European Union, here they come (BBC News)

Culture in Romania and Bulgaria

By Michael Osborn
Entertainment reporter, BBC News
Last Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006, 09:00 GMT

On 1 January 2007, Romania and Bulgaria become the latest countries to join the European Union.

The two nations in south-eastern Europe are relatively unknown in the rest of Europe in terms of their popular culture, including music and television.

Here is a sample of what the average Romanian and Bulgarian settles down to watch on the small screen, and which pop stars are making the biggest splash as the neighbouring countries enter the European club.

BULGARIAN POP MUSIC

In market places, cafes, shops and bars across Bulgaria, it's likely that chalga music will be blaring out of the stereo.

This vibrant, heady mixture of traditional Balkan folk music with Roma (gypsy), Turkish and Arab influences is highly popular.

But it is sometimes frowned upon for its scantily-clad female singers and appeal to "low class people".

"I rather like it. At least it's Bulgarian," says Magdalena Rahn of the Sofia Echo newspaper.

"The rhythms are catchy and the voices incredible. I would prefer Azis to Western pop music being played here," she adds.

Flamboyant, cross-dressing male vocalist Azis is one of the most recognised faces in Bulgaria.

A leading exponent of chalga, he represented his country alongside pop star Mariana Popova at this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Western music has been widely embraced by Bulgarian artists and regularly dominates the country's charts, alongside the likes of Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani.

Bulgaria's best-known rap duo Rumaneca and Enchev are currently riding high in the hit parade along with male singer Grafa (The Count) - deemed "not particularly Bulgarian" by Ms Rahn.

The country's rock scene thrives thanks to bands lik Epizod, who have turned traditional Bulgarian songs into rock anthems.

The group have performed clad in armour with the backing of a church choir and folk dancers.

ROMANIAN POP MUSIC

Romania's most recent musical phenomenon is Cleopatra Stratan.

Aged just three, this diminutive talent dominated the charts recently with her song Ghita and has already recorded an album.

The daughter of singer Pavel Stratan is said to have been discovered when she performed at his recording sessions.

Acts who have been in the business rather longer include rock band Voltaj, who formed in 1982 under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Once considered a "danger to society", they did not record their first album until 1995 and won best Romanian Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards a decade later.

Rockers Holograf - currently in the Romanian Top 10 with Voltaj - started life in 1978.

Popular names on the Romanian dance scene include DJ Project - best Romanian Act at this year's MTV Europe Awards - and Akcent and Morandi.

Prolific songwriter and performer Marius Moga has penned numerous hits for these acts, earning himself the title "Little Mozart".

As in Bulgaria, Romania's acts have to battle hard against songs from the US and UK which often dominate the country's Top 10.

BULGARIAN TELEVISION

One of Bulgaria's most popular TV programmes is a late-night daily talk show hosted by Slavi Trifonov, one of the most popular figures in the country.

The show's makers claim its hour-long mix of guests, political satire and musical performances is "unique in Eastern Europe".

Other small-screen draws in Bulgaria include localised versions of such familiar TV programmes as Big Brother, currently in its third series, and Survivor BG.

The country has also spawned its own derivative of Deal Or No Deal - known as Sdelka Ili Ne in Bulgaria - which offers a top prize of 100,000 Leva (£34,620).

ROMANIAN TELEVISION

Romanian TV has come a long way since the dark days of the Ceausescu era.

Back then, all viewers had to look forward to was two hours of black-and-white programming extolling the dictator's virtues.

The country now has 10 commercial stations to complement the three channels offered by state television.

A set of familiar entertainment programmes are "watched by the whole nation", says Radio Romania International's Iulian Muresan.

Probably the most popular, he continues, is Surprize Surprize - similar to the show hosted by Cillia Black in the UK from 1984-99.

Its tearful reunions are interspersed with regular appearances by bebelusele - female dancing girls - which are a common feature on numerous Romanian TV programmes.

Other highly-rated shows include Iarta-ma (Forgive Me), where old scores are settled and one-time adversaries start afresh in front of a studio audience, and Dansez Pentru Tine, based on competitive dance shows seen around the world.

The country's most popular comedy show is Cronica Carcotasilor (The Fault Finder's Chronicle), which takes an irreverent look at Romania's political leaders, prominent people in the media and famous faces.

This programme also has a coterie of female dancers who perform between sketches.

The Revolution revisited (part IV)

Cele 21 de crime ale comunismului

19 Decembrie 2006
Anca Simina
Evenimentul Zilei

Raportul Comisiei "Tismaneanu" inventariaza principalele actiuni criminale savarsite in cei 45 de ani de dictatura rosie.

Dictatura comunista din Romania anilor 1945-1989 s-a facut vinovata de crime imprescriptibile impotriva umanitatii, concluzioneaza Raportul final al Comisiei „Tismaneanu”.

Studierea a mii de documente de arhiva, a literaturii analitice, dar si a marturiilor celor implicati in evenimente justifica, sustin membrii comisiei prezidentiale in finalul raportului lor, condamnarea regimului „ilegitim si criminal”, „un sistem totalitar de la infiintare si pana la prabusire, bazat pe incalcarea constanta a drepturilor omului”.

Raportul, asumat de toti membrii si de expertii comisiei, certifica ideea continuitatii intre era Dej si era Ceausescu. „Toate institutiile statului totalitar au fost create in timpul epocii Dej. Nicolae Ceausescu si grupul de aparatcici care l-a sustinut le-au perfectionat si le-au dus la cele mai dezastruoase consecinte”, se arata in concluzii. Din acest motiv, nomenclaturistii ambelor perioade impart responsabilitatea actiunilor lor cu sefii spionajului si ai Securitatii, cu stalpii aparatului ideologic, chiar cu promotorii cultului personalitatii lui Nicolae si a Elenei Ceausescu.

