosescu and Ursachi (2009) documented the abundance ofcourt trials dealing with the 1989 revolution and the relative absence of cases related tocommunist human rights infringements. Stan (2009b) discussed lustration, court trialsand access to secret les, and drew comparisons with other post-communist countries.Andreescu (2001) provided a nuanced analysis of key transitional justice legislation.Chelcea (2003), Mates (2005), Stan (2006, 2007) and Stan and Turcescu (2007)analysed the restitution of dwellings and Greek Catholic places of worship. Tanasoiu(2007), Stan (2007), Tismaneanu (2008) and Ciobanu (2009) examined the truthcommission, Ciobanu (2008, 2011) investigated the way in which communist historyhas been rewritten, and Mica (2009) looked at public scandals centred on theinvolvement with the Securitate of prominent post-communist politicians. Whilepresenting the political negotiations that have shaped the Romanian politics ofmemory, the formulation and implementation of relevant legislation, the activity ofvarious transitional justice institutions and the positions of dierent political actors,these studies adopted a piecemeal approach, usually discussing one method inisolation, privileging state-led initiatives, downplaying truth-telling projects launchedby civil society groups and covering a limited period of time. Important transitionaljustice methodssuch as forensic investigations, the citizens opinion tribunal and the

EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES

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unocial truth projectshave never been presented in the literature published to date,be it in English or in Romanian.1

To address these lacunae, this article summarises the main transitional justicemethods adopted from 1989 to 2009, presenting the relevant legislative instrumentsand providing holistic assessments of the outcomes of each method. A variety ofjudicial and non-judicial, backward-looking and forward-looking, ocial andunocial transitional justice methods are reviewed. These include: court trials,lustration, property restitution, access to secret les, the truth commission,rehabilitation of former political prisoners, compensations to victims and theirdescendants, forensic investigations, rewriting history books, the opinion/citizenstribunal, unocial truth projects and memorialisation. Methodologically, the articleadopts a thematic approach, investigating both the interaction between national andinternational actors in advancing or stalling transitional justice and the statesocietyinterplay in determining the direction and scope of the politics of memory. Givenspace considerations, the article discusses transitional justice related only to thecommunist past, not to the December 1989 revolution. Note that eorts to reckonwith the communist regime and the 1989 revolution have been pursued concomitantlywith eorts to address the many crimes perpetrated by the pre-communist pro-NaziRomanian governments.During the rst two decades of post-communist rule, the country was ruled by the

former communists (the Social Democrat Party, Partidul Social Democrat) for 11years (19891996 and 20002004), by their political rivals (the Democratic Convention(Convent,ia Democrata) and the Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat), later renamedthe Democratic Liberal Party (Partidul Democrat Liberal)) for eight years (19962000and 20042008) and during 2009 by a government backed by both the SocialDemocrats and the Democrats. Both the Social Democrats and the Democrat Liberalsoriginated in the National Salvation Front (Frontul Salvarii Nat,ionale), the successorto the Communist Party that ruled Romania from 1945 to 1989. By contrast, theDemocratic Convention included as senior partners the National Liberal (PartidulNat,ional Liberal) and Christian Democrat Peasant (Partidul Nat,ional T, aranescCrestin-Democrat) Parties that alternatively ruled Romania during pre-communisttimes. Many leaders of these historical parties spent time in prison after Romaniabecame communist in 1945. Overall, the post-communist political elite has had nocoherent transitional justice project, maybe because the former communists and theirpolitical rivals never saw eye to eye when it came to addressing the recent past. Assuch, most of the gains registered from 1989 to 2009 were the result of the eorts ofindividual politicians, who often had to confront their own political parties in order toadvance transitional justice initiatives, and of the local civil society, which remaineddeeply divided between communists and anticommunists, the Romanian Orthodoxmajority and the ethnic and religious minorities, and Euro-supporters and Euro-sceptics.

1The citizens opinion tribunal is a quasi-judicial body comprised of ordinary citizens whocondemned communist crimes based on an indictment not backed by any concrete evidence. Whilesome authors dismiss these tribunals as farcical justice, others believe they are legitimate, butunocial, methods of reckoning with the recent past.

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unocial truth projectshave never been presented in the literature published to date,be it in English or in Romanian.1

To address these lacunae, this article summarises the main transitional justicemethods adopted from 1989 to 2009, presenting the relevant legislative instrumentsand providing holistic assessments of the outcomes of each method. A variety ofjudicial and non-judicial, backward-looking and forward-looking, ocial andunocial transitional justice methods are reviewed. These include: court trials,lustration, property restitution, access to secret les, the truth commission,rehabilitation of former political prisoners, compensations to victims and theirdescendants, forensic investigations, rewriting history books, the opinion/citizenstribunal, unocial truth projects and memorialisation. Methodologically, the articleadopts a thematic approach, investigating both the interaction between national andinternational actors in advancing or stalling transitional justice and the statesocietyinterplay in determining the direction and scope of the politics of memory. Givenspace considerations, the article discusses transitional justice related only to thecommunist past, not to the December 1989 revolution. Note that eorts to reckonwith the communist regime and the 1989 revolution have been pursued concomitantlywith eorts to address the many crimes perpetrated by the pre-communist pro-NaziRomanian governments.During the rst two decades of post-communist rule, the country was ruled by the

former communists (the Social Democrat Party, Partidul Social Democrat) for 11years (19891996 and 20002004), by their political rivals (the Democratic Convention(Convent,ia Democrata) and the Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat), later renamedthe Democratic Liberal Party (Partidul Democrat Liberal)) for eight years (19962000and 20042008) and during 2009 by a government backed by both the SocialDemocrats and the Democrats. Both the Social Democrats and the Democrat Liberalsoriginated in the National Salvation Front (Frontul Salvarii Nat,ionale), the successorto the Communist Party that ruled Romania from 1945 to 1989. By contrast, theDemocratic Convention included as senior partners the National Liberal (PartidulNat,ional Liberal) and Christian Democrat Peasant (Partidul Nat,ional T, aranescCrestin-Democrat) Parties that alternatively ruled Romania during pre-communisttimes. Many leaders of these historical parties spent time in prison after Romaniabecame communist in 1945. Overall, the post-communist political elite has had nocoherent transitional justice project, maybe because the former communists and theirpolitical rivals never saw eye to eye when it came to addressing the recent past. Assuch, most of the gains registered from 1989 to 2009 were the result of the eorts ofindividual politicians, who often had to confront their own political parties in order toadvance transitional justice initiatives, and of the local civil society, which remaineddeeply divided between communists and anticommunists, the Romanian Orthodoxmajority and the ethnic and religious minorities, and Euro-supporters and Euro-sceptics.

1The citizens opinion tribunal is a quasi-judicial body comprised of ordinary citizens whocondemned communist crimes based on an indictment not backed by any concrete evidence. Whilesome authors dismiss these tribunals as farcical justice, others believe they are legitimate, butunocial, methods of reckoning with the recent past.

2 LAVINIA STAN

Several general patterns characterise the Romanian post-communist transitionaljustice eort. First, the country adopted most transitional justice programmes withsome delay compared to its neighbours. For example, Romania was the last country inthe region to enact lustration in 2006 and it also passed property restitution legislationmore than a decade after Central European countries such as Germany, the CzechRepublic, Hungary and Poland (Allen 2006). Second, ocial transitional justice eortshave addressed the December 1989 revolution well before they addressed thecommunist crimes of the 19451989 period, perhaps because the crimes of the revolu-tion were more recent, the victims were more impatient and vocal, the revolution wasperceived as more gruesome than the long-forgotten communist crimes, and manypoliticians beneted personally from the advantages granted to revolution partici-pants. Third, during the 1990s the sharp rhetoric dividing left-wing politicians opposedto redressing communist crimes and right-wing politicians calling for court trials,lustration, property restitution, rehabilitation and compensation did not translate intodierent policy options, as the anticommunist camp proved reluctant to adopt resolutetransitional justice methods once it secured a solid parliamentary majority. Thepresence of former communist secret agents and party leaders explains the reluctanceof pro-democrat formations to support full disclosure of the truth about 19451989.Fourth, the political class has generally acted as a deterrent to, and the civil society

as a promoter of, reckoning with the past. For example, although rst proposed bycivil society groups in early 1990, lustration was adopted by parliament only 15 yearslater (Stan 2009a). Divided between historical parties, associations of former politicalprisoners and revolutionaries, civic and elitist intellectual groups (Grosescu 2007),religious denominations and groups inimical to the process of reckoning with thecommunist past (Stan 2011b), the Romanian civil society groups have been unable tospeak with one voice and to propose a coherent and comprehensive transitional justiceplan, often seeing other non-state actors as dangerous competitors rather thanpotential collaborators.2 Fifth, communist human rights infringements have beenaddressed mostly by non-judicial methods (the truth commission, the citizens tribunaland memorialisation), since the statute of limitations, the old age and health problemsof the defendants, and lack of clear evidence of wrongdoing have prevented thejudiciary from hearing relevant cases (Grosescu & Ursachi 2009). Sixth, ocial truth-telling initiatives pursued by state agencies have generally been perceived as morelegitimate than unocial truth projects proposed by civil society, even when theformer have been as politicised and incomplete as the latter. For instance, the

