POST-REVOLUTION ROMANIA, 1990: The manifestation in Timisoara - the adoption of the Proclamation

Thirty years ago, on 11 March 1990, in the Piata Operei (Operei Square) of western Timisoara a manifestation took place staged by the "Timisoara", "Europa" societies and the "16 Decembrie" Confederation, wherein a document dubbed "Proclamation of Timisoara" was adopted, according to "History of Romania in data" (Enciclopedica Publishing House, 2003). The Proclamation, submitted by newspaperman and writer George Serban was analysed on 27 February 1990, in an extraordinary meeting by the members of the "Timisoara" Society. The Proclamation started from the premise that the ideals of the December 1989 Revolution were betrayed and that the revolution had to go on peacefully. To this effect, the Proclamation turned itself into an action programme. In the opening, the document made an analysis of the events that had taken place in Timisoara in December '89, saying that "all social categories have participated in the Revolution of Timisoara. On the streets of Timisoara have fallen under bullets, side by side, workers, intellectuals, clerks, students, pupils, children and even village inhabitants who had come to support the Revolution." The text was endorsed, and the Timisoara Society committed to back the launch and promotion of it. The text was presented in front of the Timisoara City Council on 2 March 1990. A few days later, following certain approaches, the Timisoara City Council approved for the Piata Operei to be the venue of the manifestation to launch the Proclamation of Timisoara, deeming that through its contents the action was a spiritual remembrance of the Timisoara Revolution. On 10 March 1990, the text of the Proclamation was broadcast to the news agencies in the country and abroad and read at the Radio Free Europe, informs http://www.memorialulrevolutiei.ro/. "Proclamatia de la Timisoara", a document in 13 points, was read to the tens of thousands of Timisoara inhabitants from the Opera balcony, by George Serban, its main author and later on a Deputy with the PNTCD (Christian Democrat National Peasant Party) of Timis. "The about 15k participants were bearing placards expressing the will that the ideals for which the heroes of Timisoara gave their lives in December 1989 not be tarnished, so the democratic process could speed up, rushing the joining by Romania of the civilised countries of Europe. One could read, in Romanian and Hungarian: "Timisoara-Europa", "Free enterprises", "Down with the communist bureaucrats from gov't", "We want the decentralisation of the economy", "Romanians and Hungarians, do not let them divide you, you are brothers", "No to political centralism".(ROMPRES News Agency, 11 March 1990) The Proclamation said: The Revolution in Timisoara was not only anti-Ceausescu, but, definitely, also against communism. In full agreement with the wish of the hundreds of millions of East European people, the Timisoara citizens, too, called for the immediate abolishment of this totalitarian and failing social system. The ideal of our Revolution has been and is the return to the genuine values of European democracy and civilization. All the social classes did participate in the Revolution of Timisoara, workers, intellectuals, office workers, students, school-children, even villagers. We positively oppose the typically communist method of domination by spreading feuds among social classes and strata. It was on behalf of the ideology of "class struggle" that the Bolsheviks rose to power in 1917 and, similarly, in the years following 1944, the Romanian communists pitted one social class against the other, dividing the society in order to subject it to terror more easily. We warn against the danger that this sorrowful history might repeat itself and we call on the workers, intellectuals, students, farmers, and all the social classes to join in a civilized and constructive dialogue in order to restore without delay the unity achieved during the Revolution. Side by side with the Romanians, there were Hungarians, Germans, Serbians, members of other ethnic groups who sacrificed their lives for the cause of the Revolution. They have all been coinhabiting our city in peace and goodwill for centuries. Timisoara is a European city where all the nationalities have rejected and reject nationalism. Already on December 16, in the early hours of the Revolution, one of the most chanted slogans was: 'We want free elections!' The idea of political pluralism was and remains one dearest to Timisoara. We are convinced that without strong political parties there can be no genuine European democracy. We would have accepted in the system of the Romanian democracy the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), too, had it not compromised itself completely and definitely by degenerating into red fascism. In the Eastern European countries in which the communist parties have kept a minimum of decency, the society contests them in principle, but in fact tolerates them. In our case, though, the Communist Party came to genocide and thus excluded itself from society. We will not tolerate it either in principle, or de facto, no matter the name under which it would try to rise again. On the contrary, 54 years ago, the communists - some of whom also have important positions - were those who were chanting back then: "Stalin and the Russian people /Have brought us freedom" and not the members of the "historical" parties. The latter opposed Romania's retransformation into a satellite of Moscow and some have paid with their lives this audacity. Timisoara started the Revolution against the entire communist regime and its whole nomenclature and by no means was it intended as an opportunity for a group of anti-Ceausescu dissidents within the PCR to rise to political power. Their presence in the leadership of the country means that the deaths of the heroes from Timisoara were in vain. As a consequence of the previous Section, we suggest that the electoral law should prohibit the former communist activists and the former Securitate [ed.n. - communist secret police] officers the right to be nominated as candidates, on any list, for the first three consecutive legislatures. Their presence in the country's political life is the chief source of the tensions and suspicions that perturb today's Romanian society. We also demand that a special provision should be included in the electoral law, banning the former communist activists from running for the position of President of the country. Romania's President should be one of the symbols of our dissociation from communism. We are definitely in favor of the idea of private initiative. We will never have political pluralism without economic pluralism. Proof that Timisoara is not afraid of privatization is the fact that several companies have already announced their intention to transform into joint stock companies. Timisoara is determined to use the principle of economic and administrative decentralization. In order to draw foreign capital easier and faster, especially in the form of special technologies and raw materials and the creation of joint ventures, we request the establishment of a subsidiary of the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank in Timisoara. After the fall of the dictatorship all the Romanians living in exile were invited to return home to help reconstructing the country. Some have already returned, others announced their intention. Unfortunately, there are still people who, instigated by obscure forces, abused the returned exiles, calling them "traitors". Timisoara is affectionately waiting for all the Romanian exiles. They are our fellow countrymen and, more then ever, we need their competence, their European thought, and even their material support. Besides, the Romanian culture will be complete only after the culture of the exile has been re-integrated in it. We do not agree with establishing December 22 as Romania's National Day. This is a way of immortalizing the dictator's person by celebrating a certain number of years since his fall. In most of the countries that associated their national day with a revolution, the chosen day marks the outburst of the revolutionary movement. Consequently, we demand that the 16th of December be established as the national day of Romania. Thus our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will celebrate our people's courage in opposing oppression, and not the fall of an infamous tyrant. The authors of this Proclamation, participants in the events of 16th-22nd December 1989, do not consider the Revolution to be over. We shall continue it peacefully, but firmly. Having confronted and having gained victory over one of the world's most powerful repressive systems, nobody and nothing can frighten us anymore," the document shows. Point 8 of the Proclamation, that received so much coverage later on, was transposed into a draft law (Lustration Law), initiated on June 13, 2005, when it was submitted to the Senate. It cleared Parliament on May 19, 2010, but was challenged at the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), which admitted the referral on June 7, 2010. In 2012, the CCR decided that the Lustration Law is unconstitutional. In 2013, the law was definitively rejected in Parliament.AGERPRES(Documentary - Irina Andreea Cristea; editor: Mariana Zbora-Ciurel; EN - authors: Maria Voican, Simona Iacob, editors: Simona Iacob, Maria Voican)