The GIP (Group for Political Investigations) coordinated by ex presidency adviser Mugur Ciuvica sent yesterday to the CNSAS (National Council for Research on the Communist Secret Service Archive) a set of documents showing Traian Basescu had been a collaborator of military intelligence structures in 1973-1976, while a student studying at the Marine Institute. The GIP explains by press release: "They are the first official, signed documents by which a Romanian state institution, the Ministry of Defense, has confirmed after the Revolution in 1989 that the president of Romania was a collaborator of the Securitate". The GIP mentions the documents sent to the CNSAS include the names of officers from the Ministry of Defense who had direct access to proves showing Traian Basescu's involvement in Department IV of the Securitate (Military Intelligence). The GIP adds: "After the elections in 2004, Traian Basescu transferred the most important of these officers to the reserve category." The GIP communique points to "secret documents" from the General Information Department in the Ministry of Defense on Traian Basescu's collaboration with the Securitate. (...) The GIP tells the CNSAS where to search Ciuvica reminds that, according to the new norms in the law to unveil the ex Securitate, the CNSAS must check on the president of Romania. In the GIP press release it is explained: "It is certain that the proves on Traian Basescu's collaboration with the Securitate are not among the 1,300,000 records which the SRI (Romanian Secret Service) transferred to the CNSAS in 2005. Since the documents we are disclosing today were classified by the Ministry of Defense, the registers, addresses and personal record as collaborator of Traian Basescu are surely kept secret by the SRI and the Ministry of Defense. Therefore the Group for Political Investigations demands that the CNSAS should solicit and release all documents in the archive of the Ministry of Defense related to Traian Basescu's collaboration with the Securitate (...) We also require that the CNSAS should demand the SRI to unveil personal record no. 3990/09.11.1973 on Traian Basescu." Ciuvica opines that the above-mentioned documents may be kept secret only if they touch upon national security. He explains: "If the SRI and the Ministry of Defense refuse to unveil these documents, the two institutions must explain why student Traian Basescu's collaboration with the Securitate, starting in 1973, is a matter of national security." The GIP also asks the CNSAS to question officers in the Ministry of Defense who have confirmed Traian Basescu as ex collaborator of the Securitate after studying documents in the military archive in Pitesti. The GIP also demands the president of Romania to admit his past as collaborator of the Securitate in the open.

Ovidiu BANCHES