2Several non-state organisations have tried to shape post-communist transitional justice in Romania.They include, among others, historical and out-of-parliament political formations (the NationalLiberal Party (Partidul National Liberal), the Christian Democrat Peasant Party, and the Civic AllianceParty (Partidul Aliant,a Civica)); victims organisations (the Association of Former Political Prisonersin Romania (Asociat,ia Fostilor Det,inut,i Politici din Romania), the Association of Owners WhoseProperty Was Abusively Conscated (Asociat,ia Proprietarilor Abuziv Deposedat,i), but also theGheorghe Ursu Foundation (Fundat,ia Gheorghe Ursu)); groups of intellectuals (the Group for SocialDialog (Grupul de Dialog Social) and the Timisoara Society (Societatea Timisoara)); religious groups(the Romanian Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches); and groups opposed to transitional justice(the Association of Tenants Living in Nationalised Dwellings (Asociat,ia Chiriasilor din CaseleNat,ionalizate)and the Association of Tenants Who Acquired Ownership through Law 112/1995(Asociat,ia Proprietarilor pe Legea 112/1995)) (Stan 2011b).

RECKONING WITH THE COMMUNIST PAST IN ROMANIA 3 RECKONING WITH THE COMMUNIST PAST IN ROMANIA 129

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information on Securitate agents released by the National Council for the Study ofSecuritate Archives has been seen as more credible than the information released bythe unocial Armageddon 7 (Armaghedon 7) (see below), although the Councilscollaboration verdicts have often proven to be inaccurate, partial and provisory byeither the press or the courts.Seventh, in Romania, as in most other post-communist countries, the transitional

justice agenda has been driven primarily by domestic, not international, factors. Sincethe revolution of December 1989 was brief, no international court similar to theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was created to deal withits crimes. Romanian politicians have often claimed that the pursuit of transitionaljustice was in line with European values, but European integration, writ large, hasplayed a role only after 2000, that is, one full decade after the collapse of thecommunist regime. This delayed involvement was limited to small nancial grantsoered by the European Commissions Active European Remembrance programme tomemory projects related to education and public outreach (Gledhill 2011). TheEuropean Court of Human Rights has accepted a large number of property restitutioncases led by Romanians, but its rulings have yet to convince Romanian authorities tooverhaul the legislation. Last, the extreme politicisation of transitional justice and itsinstrumentalisation by political actors for electoral gains have delegitimised eorts touncover the truth about the recent past and prompted public disinterest toward theprocess. A 2010 opinion poll revealed strong nostalgia for communism, disinterest inreckoning with the communist past, and a lack of knowledge about communist humanrights infringements (Stan 2010).

The challenge of competing pasts

In Eastern Europe, 1989 was important because it allowed former communistcountries not only to build democracy and a free market economy, but also to reassesstheir recent dictatorial past. In Romania, that past related both to the communistregime of 19451989 and the revolution of December 1989. To use the terminologyproposed by Tina Rosenberg (1996), repression was deep from 1945 to 1964 and inDecember 1989, when many people were murdered, but wide during the late 1970sand the 1980s, when large segments of the population were placed under surveillance.By 1964, the pre-communist elites had been killed, along with thousands of peasantswho opposed the collectivisation drive, students and army ocers who stood up to theauthorities, and clergy and laypeople who refused to convert or to give up their faith(Budeanca & Olteanu 2008; Deletant 1999; Stanescu 2010). At the same time, anumber of leaders were imprisoned and/or killed during the ideological battles thatengulfed the small, divided and unpopular Communist Party, which establishedcontrol over the country with the help of Soviet troops (Levy 2001; Tismaneanu 2003).After Nicolae Ceausescu became the countrys new leader following the death of theStalinist dictator Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in 1964, widespread repression wasreplaced by surveillance and more subtle psychological terror that aected victimsdrawn from among those who sought to illegally cross the border to the West,transform communism into socialism with a human face, restore democracy andhuman rights, oblige communist leaders to obey international conventions protecting


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information on Securitate agents released by the National Council for the Study ofSecuritate Archives has been seen as more credible than the information released bythe unocial Armageddon 7 (Armaghedon 7) (see below), although the Councilscollaboration verdicts have often proven to be inaccurate, partial and provisory byeither the press or the courts.Seventh, in Romania, as in most other post-communist countries, the transitional

justice agenda has been driven primarily by domestic, not international, factors. Sincethe revolution of December 1989 was brief, no international court similar to theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was created to deal withits crimes. Romanian politicians have often claimed that the pursuit of transitionaljustice was in line with European values, but European integration, writ large, hasplayed a role only after 2000, that is, one full decade after the collapse of thecommunist regime. This delayed involvement was limited to small nancial grantsoered by the European Commissions Active European Remembrance programme tomemory projects related to education and public outreach (Gledhill 2011). TheEuropean Court of Human Rights has accepted a large number of property restitutioncases led by Romanians, but its rulings have yet to convince Romanian authorities tooverhaul the legislation. Last, the extreme politicisation of transitional justice and itsinstrumentalisation by political actors for electoral gains have delegitimised eorts touncover the truth about the recent past and prompted public disinterest toward theprocess. A 2010 opinion poll revealed strong nostalgia for communism, disinterest inreckoning with the communist past, and a lack of knowledge about communist humanrights infringements (Stan 2010).

The challenge of competing pasts

In Eastern Europe, 1989 was important because it allowed former communistcountries not only to build democracy and a free market economy, but also to reassesstheir recent dictatorial past. In Romania, that past related both to the communistregime of 19451989 and the revolution of December 1989. To use the terminologyproposed by Tina Rosenberg (1996), repression was deep from 1945 to 1964 and inDecember 1989, when many people were murdered, but wide during the late 1970sand the 1980s, when large segments of the population were placed under surveillance.By 1964, the pre-communist elites had been killed, along with thousands of peasantswho opposed the collectivisation drive, students and army ocers who stood up to theauthorities, and clergy and laypeople who refused to convert or to give up their faith(Budeanca & Olteanu 2008; Deletant 1999; Stanescu 2010). At the same time, anumber of leaders were imprisoned and/or killed during the ideological battles thatengulfed the small, divided and unpopular Communist Party, which establishedcontrol over the country with the help of Soviet troops (Levy 2001; Tismaneanu 2003).After Nicolae Ceausescu became the countrys new leader following the death of theStalinist dictator Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in 1964, widespread repression wasreplaced by surveillance and more subtle psychological terror that aected victimsdrawn from among those who sought to illegally cross the border to the West,transform communism into socialism with a human face, restore democracy andhuman rights, oblige communist leaders to obey international conventions protecting

