President Traian Basescu condemned communism in the name of the Romanian state with a speech in Parliament on Tuesday - and that was just enough to spark unprecedented chaos among legislators, as newspapers report today.
The December 1989 anti-communist revolution is also remembered on many of today’s front pages, along with various reports about the accession of Romania in the EU on January 1, 2007.
Basescu kept his word and stood before MPs until he finished his statement condemning communism yesterday afternoon, Cotidianul writes.
But it was not an easy task as hell was unleashed with MPs from the far-right Greater Romania Party-PRM booing the President permanently and insulting members of the presidential commission that put up a report on the crimes of the communist regime.
The commission published its report officially yesterday to coincide with the 17th anniversary of the anti-communist revolution in Romania.
The 200 PRM agitators brought by PRM leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor - himself named and blamed in the report for his role under the Ceausescu regime - made sure to turn December 18 into a “black day for the Romanian Parliament”, as Romania Libera puts it.
And it is complemented by Jurnalul National, according to which “born from violence, communism ends in violence”.
Evenimentul Zilei publishes a list of 21 crimes specific to the communist regime, from abandoning the national interests in favor of the Soviets to the repression of any form of opposition.
They’re all in the report published yesterday, along with names of the people that made communism work, some of them still on the political stage of Romania today
And it also writes that high-profile anti-communists such as Lech Walesa from Poland and Jelio Jelev from Bulgaria assisted at the chaos produced by President Basescu in Parliament yesterday - a situation which, according to Jelev, was “normal”.
Gandul publishes an opinion poll according to which 53% of Romanians believe communism was a good idea with 12% of them considering it was well administered and 41% that it was badly managed. Only 34% of Romanians see communism as a bad idea, according to the poll.
The same Evenimentul Zilei remembers the events taking place 17 years ago in Timisoara, where the revolution started. It quotes a history professor who, at the time, was part of a platoon that was ordered to smash the upheaval of the Timisoara people.
And he says late general Victor Atanasie Stanculescu, who would be part of the first post-communist power structures in Bucharest, was one of those who ordered soldiers to fire at protesters.
And Jurnalul National tells the story of the three soldiers who executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena on Christmas Day 1989, the peak of the revolution. Whan has become a cab driver, one turned to masonry and the third opted for retirement not long ago.
Meanwhile, Gandul turns its eyes on the EU accession and quotes a Reuters report according to which Romania and Bulgaria, the two countries due to join the Union on January 1, 2007, face difficulties in absorbing European funds because of their domestic political struggles and corruption.
But in a separate report Gandul shows how National Bank governor Mugur Isarescu knows how to move and is planning to develop wine production at a farm he owns, with use of European funds.
And Isarescu seems to know something: Cotidianul quotes European Commissioner for Agriculture Marianne Fischer Boel who says in an interview for the Romanian news agency Rompres that Romania’s wine, cheese and organic products may have real success on the European market.
HotNews.ro, Dec 19, 2006
0 comments:
Post a Comment