Vladimir Tismaneanu, head of the presidential commission assigned to draw a report to be the grounds for condemning communism publicly, said in his interview to Mix Fm Radio yesterday that this report condemned communism for being "illegitimate and criminal". Here is his explanation: "This report shows that in contemporary Romania there is being fought a political, cultural and moral battle and that the forces keeping Romania motionless in 1990 are still active." He mentioned the Communist regime had about 500,000-2,000,000 victims. The report includes 53 biographies of top Communist officials, Ion Iliescu one of them. There are also mentioned the main ideologists and organization leaders, prime ministers in various Communist periods, "absolute torturers" and heads of the ex Securitate (Communist Secret Service in Romania). Tismaneanu specified: "We don't tackle collective guilt. No way! The Communist Party members are described, especially recently, as a motionless mass for manipulation, which the party used for cheers. This is not what it is about. Its is about the nomenclature!" Ion Iliescu, Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Adrian Paunescu are some of the important names in the document. The President of Romania Traian Basescu is to present the conclusions in the Tismaneanu commission's report on the Communist dictatorship in front of the Parliament next Monday. It will be followed by neither voting nor opinions. But they expect the attendants to respond with vehement critique. Iliescu is annoyed Here is Iliescu's nervous press release as response: "I can't put up with an image of myself as a pillar of communism. I am denying this groundless conclusion of authorities. It is not me who brought communism to Romania. It is not me who invented the prisons and camps and established the Securitate. Moreover, my name can be in no way associated to the abuses committed by the totalitarian regime. On the contrary, my opposition to Nicolae Ceausescu's decision is well known. He brought a political regime inspired by North Korea to Romania, he launched the so-called 'cultural revolution' and put an end to the political and economic liberalization in the 60s." (...) The Commission doesn't know the number of people hurt during the 1989 Revolution The copy of the report ZIUA has reached shows the authors' amateurishness, as the latter have so far been making use of the authority belonging to the President of Romania Traian Basescu. Here goes the document: "Romania was the only Eastern European country where people died and were injured in the autumn of 1989: 1,104 dead, 162 until December 22, 1989, and 942 in December 22-27. More than 3,300 (?) injured until December 22, 1989, and 2,815 (?) injured in December 22-27. We are to get official information from General Dan Voinea." It is anyway dramatic that 17 years after the events in December 1989 the much overestimated commission of Tismaneanu does not know how many people were hurt in those bloody days. And the story continues: "Once Ceausescu left the Central Committee building, there followed a void of power filled with representatives of the frustrated party staff, the military and some members of the revolutionary mass. As there was no significant clandestine opposition to Ceausescu, this was not surprising." Why they are ignoring the clandestine conspiracy/ opposition of Moscow-Gorbachev inspiration, belonging to the Iliescu-Militaru-Magureanu group, is still a mystery. (...) The anti-communism issue and the report's errors The report also looks into activities to take place after communism is officially condemned: to establish communist horror museums in several Romanian locations, as well as a Museum of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania to resemble the Holocaust Memorial in Washington. There is also mentioned the plan to make a documentation center for public information and arrange an international conference to condemn Communist crimes, which civil society has already announced. The Group for the Protection of Historical truth claims in a public document that this report does not serve Romania's interests, because of hiding the true face of communism: a transnational anti-Christian, anti-human and anti-national system, imposed on peoples by the military force of the Soviet empire and by the ideological-repressive force of the Communist internationals. (...) The report offers no appropriate approach to the Komintern International, just as it pours mild light on Gorbachev's Soviet system as a heroic one that "dared" fight against Ceausescu and his system. (...) The conclusion is that the Tismaneanu report seems to be a gross mystification of the whole truth on communism. If the President of Romania takes responsibility for it, he must know that it does not serve the interests of past, present and future Romania. The report is most likely to become an embarrassing failure of Romanian Presidency.

Anca HRIBAN, Victor RONCEA