4 LAVINIA STAN

fundamental freedoms and criticise the communist leaders, policies and ideology(Deletant 1995; Rady 1992; Stan & Turcescu 2007).Political prisoners were moved to forced domiciles and then permitted to return

home, dissidents and critics of the regime were declared mentally insane, whileCeausescu emphasised the unity of the people around the Communist Party, alongwith Romanias rapprochement with the West and independence from Moscow. Thisliberalisation did not last for long. By the late 1970s Ceausescu had tightened his gripover the party-state, initiating policies designed to ensure his unchallenged supremacyover Romania. Food supplies were rationed by the party-state, traditional villageswere destroyed in the systematisation drive, foreign debt was paid back by exportingeverything that the country produced, a new antireligious campaign was launched,censorship and the cult of personality were extended, and outspoken citizens werestrictly monitored (Linz & Stepan 1996; Ratesh 1991). Surveillance was conducted bythe feared Securitate, the secret political police, which opened correspondence,eavesdropped on phone conversations, bugged homes and workplaces, and followedits victims around the clock (Oprea 2008; Tanase 2002). Full-time secret ocers withmilitary rank recruited countless part-time informers, drawn from all walks of life andcharged with identifying and monitoring the victims political opinions, work habits,family life, and personal likes and dislikes. The information gathered in this way wascompiled in an extensive secret archive that, by 1989, included over two million les onvictims and informers (Stan 2002, 2005).The only country to exit communism by means of a bloody revolution, Romania

experienced renewed repression in December 1989, when the communist authoritiesdecided to quell peaceful popular street revolts in the major cities of Timisoara,Bucharest, Cluj and Sibiu with the help of the army and Securitate troops. The ocialdeath toll of the rst ever televised revolution stood at 1,104 dead and 3,352 woundedfor the period starting on 17 December 1989, when the Securitate opened re onprotesters in Timisoara, and ending on 10 January 1990, when the last shootings tookplace in Bucharest (Hall 1999; Roper 1994; Siani-Davies 2005). Most casualtiesoccurred after Ceausescu ed Bucharest on 22 December at noon, a fact some took tosuggest that the new revolutionary leaders were to blame for most of the killings. Todate, it has still to be established exactly who carried out the shooting ofdemonstrators and who gave the order to do this. Still unanswered questions alsorelate to the signicant discrepancy between the small number of those hurt in theshootings and the large number of revolutionaries, heroes and martyrs ociallyrecognised as active participants in those events, although the revolution aected onlya select number of large cities, not the small towns and villages. By 2008, some 20,000individuals had received ocial certicates attesting to their direct participation in the1989 street demonstrations. The number included both ordinary citizens who raisedtheir voice against Ceausescu and army/Securitate members who repressed protesters.Ironically, prominent leaders of the revolutionary National Salvation Front Council,who possibly masterminded some of the crimes carried out in December 1989, wereamong the ocially recognised revolutionaries.The communist regime was Stalinist to the very end and the revolution was the

bloodiest in the region, but post-communist Romania experienced no resolute breakwith the past and no real replacement of its communist elites. During the 1990s,


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second-echelon communist leaders controlled the new political system, whilecommunist-era managers controlled the new economy. Ion Iliescu, one timecollaborator of Ceausescu, became the rst post-communist president, while PetreRoman, the son of long-time communist leaders, was appointed prime minister of acabinet staed mostly by former communist dignitaries. In total, 48% of all membersof the rst post-communist legislative term had occupied political positions before1989, while survey data from the fourth legislative term in the post-Ceausescu erashow that ve out of six members of parliament were registered as [Communist] partymembers before 1989 (Ilonszki & Edinger 2007, p. 153). Since 1989, knowncommunist dignitaries and secret agents have retained signicant political clout,occupying a range of top government positions and successfully promoting their closerelatives, friends and clients to positions of power and responsibility.

Transitional justice programmes and initiatives

Court trials

Only a handful of the post-1989 trials have related to communist crimes. The mostnotorious was the trial of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena Ceausescu, hastilyconducted on 25 December 1989 by an ad hoc military peoples tribunal that handeddown the death sentence after less than two hours of deliberation. Ceausescu stoodaccused of genocide and undermining state order during the 1989 revolution, as well asthe destruction and neglect of industrial property and undermining state economyduring his 25-year-long despotic rule. He was faulted for refusing to dialogue with thepeople during his leadership, appearing in public dressed luxuriously, at a time whenordinary people had their salami rationed to 200 grams per day, orchestratingstarvation and genocide against the Romanian people, denying central heating andelectricity, and most importantly enslaving the Romanian spirit.3 The trial wasaected by signicant procedural and substantial aws reminiscent of the Stalinistpurges (Hodos 1987). The judges knew in the morning that Ceausescu had to beexecuted by afternoon (Sararu & Stanculescu 2005); no hard evidence was produced tosubstantiate the claim that Ceausescu was the only, or the primary, state dignitaryresponsible for the loss of human lives before or during the revolution; the number ofcasualties cited as proof of Ceausescus repressive policies (60,000) was grossly inatedand unsubstantiated; Elenas guilt of intellectual fraud did not warrant the deathpenalty, making her punishment disproportionate to her crimes; and the twodefendants were granted neither a strong defence (as even their defence counselloraccused them of crimes) nor the right to appeal (as the death sentence was carried outby ring squad only minutes after the improvised military court handed it down).Four other court cases related to communist crimes and perpetrators. The trial of

the killers of Gheorghe Ursu, an engineer who wrote critically about the communistregime in his journal during the 1980s, and the Bus Trial, which referred to thesuspected killing by the Securitate of young people arrested for hijacking a local bus,

3Transcriptul procesului Nicolae si Elena Ceausescu, no date, available at: http://www.ceau-sescu.org/ceausescu_texts/revolution/trial-ro.htm, accessed 27 March 2011.


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second-echelon communist leaders controlled the new political system, whilecommunist-era managers controlled the new economy. Ion Iliescu, one timecollaborator of Ceausescu, became the rst post-communist president, while PetreRoman, the son of long-time communist leaders, was appointed prime minister of acabinet staed mostly by former communist dignitaries. In total, 48% of all membersof the rst post-communist legislative term had occupied political positions before1989, while survey data from the fourth legislative term in the post-Ceausescu erashow that ve out of six members of parliament were registered as [Communist] partymembers before 1989 (Ilonszki & Edinger 2007, p. 153). Since 1989, knowncommunist dignitaries and secret agents have retained signicant political clout,occupying a range of top government positions and successfully promoting their closerelatives, friends and clients to positions of power and responsibility.

Transitional justice programmes and initiatives

Court trials

Only a handful of the post-1989 trials have related to communist crimes. The mostnotorious was the trial of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena Ceausescu, hastilyconducted on 25 December 1989 by an ad hoc military peoples tribunal that handeddown the death sentence after less than two hours of deliberation. Ceausescu stoodaccused of genocide and undermining state order during the 1989 revolution, as well asthe destruction and neglect of industrial property and undermining state economyduring his 25-year-long despotic rule. He was faulted for refusing to dialogue with thepeople during his leadership, appearing in public dressed luxuriously, at a time whenordinary people had their salami rationed to 200 grams per day, orchestratingstarvation and genocide against the Romanian people, denying central heating andelectricity, and most importantly enslaving the Romanian spirit.3 The trial wasaected by signicant procedural and substantial aws reminiscent of the Stalinistpurges (Hodos 1987). The judges knew in the morning that Ceausescu had to beexecuted by afternoon (Sararu & Stanculescu 2005); no hard evidence was produced tosubstantiate the claim that Ceausescu was the only, or the primary, state dignitaryresponsible for the loss of human lives before or during the revolution; the number ofcasualties cited as proof of Ceausescus repressive policies (60,000) was grossly inatedand unsubstantiated; Elenas guilt of intellectual fraud did not warrant the deathpenalty, making her punishment disproportionate to her crimes; and the twodefendants were granted neither a strong defence (as even their defence counselloraccused them of crimes) nor the right to appeal (as the death sentence was carried outby ring squad only minutes after the improvised military court handed it down).Four other court cases related to communist crimes and perpetrators. The trial of

the killers of Gheorghe Ursu, an engineer who wrote critically about the communistregime in his journal during the 1980s, and the Bus Trial, which referred to thesuspected killing by the Securitate of young people arrested for hijacking a local bus,

3Transcriptul procesului Nicolae si Elena Ceausescu, no date, available at: http://www.ceau-sescu.org/ceausescu_texts/revolution/trial-ro.htm, accessed 27 March 2011.

6 LAVINIA STAN

were brought to completion.4 Notorious torturers Alexandru Draghici and GheorgheCraciun died before the courts could nd them responsible for their crimes,perpetrated mostly during the 1950s (Grosescu & Ursachi 2009). These courtproceedings were also aicted by problems: the statute of limitations had lapsed forsome crimes before the sentence was handed down, some of the accused were oldpersons in poor health, others avoided prosecution by leaving the country, while theyoung victims in the Bus Trial were as much victims of the Securitate as perpetratorsof terrorist acts (Stan 2009b). More importantly, none of these cases addressed themost gruesome and recent communist crimes or convicted the most notoriousindividuals who masterminded (the Securitate and the Communist Party leaders) orexecuted (the Securitate prison guards) those crimes. The continued political clout offormer communist decision makers explains why, after 1989, the courts have refusedto hear cases dealing with communist crimes on the grounds that those crimes couldno longer be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations, although the statute oflimitations should not have included the 19451989 period, when crimes of thecommunist authorities could not be condemned.

Lustration

Emergency Governmental Ordinance no. 16/2006 introduced confession-basedlustration in Romania, and entrusted the National Council for the Study ofSecuritate, an independent governmental agency created in 2000, with the task ofverifying personal statements signed by public oce holders and detailing their pastcollaboration or non-collaboration with the Securitate.5 The nal verdicts regardingpublic oce holders and electoral candidates were to be published in the state gazette,Monitorul Ocial. At that point, if the published verdict diered from the personalstatement (presumably because the statement denied, whereas Monitorul Ocialcertied, collaboration), the Council notied the Supreme Court of Justice, as the actof oering a false declaration led to loss of public oce. The ordinance aected onlypoliticians who occupied public oces at the time when the ordinance came into eectand those who sought future appointments, not those who had discontinued theirpolitical careers by 2006.As lustration depended on a highly corrupt, politically tainted and notoriously

inecient judiciary,6 those identied as former Securitate agents represented a small

4The trials took place sometime after 1989. They all referred to events (crimes) perpetrated before1989. Ursu was killed in 1986. The bus incident took place during the 1980s.

5Ordonanta de urgenta 16 din 22 februarie 2006 pentru modicarea si completarea Legii nr. 187/1999 privind accesul la propriul dosar si deconspirarea securitatii ca politie politica, Monitorul Ocialal Romaniei partea I, no. 182 (27 February 2006), available at: http://legestart.ro/Ordonanta-de-urgenta-16-2006-modicarea-completarea-Legii-187-1999-accesul-propriul-dosar-deconspirarea-secur-itatii-politie-politica-%28MTgwODI1%29.htm, accessed 11 May 2012.

6The judiciarys dependency on the executive has drawn repeated criticisms from the EuropeanUnion, and Romanias progress in this regard has continued to be monitored even after the countryjoined the Union in 2007. During the 1990s, Romanian judges refused to hear cases of propertyrestitution when President Ion Iliescu suggested that no restitution should take place before parliamentpassed a law. In 2000, the European Court of Human Rights recognised the Romanian judges decisionas an infringement of the plaintis right to approach the courts. According to press reports, judges


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fraction of all secret agents active in post-communist politics. Only in cases wherepoliticians could be shown to have provided false statements could they lose theirpublic oce, but the incentive to misrepresent the past was cancelled out by the factthat statements were not made public. Because of these reasons, lustration aectednobody during 2006 and 2007. Although none of the 2,958 secret agents whose nameshad been published in Monitorul Ocial by late 2007 were removed from public posts,lustration was bitterly contested by a number of politicians, mostly drawn from theCommunist Party successor formations. The most ercely opposed to lustration wasDan Voiculescu, the wealthy leader of the Conservative Party, unveiled by theNational Council as the former secret agent Felix on the basis of a number ofSecuritate documents. Rather than acknowledging his tainted past and repenting forit, Voiculescu contested the verdict in court and at the same time asked theConstitutional Court to review the constitutionality of the lustration legislation. In2007, in a controversial ruling widely seen as politically motivated, the Court foundthe Emergency Ordinance 16/2006 unconstitutional, invalidated all verdicts handeddown up to that moment, and threatened to shut down the Council completely. Toavert this possibility, the cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanuextended the Councils life by limiting its mandate to storing the secret documents andgranting citizens access to their les, and permitted the courts to decide who was (orwas not) a former Securitate secret agent. The Council barely survived, at the cost ofhalting the entire lustration process.

Property restitution

Opinions have been divided over the restitution of over 240,000 dwellings andcountless small businesses, land plots, art works, jewels, churches and other assetsconscated, nationalised and expropriated with no just compensation by thecommunists for individuals, organisations and communities (Stan 2006). Centre-rightpoliticians have sided with initial owners, arguing that restitutio in integrum (completerestitution in kind) was the only way to redress communist injustice, whereas centre-left politicians have sided with the tenants who occupied nationalised homes,supporting nancial compensation in lieu of restitution in kind. Many of thepoliticians, judges and police ocers living in nationalised dwelling have opposedproperty restitution out of personal interest. The lack of political will to address theproblem adequately and fairly, the arbitrary reversal of denitive court orders by apolitical gure such as the Prosecutor General through the controversial recurs inanulare (annulment) procedure, the constant interference of politicians (especiallyPresident Ion Iliescu) in court cases, and subsequent governments refusal to adoptpro-restitution legislation have persuaded Romanian homeowners to lodge complaintswith the European Court of Human Rights. Since 1999, the Court has awarded mostowners their houses and has asked the Romanian government to uphold theconstitutionally protected right of property, but it was only in 2005 that the Property

have personally beneted from stalling restitution, unlawfully acquiring property rights for abusivelyconscated dwellings. The judiciarys refusal to hear cases of high level political corruption was notedby the 2001 European Commission report on Romania (European Commission 2011).


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fraction of all secret agents active in post-communist politics. Only in cases wherepoliticians could be shown to have provided false statements could they lose theirpublic oce, but the incentive to misrepresent the past was cancelled out by the factthat statements were not made public. Because of these reasons, lustration aectednobody during 2006 and 2007. Although none of the 2,958 secret agents whose nameshad been published in Monitorul Ocial by late 2007 were removed from public posts,lustration was bitterly contested by a number of politicians, mostly drawn from theCommunist Party successor formations. The most ercely opposed to lustration wasDan Voiculescu, the wealthy leader of the Conservative Party, unveiled by theNational Council as the former secret agent Felix on the basis of a number ofSecuritate documents. Rather than acknowledging his tainted past and repenting forit, Voiculescu contested the verdict in court and at the same time asked theConstitutional Court to review the constitutionality of the lustration legislation. In2007, in a controversial ruling widely seen as politically motivated, the Court foundthe Emergency Ordinance 16/2006 unconstitutional, invalidated all verdicts handeddown up to that moment, and threatened to shut down the Council completely. Toavert this possibility, the cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanuextended the Councils life by limiting its mandate to storing the secret documents andgranting citizens access to their les, and permitted the courts to decide who was (orwas not) a former Securitate secret agent. The Council barely survived, at the cost ofhalting the entire lustration process.

Property restitution

Opinions have been divided over the restitution of over 240,000 dwellings andcountless small businesses, land plots, art works, jewels, churches and other assetsconscated, nationalised and expropriated with no just compensation by thecommunists for individuals, organisations and communities (Stan 2006). Centre-rightpoliticians have sided with initial owners, arguing that restitutio in integrum (completerestitution in kind) was the only way to redress communist injustice, whereas centre-left politicians have sided with the tenants who occupied nationalised homes,supporting nancial compensation in lieu of restitution in kind. Many of thepoliticians, judges and police ocers living in nationalised dwelling have opposedproperty restitution out of personal interest. The lack of political will to address theproblem adequately and fairly, the arbitrary reversal of denitive court orders by apolitical gure such as the Prosecutor General through the controversial recurs inanulare (annulment) procedure, the constant interference of politicians (especiallyPresident Ion Iliescu) in court cases, and subsequent governments refusal to adoptpro-restitution legislation have persuaded Romanian homeowners to lodge complaintswith the European Court of Human Rights. Since 1999, the Court has awarded mostowners their houses and has asked the Romanian government to uphold theconstitutionally protected right of property, but it was only in 2005 that the Property

have personally beneted from stalling restitution, unlawfully acquiring property rights for abusivelyconscated dwellings. The judiciarys refusal to hear cases of high level political corruption was notedby the 2001 European Commission report on Romania (European Commission 2011).

8 LAVINIA STAN

Fund was created to compensate initial owners. Law 247/2005 allowed the PropertyFund to oer shares only to owners of abusively conscated property who hadreceived no just compensation for their loss and whose property could not be returnedin kind (either because it had been destroyed or sold to tenants and third parties).7

From the beginning, the Property Fund has been aected by public scandal andmismanagement, and was vigorously contested by the owners, who must wait 1031months to have their former ownership right recognised by four dierentgovernmental agencies before the Fund can disburse compensation (Straut 2010).In 2009, the Council of Europe drew attention to the absence of restitution or

compensation for communist-era nationalised property in Romania. The followingyear, the European Court of Human Rights launched a pilot-judgment procedure inresponse to Romanias lack of progress in resolving the property restitution issue, andthe 1,500 nearly identical cases that Romanian owners had lodged with the Court bylate 2009 (European Court of Human Rights 2010a; Udisteanu 2010). The pilot-judgment procedure signalled that the European Court judges had identied structurallegal problems that gave rise to repeated violations by Romania of the EuropeanConvention of Human Rights. In October 2010, the Court further decided to adjournthe examination of cases lodged by Romanian owners for a period of 18 months,pending adoption by Bucharest of measures streamlining and simplifying propertyrestitution procedures and providing adequate redress to all those aected by thereparation legislation. This procrastination has worked against the interests ofindividual owners, many of whom are elderly persons lacking the nancial means tocontinue the legal ght. At the same time, non-compliance on the part of thegovernment could lead to Romanias exclusion from the Council of Europe. Over63,000 property return claims were lodged with the National Agency for PropertyRestitution, the central governmental agency mandated to recognise restitutiondemands, but only 4,000 of them had been resolved by late 2010 (Ciocoiu 2010).The Romanian government has been equally reluctant to recognise the rights to

property restitution of organisations and communities. Its refusal to mediateeectively between the Greek Catholic Church of Transylvania, which lost itsproperty after being dismantled in 1948, and the dominant Romanian OrthodoxChurch, to which communist authorities transferred the conscated Greek Catholicplaces of worship, meant that throughout the 1990s many Greek Catholiccongregations had to conduct services in parks and on streets, even in localitieswhere the village church was not used by the local Orthodox faithful (Stan & Turcescu2007). The Romanian state has refused to order the return of churches, insteadencouraging the Greek Catholic congregations to build new places of worship,sometimes with government nancial aid, but most often with the help of privatedonations. In turn, the Orthodox Church has opposed the return of Greek Catholicproperty, on the grounds that the churches slated for restitution belonged to theOrthodox congregations (and thus neither the government not the OrthodoxPatriarchy could give them away) or had been built by the Orthodox Church only

7Lege nr. 247/2005 privind reforma n domeniile proprietat,ii si justit,iei, precum si unele masuriadiacente, Monitorul Ocial al Romaniei partea I, no. 653 (22 July 2005), available at: http://www.avocatnet.ro/content/articles/id_2988/avocatnet.html, accessed 11 May 2012.


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to enter into Greek Catholic possession after that church was formed in 1700. In 2009and 2010, after years of bitter dispute with their Orthodox counterparts, twoRomanian Greek Catholic congregations asked the European Court of Human Rightsto recognise their property right to places of worship used by the Orthodox Church. Inboth cases, the European Court sided with the Greek Catholic eparchy against theRomanian government (European Court of Human Rights 2009, 2010b).

Access to secret les

Law 187/1999 on Access to Files and Exposure of the Securitate as Political Policeallowed Romanian citizens to request access to the secret les compiled on them by thecommunist political police, and leaders of political parties, organisations, institutionsand the press, as well as interested citizens, to ask for information on public gures.8

The extant secret archive, which includes documents in hard copy, microche andvideo format, consists of 25 kilometres of les on victims, four kilometres oninformers, and another six kilometres of les dealing with denunciations (Stan 2002, p.56). The archive could be even larger, since it is unlikely that the Romanian Securitateproduced only one-fth of the East German Stasis output when it had to monitor apopulation of about the same size. Only hard-copies are made available to the generalpublic. An unspecied number of sensitive les continue to remain out of reach, beinghoused with the Ministries of Justice and the Interior and the External InformationService, heir to the Securitates foreign espionage division. A very limited number ofles related to foreign espionage have been made public, because successive Romaniangovernments have continued to hold the view that the opening of these les wouldsignicantly aect national interests by exposing hard working agents who havecontinued their secret activities after 1989. Both victims and informers can see theirles and obtain copies of them from the National Council for the Study of SecuritateArchives, the legal custodian of the Securitate archive.During its rst six years of activity, the National Council only had indirect access to

Securitate les, most of which continued to be housed by the Romanian InformationService in its out-of-reach military units. However, in 2006 over two million les,including those of numerous post-communist political luminaries, were transferred tothe Council at the request of Democrat-Liberal President Traian Basescu. The movegreatly improved le access. By late 2006, the Council had received over 17,000requests for le access, and resolved 11,000 of these, either by making the leaccessible or by announcing to the petitioners that no le was found in their name(Stan 2009b). As in other Eastern European countries, the names of third partiesmentioned in the les are blanked out. In addition, until 2007 a decision of theNational Council leadership kept under lock the les of leaders of religiousdenominations present in Romania. While journalists and historians have accessedthe secret archive, and have published collections of secret documents and critical

8Legea nr. 187/1999 privind accesul la propriul dosar si deconspirarea securitatii ca politie politica,Monitorul Ocial al Romaniei partea I, no. 603 (9 December 1999), available at: http://legislatie.resurse-pentru-democratie.org/187_1999.php, accessed 11 May 2012.


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to enter into Greek Catholic possession after that church was formed in 1700. In 2009and 2010, after years of bitter dispute with their Orthodox counterparts, twoRomanian Greek Catholic congregations asked the European Court of Human Rightsto recognise their property right to places of worship used by the Orthodox Church. Inboth cases, the European Court sided with the Greek Catholic eparchy against theRomanian government (European Court of Human Rights 2009, 2010b).

Access to secret les

Law 187/1999 on Access to Files and Exposure of the Securitate as Political Policeallowed Romanian citizens to request access to the secret les compiled on them by thecommunist political police, and leaders of political parties, organisations, institutionsand the press, as well as interested citizens, to ask for information on public gures.8

The extant secret archive, which includes documents in hard copy, microche andvideo format, consists of 25 kilometres of les on victims, four kilometres oninformers, and another six kilometres of les dealing with denunciations (Stan 2002, p.56). The archive could be even larger, since it is unlikely that the Romanian Securitateproduced only one-fth of the East German Stasis output when it had to monitor apopulation of about the same size. Only hard-copies are made available to the generalpublic. An unspecied number of sensitive les continue to remain out of reach, beinghoused with the Ministries of Justice and the Interior and the External InformationService, heir to the Securitates foreign espionage division. A very limited number ofles related to foreign espionage have been made public, because successive Romaniangovernments have continued to hold the view that the opening of these les wouldsignicantly aect national interests by exposing hard working agents who havecontinued their secret activities after 1989. Both victims and informers can see theirles and obtain copies of them from the National Council for the Study of SecuritateArchives, the legal custodian of the Securitate archive.During its rst six years of activity, the National Council only had indirect access to

Securitate les, most of which continued to be housed by the Romanian InformationService in its out-of-reach military units. However, in 2006 over two million les,including those of numerous post-communist political luminaries, were transferred tothe Council at the request of Democrat-Liberal President Traian Basescu. The movegreatly improved le access. By late 2006, the Council had received over 17,000requests for le access, and resolved 11,000 of these, either by making the leaccessible or by announcing to the petitioners that no le was found in their name(Stan 2009b). As in other Eastern European countries, the names of third partiesmentioned in the les are blanked out. In addition, until 2007 a decision of theNational Council leadership kept under lock the les of leaders of religiousdenominations present in Romania. While journalists and historians have accessedthe secret archive, and have published collections of secret documents and critical

8Legea nr. 187/1999 privind accesul la propriul dosar si deconspirarea securitatii ca politie politica,Monitorul Ocial al Romaniei partea I, no. 603 (9 December 1999), available at: http://legislatie.resurse-pentru-democratie.org/187_1999.php, accessed 11 May 2012.

10 LAVINIA STAN

analyses, the public has been disinterested in le access, as evidenced by the very smallnumber of access requests received by the National Council.

Truth commission and ocial condemnation

Romania is the only post-communist country besides Moldova and the Baltic states tocreate a presidential truth commission. In 2006, President Traian Basescu set up thePresidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romaniato document communist crimes in a scientic and systematic manner. TheCommission consisted of 18 members helped by 21 junior experts who together wrotethe report under the direction of the Commission chair, political scientist VladimirTismaneanu. Based on the Commissions nal report, the president ociallycondemned the communist regime on 18 December 2006, two weeks before Romaniajoined the European Union. In its more than 650 pages, the report discussed the roleand activity of key communist institutions, the methods and characteristics ofrepression and the individual actors involved with the Romanian communist regime,in an attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of communist crimes (Tismaneanuet al. 2007).The Commission was an academic, history commission that had extensive access to

previously unavailable Communist Party and Securitate archives, but had nosubpoena powers to compel testimonials from perpetrators and no reconciliation inits mandate (Stan 2007). As such, the Commission conducted no public hearings orvisits to former detention centres, organised no outreach programmes to publicise itsactivity and conclusions, and based its nal report exclusively on secret documents andalready published materials. While the Commission successfully compiled its nalreport and submitted it to the president at the end of its six-month mandate, all butone of its nal recommendations were disregarded by the Romanian government andpolitical elite. The Commission had very little international impact and wasvehemently and often unjustly contested in Romania (King 2007; Tanasoiu 2007;Tileaga 2009). The ocial condemnation of communist crimes failed to extend thelustration programme to all former communist decision makers, as anticipated by thecivil society groups that proposed and supported the creation of the Commission. Infact, less than 18 months after President Basescu ocially condemned communistcrimes, the countrys limited lustration programme was discontinued (see above).

Rehabilitation of former political prisoners

In 2009, parliament adopted Law 221 on Politically Motivated Sentences andPunishments Handed Down from 6 March 1945 to 22 December 1989, which providedfor the rehabilitation of former political prisoners condemned for opposition towardthe communist regime.9 Rehabilitation consisted of striking the criminal record of the

9Lege nr. 221/2009 privind condamnarile cu caracter politic si masurile administrative asimilateacestora, pronuntate in perioada 6 martie 194522 decembrie 1989, Monitorul Ocial al Romanieipartea I, no. 396 (11 June 2009), available at: http://www.dreptonline.ro/legislatie/lege_condamnari_caracter_politic_masuri_administrative_asimilate_221_2009.php, accessed 11 May 2012.


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applicants, and recognising their active opposition to the communist regime and theirsuering at the hands of the old regime. The rehabilitation scheme extended to thosewho were sent to labour camps or were assigned forced domicile by the Securitate orthe militia, but not to those condemned by the communist authorities for racism,chauvinism and anti-Semitism (a category that includes the members of the inter-warfascist Iron Guard (Garda de Fier) organisation). There are, as yet, no ocial estimatesof the number of people who qualied for or were granted rehabilitation.

Compensation for victims and their descendants

Decree-Law 118/1990 on Granting Some Rights to Persons Politically Persecuted bythe Communist Dictatorship was the rst post-communist piece of legislation inRomania to grant compensation to victims of communist repression.10 According tothe Decree-Law, each year a person had spent in jail, forced domicile, labour camp,arrest, psychiatric ward or forced deportation during the 19451989 period wasrecognised as equivalent to 18 months towards the calculation of pension rights. Inaddition, victims were awarded monthly compensations of 300,000 Lei (around $10)for each year they spent in jail or in deportation camps. That sum was halved forcommunist-era victims who spent time in psychiatric wards or in forced domicile. Inaddition, victims qualied for a range of benets, including tax exemptions, free use ofthe public transportation system, priority medical treatment in state-owned clinics andhospitals, 12 gratis train rides a year, free yearly treatment in a state-sponsored healthresort, free use of telephone lines and a free cemetery plot. Citizens could receivecompensation regardless of whether they resided in Romania or abroad. The Decree-Law was seen as unsatisfactory by most communist-era victims, who suggested thatthe low compensation levels were inadequate and unable to cover their basic needs.Law 221/2009 provided compensation for the moral prejudice resulting from

imprisonment and the loss of property conscated as a result of the sentencing. Bothvictims and their surviving spouses and children qualied for this kind of nancialcompensation. As the law did not specify an upper limit for compensation packages,both the victims and the courts overestimated the level of compensation that theimpoverished Romanian state could aord. Shortly after the law was adopted, formerpolitical prisoner Ion Diaconescu asked for as much as e18 million in moral damagesfor spending 15 years in prison, two additional years in forced domicile and eight otheryears being persecuted by the communist authorities. After deliberations, the courtsawarded Diaconescu only e500,000, but the Romanian government chose to petitionthe Constitutional Court against Law 221/2009, rather than comply with the courtverdict and pay the compensation. In October 2010, the Constitutional Court declaredthe laws compensation provisions as unconstitutional, since they entitled formervictims and their surviving relatives to equal compensation levels (although therelatives were only indirectly aected by repression) and failed to cap individual

10Decret-Lege nr. 118 din 30 martie 1990 privind acordarea unor drepturi persoanelor persecutatedin motive politice de dictatura instaurata cu incepere de la 6 martie 1945, Monitorul Ocial alRomaniei partea I, no. 50 (April 1990), available at: http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt7582, accessed 11 May 2012.


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applicants, and recognising their active opposition to the communist regime and theirsuering at the hands of the old regime. The rehabilitation scheme extended to thosewho were sent to labour camps or were assigned forced domicile by the Securitate orthe militia, but not to those condemned by the communist authorities for racism,chauvinism and anti-Semitism (a category that includes the members of the inter-warfascist Iron Guard (Garda de Fier) organisation). There are, as yet, no ocial estimatesof the number of people who qualied for or were granted rehabilitation.

Compensation for victims and their descendants

Decree-Law 118/1990 on Granting Some Rights to Persons Politically Persecuted bythe Communist Dictatorship was the rst post-communist piece of legislation inRomania to grant compensation to victims of communist repression.10 According tothe Decree-Law, each year a person had spent in jail, forced domicile, labour camp,arrest, psychiatric ward or forced deportation during the 19451989 period wasrecognised as equivalent to 18 months towards the calculation of pension rights. Inaddition, victims were awarded monthly compensations of 300,000 Lei (around $10)for each year they spent in jail or in deportation camps. That sum was halved forcommunist-era victims who spent time in psychiatric wards or in forced domicile. Inaddition, victims qualied for a range of benets, including tax exemptions, free use ofthe public transportation system, priority medical treatment in state-owned clinics andhospitals, 12 gratis train rides a year, free yearly treatment in a state-sponsored healthresort, free use of telephone lines and a free cemetery plot. Citizens could receivecompensation regardless of whether they resided in Romania or abroad. The Decree-Law was seen as unsatisfactory by most communist-era victims, who suggested thatthe low compensation levels were inadequate and unable to cover their basic needs.Law 221/2009 provided compensation for the moral prejudice resulting from

imprisonment and the loss of property conscated as a result of the sentencing. Bothvictims and their surviving spouses and children qualied for this kind of nancialcompensation. As the law did not specify an upper limit for compensation packages,both the victims and the courts overestimated the level of compensation that theimpoverished Romanian state could aord. Shortly after the law was adopted, formerpolitical prisoner Ion Diaconescu asked for as much as e18 million in moral damagesfor spending 15 years in prison, two additional years in forced domicile and eight otheryears being persecuted by the communist authorities. After deliberations, the courtsawarded Diaconescu only e500,000, but the Romanian government chose to petitionthe Constitutional Court against Law 221/2009, rather than comply with the courtverdict and pay the compensation. In October 2010, the Constitutional Court declaredthe laws compensation provisions as unconstitutional, since they entitled formervictims and their surviving relatives to equal compensation levels (although therelatives were only indirectly aected by repression) and failed to cap individual

10Decret-Lege nr. 118 din 30 martie 1990 privind acordarea unor drepturi persoanelor persecutatedin motive politice de dictatura instaurata cu incepere de la 6 martie 1945, Monitorul Ocial alRomaniei partea I, no. 50 (April 1990), available at: http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt7582, accessed 11 May 2012.

12 LAVINIA STAN

compensation entitlements at a reasonable level comparable to those enacted in otherpost-communist countries (Constitutional Court 2010). In response to the decision,the government limited compensation packages to e10,000 per person (Urban 2010).

Forensic investigations

Exhumations have been carried out in collaboration with the Military Section of theSupreme Court under the aegis of the Institute for the Investigation of CommunistCrimes until 2009, and of the Centre for the Investigation of Communist Crimes sincethen. In 2006 and 2007, the Institute worked in the paupers cemetery next to theformer communist political prison in Sighet, tried to locate the forced labour coloniesin Insula Mare a Brailei (the Big Island of Braila), exhumed the remains of six peopleshot in 1950 in Bistrita-Nasaud for refusing to be drafted into the army andestablished that Securitate troops killed Iosif Orsa in 1950 (Corlatan 2007). In 2009and 2010, the remains of 10 anticommunist resistance members killed by the Securitatein Bistrita-Nasaud, Hunedoara, Cluj and Salaj from 1949 to 1952 were uncovered(Centrul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului 2010). In 2011, the Centre locatednear the former communist prison in Aiud the remains of writer Mircea Vulcanescu,killed in 1952 (Padurean 2011). These eorts to locate former graves, unearth theremains of victims and establish the cause of death and those responsible for it havebeen presented in a travelling exhibit titled Common Denominator: Death,11 a book(Bran 2009) and a lm (Bran & Mercier 2009).These eorts to set the historical record straight and provide closure to the surviving

relatives of the victims of communist repression have been conducted with very littlenancial and logistical support from state authorities, which have shown littlewillingness to take the lead and devise a comprehensive plan for exhumations. Whilesome village mayors and local police ocers have demonstrated willingness to extenda helping hand to the forensic archaeologists conducting the exhumations, there hasbeen very little coordinated eort on the part of the authorities to facilitate theexhumation programme. As such, exhumations continue to be conducted by smallteams of volunteers who have limited funds at their disposal.

Rewriting history books

Until late 1989, history textbooks used in the university and the pre-universityeducation systems reected Ceausescus nationalist communism and exacerbatedpersonality cult, and talked of the golden era of Romanian history, a series ofglorious battles culminating in the victory of the Communist Party and Ceausescusleadership (Ciobanu 2008, p. 59). By recognising a new set of historical leaders, eventsand interpretations, the communists fabricated narratives from which other points ofview were dismissed as imprecisions (Paraianu 2005), and in which history unfoldedas the victorious class struggle against the class enemy, and the concept of the socialistsystem as the inevitable end of history (Ciobanu 2008, p. 58).

11Common Denominator: Death exhibition, Centrul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului,Bucharest, 2011.


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As many communist perpetrators and nationalists retained their political inuenceafter the regime change, during the early 1990s historians were reluctant to recalibratehistory textbooks and rewrite the historical canon. From 1998 to 2000, the Ministry ofEducation launched a major initiative to rewrite history books, as part of a largerreform drive designed to bring the Romanian education system more in line with thosein EU countries (Paraianu 2005). The textbook rewriting aimed to critically assesscommunist repressive policies; reect the contribution to state- and nation-building ofethnic and religious minorities; remove unsubstantiated claims, slogans andpropaganda; present alternative and critical viewpoints; and describe the plight ofthe victims of communist repression. Since 2000, teachers have been able to choosefrom a number of textbooks approved by the Ministry. However, the historytextbooks have been criticised by those historians who built their careers undercommunism and uphold an outdated view of historiography that sees attempts tocritically assess historical events, actors and actions as acts of treason undermining thesovereignty of the Romanian state and questioning the territorial rights of theRomanian nation. The history textbook reform preceded the reform of history as anacademic discipline. As such, Romanian historiography has remained aicted byethnocentrism, parochialism and the prevalence of political history, as well as an acutelack of self-reection and theoretical and conceptual frameworks of analysis(Murgescu 2000).

Opinion tribunal

Frustrated with the incapacity and unwillingness of the Romanian judiciary toorganise a Nuremberg-type trial that would condemn communist crimes, civilsociety groups organised an opinion tribunal on 7 September 2006 in Cluj-Napoca. This domestic tribunal, resembling citizens tribunals organised in otherparts of the world (Klinghoer & Klinghoer 2002), was composed of nineformer victims of communist repression representing dierent Romanian counties,counsellors for the prosecution and the defence, and 150 audience members whoacted as jurors. The communist regime, charged with genocide and crimes againsthumanity (including premeditated murder, extermination, forced deportation,arrests, torture, disappearances and persecution), was found guilty of all crimesafter the prosecution presented, and the court discussed, a summary of communisthuman rights abuses (Curtea Penala de Condamnare Juridico-Morala a CrimelorRegimurilor Comuniste 2006). The opinion tribunal had little public echo eitherinside or outside Romania, being disregarded by the general population, thepolitical elite, most of the press and the main associations representingcommunist-era victims. In a country where the livelihood of almost half of thepopulation depended on the Communist Party (Boia 2002)and after 1989 thecommunist elite has retained public positions of power and responsibilitymostcitizens have remained reluctant to condemn a regime from which they hadbeneted. In addition, former communist-era victims have argued that theRomanian post-communist state, as legal successor to the communist state thatperpetrated those atrocities, should acknowledge responsibility for past crimesthrough its regular courts, the only ones capable of rendering justice. Until now,


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As many communist perpetrators and nationalists retained their political inuenceafter the regime change, during the early 1990s historians were reluctant to recalibratehistory textbooks and rewrite the historical canon. From 1998 to 2000, the Ministry ofEducation launched a major initiative to rewrite history books, as part of a largerreform drive designed to bring the Romanian education system more in line with thosein EU countries (Paraianu 2005). The textbook rewriting aimed to critically assesscommunist repressive policies; reect the contribution to state- and nation-building ofethnic and religious minorities; remove unsubstantiated claims, slogans andpropaganda; present alternative and critical viewpoints; and describe the plight ofthe victims of communist repression. Since 2000, teachers have been able to choosefrom a number of textbooks approved by the Ministry. However, the historytextbooks have been criticised by those historians who built their careers undercommunism and uphold an outdated view of historiography that sees attempts tocritically assess historical events, actors and actions as acts of treason undermining thesovereignty of the Romanian state and questioning the territorial rights of theRomanian nation. The history textbook reform preceded the reform of history as anacademic discipline. As such, Romanian historiography has remained aicted byethnocentrism, parochialism and the prevalence of political history, as well as an acutelack of self-reection and theoretical and conceptual frameworks of analysis(Murgescu 2000).

Opinion tribunal

Frustrated with the incapacity and unwillingness of the Romanian judiciary toorganise a Nuremberg-type trial that would condemn communist crimes, civilsociety groups organised an opinion tribunal on 7 September 2006 in Cluj-Napoca. This domestic tribunal, resembling citizens tribunals organised in otherparts of the world (Klinghoer & Klinghoer 2002), was composed of nineformer victims of communist repression representing dierent Romanian counties,counsellors for the prosecution and the defence, and 150 audience members whoacted as jurors. The communist regime, charged with genocide and crimes againsthumanity (including premeditated murder, extermination, forced deportation,arrests, torture, disappearances and persecution), was found guilty of all crimesafter the prosecution presented, and the court discussed, a summary of communisthuman rights abuses (Curtea Penala de Condamnare Juridico-Morala a CrimelorRegimurilor Comuniste 2006). The opinion tribunal had little public echo eitherinside or outside Romania, being disregarded by the general population, thepolitical elite, most of the press and the main associations representingcommunist-era victims. In a country where the livelihood of almost half of thepopulation depended on the Communist Party (Boia 2002)and after 1989 thecommunist elite has retained public positions of power and responsibilitymostcitizens have remained reluctant to condemn a regime from which they hadbeneted. In addition, former communist-era victims have argued that theRomanian post-communist state, as legal successor to the communist state thatperpetrated those atrocities, should acknowledge responsibility for past crimesthrough its regular courts, the only ones capable of rendering justice. Until now,

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the judiciary has ignored these demands, pointing to the statute of limitationsapplicable to these cases. It is unlikely that the trial of communism anticipatedby civil society will ever be heard by any Romanian court of justice.

Unocial truth projects

Immediately after the 1989 regime change, civil society groups called for the publicidentication (and prompt removal from public life) of former full-time ocers of theSecuritate and part-time informers, considered responsible for communist repressionalongside the Communist Party leaders who masterminded it. Those calls remainedunanswered until 2000, when the National Council for the Securitate Archives wasmandated to make those names public by publishing them in Monitorul Ocial. Until2006, the Councils indirect access to the secret archives and the governments decisionto keep a large number of les closed for reasons of national security greatly impededthe public identication of former perpetrators. From 2000 to 2009, the Councilnamed only 955 of the estimated 13,275 ocers and 2,003 of the more than 480,000informers who had worked for the Securitate (Stan 2011a). At this rate of disclosure, itwould take the Council over 130 years to name all former ocers and 2,400 years toidentify all secret informers.In response to the perceived refusal by political elites to disclose the names and

activities of all the secret agents, and the National Councils failure to full itsmandate within a reasonable time period, civil society representatives took mattersinto their own hands. Starting in 2001, a series of anonymous and controversial emailswere distributed to the press for publication under the general title Armageddon(Armaghedon). On 28 March 2002, Armageddon 7 created a public scandal bydisclosing the names of former Securitate ocers who held key posts in post-communist intelligence services, protection and guarding rms, and nancialinstitutions (Foreign Broadcast Information Service 2002). The email reached thepress at a time when Romania was about to join NATO, an organisation which, localjournalists argued, had called for the vetting of former Securitate dinosaurs from thecountrys intelligence services as a pre-condition of accepting the country as a memberstate.12 While the source and author of Armageddon 7 remained unknown, rumourshad it that the list originated with Marius Oprea, the historian reputed for his work onthe Securitate and the exhumation programme. Oprea was also a close collaborator ofConstantin Ticu Dumitrescu, the former political prisoner who almost single-handedlypromoted Law 187/1999 that granted Romanians access to secret archives and calledfor the public identication of former secret agents from among post-communistpublic gures. The Ministry of Interior and the Information Service did not conrm ordisconrm the accuracy of the list.While meant to provide Romanians with irrefutable proof of the continuity between

the Securitate and the post-communist political, economic and security elites,Armageddon 7 failed to stir public debate about communist crimes, the nature ofcommunist repression and the role of the Securitate in the infringement of human

12Oprea (2005); Romanian Daily Publishes List of Securitate Agents Working in Intelligence, Ziua,28 March 2002; Armaghedonul securistilor, Ziua, 28 March 2002.


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rights. This was because some called for the newly created National Council to begiven time to full its truth-telling mandate and also because the disclosed list includedinconsistencies that called into question its accuracy. For example, of the 287 namesdisclosed, 25 were only partial names. Aside from the most recognisable names offormer Securitate agents, the identity of those listed in Armageddon 7 was dicult tomake out, since many names were among the most common in Romania and nofurther details, like the birth place or current place of residence, were provided. In ahandful of cases where only the family name was listed, it was even dicult to makeout the persons gender.Armageddon 7 is not the only unocial truth project developed in Romania. A 16-

volume Dictionary of Victims of Communist Terror (Ionitoiu 20002010), includinginformation painstakingly compiled by former political prisoner Cicerone Ionitoiu,was published between 2000 and 2010. The Dictionary includes basic informationidentifying over 100,000 people who were arrested, tortured, jailed and killed duringthe 19451989 period and describes the conditions under which they suered thewrath of the communist authorities. By its very nature, this monumental work isincomplete, as only limited information is provided for some victims, in some casesonly their names (Braileanu 2003). The Civic Academy, Memory and Asperafoundations have also sponsored oral history projects collecting information fromsurvivors of communist repression and making it available in print or electronicformat.

Memorialisation

Post-communist Romanian governments have quickly removed the symbols of thecommunist regime by destroying the portraits of Ceausescu which used to adorn everyclassroom and institution hallway, removing communist symbols (such as the hammerand sickle, the coat of arms of the Communist Party, the Communist Youth Leagueand the Romanian Socialist Republic, as well as the communist ags) and the statuesof Ceausescu, Lenin, Stalin and other communist leaders from public squares, trainstations and public parks, renaming streets, public squares, institutions, schools andlocalities, and closing down museum sections and exhibitions related to the communistregime and its leaders. At the same time, however, post-communist authorities havebeen much slower in constructing memorials and monuments celebrating the victimsof communist terror. This is why civil society has taken upon itself the task ofmemorialisation.Since 1989, groups of former political prisoners and civic-minded intellectuals have

been instrumental in erecting monuments and mausoleums dedicated to anti-communist events and individuals. Very few of these projects received nancialsupport from the Romanian government. With nancial backing from the Council ofEurope, the Civic Academy converted the former Sighet political prison into amuseum housing a summer school for students and publishing yearly volumes ofhistorical research and previously unavailable documents. Parts of the Ramnicu Saratand Gherla political prisons have also been opened to the public. By 2004, dierentbranches of the Association of Former Political Prisoners had erected a total of 73monuments, memorials and crosses dedicated to those who fought against


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rights. This was because some called for the newly created National Council to begiven time to full its truth-telling mandate and also because the disclosed list includedinconsistencies that called into question its accuracy. For example, of the 287 namesdisclosed, 25 were only partial names. Aside from the most recognisable names offormer Securitate agents, the identity of those listed in Armageddon 7 was dicult tomake out, since many names were among the most common in Romania and nofurther details, like the birth place or current place of residence, were provided. In ahandful of cases where only the family name was listed, it was even dicult to makeout the persons gender.Armageddon 7 is not the only unocial truth project developed in Romania. A 16-

volume Dictionary of Victims of Communist Terror (Ionitoiu 20002010), includinginformation painstakingly compiled by former political prisoner Cicerone Ionitoiu,was published between 2000 and 2010. The Dictionary includes basic informationidentifying over 100,000 people who were arrested, tortured, jailed and killed duringthe 19451989 period and describes the conditions under which they suered thewrath of the communist authorities. By its very nature, this monumental work isincomplete, as only limited information is provided for some victims, in some casesonly their names (Braileanu 2003). The Civic Academy, Memory and Asperafoundations have also sponsored oral history projects collecting information fromsurvivors of communist repression and making it available in print or electronicformat.

Memorialisation

Post-communist Romanian governments have quickly removed the symbols of thecommunist regime by destroying the portraits of Ceausescu which used to adorn everyclassroom and institution hallway, removing communist symbols (such as the hammerand sickle, the coat of arms of the Communist Party, the Communist Youth Leagueand the Romanian Socialist Republic, as well as the communist ags) and the statuesof Ceausescu, Lenin, Stalin and other communist leaders from public squares, trainstations and public parks, renaming streets, public squares, institutions, schools andlocalities, and closing down museum sections and exhibitions related to the communistregime and its leaders. At the same time, however, post-communist authorities havebeen much slower in constructing memorials and monuments celebrating the victimsof communist terror. This is why civil society has taken upon itself the task ofmemorialisation.Since 1989, groups of former political prisoners and civic-minded intellectuals have

been instrumental in erecting monuments and mausoleums dedicated to anti-communist events and individuals. Very few of these projects received nancialsupport from the Romanian government. With nancial backing from the Council ofEurope, the Civic Academy converted the former Sighet political prison into amuseum housing a summer school for students and publishing yearly volumes ofhistorical research and previously unavailable documents. Parts of the Ramnicu Saratand Gherla political prisons have also been opened to the public. By 2004, dierentbranches of the Association of Former Political Prisoners had erected a total of 73monuments, memorials and crosses dedicated to those who fought against

16 LAVINIA STAN

communism, posted eight commemorative plaques in Paris, France13 and in sevendierent Romanian towns on buildings that used to house local headquarters of theSecuritate, political prisons or forced labour camps, and transformed into museumsfour dierent houses and apartments where persons known for their opposition to thecommunist regime used to live (Stan 2009a). Statues of well-known anticommunistopposition leaders, like Corneliu Coposu and Iuliu Maniu, have been erected inBucharest, Lugoj, Satu Mare and some other localities.In 2006 the Presidential Commission recommended the opening of a Museum of

Communism similar to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. A Museum ofCommunism already exists in Prague in the Czech Republic. The Romanian Museumof Communism was to be constructed in Bucharest and was to depict the mostgruesome crimes of the communist regime. The initial proposal to locate the museuminside the House of the People, the enormous building erected by Ceausescu during thelate 1980s on the ruins of several residential quarters in downtown Bucharest, receiveda cold shoulder from the parliament, which has continued to use the building for itsmeetings. In 2011, the local press announced plans to open the museum inside the oldmilitary unit where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were judged and executed inDecember 1989 (Mihai 2011), but the initiative apparently received no support fromcivil society groups. To date, the Romanian government has made no rmcommitment to support the creation of the museum. Given the nancial crisis thathas aected the country recently, it is unlikely that the government will nd the fundsnecessary f

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Reckoning With the Communist Past in Romania. a Scorecard

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