Sintagme cunoscute inainte de 1989 primesc in raport definitii reale. Departe de a mai reprezenta un ideal, „societatea socialista multilateral dezvoltata” devine doar „numele unui sistem politic si economic inghetat, dominat de un lider faraonic si de anturajul sau imediat”.

Criticat de o parte dintre liderii politici de astazi, raportul ofera ca argumente ale indelung amanatei condamnari a comunismului in Romania principalele actiuni criminale atribuite fostului regim:

1. Abandonarea intereselor nationale prin servilism in relatiile cu URSS dupa 1945;

2. Anihilarea statului de drept si a pluralismului prin inscenari si fraude, mai ales dupa furtul alegerilor in noiembrie 1946;

3. Distrugerea partidelor politice, prin arestarea liderilor si a militantilor;

4. Impunerea unui regim dictatorial total infeudat Moscovei si ostil valorilor politice si culturale nationale, lichidarea sindicatelor libere, distrugerea social-democratiei ca miscare politica opusa bolsevismului PCR;

5. Sovietizarea totala, prin forta, a Romaniei, mai ales in perioda 1948-1956, si impunerea unui sistem politic despotic, condus de o casta profitoare (nomenclatura), strans unita in jurul liderului suprem;

6. Politica de exterminism social (lichidarea fizica, prin asasinat, deportare, intemnitare, munca fortata, a unor categorii sociale - burghezie, mosierime, tarani, intelectuali, studenti) ghidata de preceptul luptei de clasa a facut intre 500.000 si doua milioane de victime;
7. Persecutia minoritatilor etnice, religioase, culturale ori de orientare sexuala;

8. Exterminarea programata a detinutilor politici;

9. Exterminarea grupurilor de partizani care reprezentau rezistenta anticomunista armata in munti (1945-1962);

10. Represiunea impotriva cultelor, desfiintarea Bisericii Greco-Catolice;

11. Arestarea, uciderea, detentia politica sau deportarea taranilor oponenti colectivizarii, lichidarea violenta a revoltelor taranesti (1949-1962);

12. Deportarile cu scop de exterminare, represiunile etnice, gonirea si „vanzarea” evreilor si germanilor;

13. Represiunea impotriva culturii, cenzura extrema, arestarea si umilirea intelectualilor neinregimentati ori protestatari (1945-1989);

14. Reprimarea miscarilor si actiunilor studentesti din 1956;

15. Reprimarea miscarilor muncitoresti din Valea Jiului (1977), Brasov (1987) si a celorlalte greve din anii ‘80;

16. Reprimarea oponentilor si disidentilor in anii ‘70 si ‘80 (omorarea inginerului Gheorghe Ursu, condamnarea la moarte a lui Mircea Raceanu, Ion Mihai Pacepa, Liviu Turcu, Constantin Rauta);

17. Distrugerea patrimoniului istoric si cultural prin daramarile din anii ‘80 (un sfert din centrul istoric al Bucu-restiului), constrangerea unei parti a populatiei de a-si parasi locuintele;

18. Consecintele criminale ale „politicii demografice” (1966-1989);

19. Impunerea unor norme aberante privitoare la „alimentatia rationala”; infometarea populatiei, oprirea caldurii, starea de mizerie la care regimul a condamnat un intreg popor;

20. Conceptualizarea mizeriei materiale si morale, precum si a fricii, ca instrumente de mentinere a puterii comuniste;

21. Masacrarea cetatenilor, din ordinul lui N. Ceausescu, cu aprobarea conducerii PCR, in timpul Revolutiei din 1989.

Lista

Personaje in Raportul „Tismaneanu”

Prima generatie de comunisti:

Gheorghiu-Dej, Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca, Gheorghe Apostol, Iosif Chisinevschi, Alexandru Moghioros, Petre Borila, Ion Gheorghe Maurer, Chivu Stoica, Miron Constantinescu, Leonte Rautu, Dumitru Coliu, Leontin Salajan
Demnitari vinovati de „impunerea si perpetuarea unui sistem bazat pe crima si faradelege”:

Gheorghe Radulescu, Grigore Preoteasa, Mihai Dalea, Janos Fazekas, Stefan Voitec, Manea Manescu, Florian Danalache, Ion Ionita, Constantin Dascalescu, Ilie Verdet, Elena Ceausescu, Ion Dinca, Dumitru Popescu, Suzana Gadea, Ion Iliescu, Stefan Barlea

Demnitari ai aparatului represiv:

Teohari Georgescu, Vladimir Mazuru, Marian Jianu, Alexandru Draghici, Ladislau Ady, Aurel Stancu, Vasile Negrea, Ion Vinte, Grigore Raduica, Ionel Gal, Cornel Onescu, Ion Stanescu, Gheorghe Homostean, Teodor Coman, Emil Bobu, Tudor Postelnicu, Iulian Vlad.

Sefii spionajului:

Emil Bodnaras, Pintilie Bodnarenko (Pantiusa), Alexandru Nicolschi (Grunberg), Mihai Gavriliuc, Wilhem Einhorn, Nicolae Doicaru, Ion Mihai Pacepa, Romus Dima, Nicolae Plesita, Aristotel Stamatoiu
Ideologi:

Iosif Chisinevschi, Mihail Roller, Leonte Rautu, Nicolae Goldberger, Ofelia Manole, Pavel Tugui, Virgil Florea, Paul Niculescu-Mizil, Vasile Dinu, Elvira Cinca, Elena Bescu, Eduard Mezincescu, Constanta Craciun, Nicolae Moraru, Traian Selmaru, Mihai Beniuc, Ion Rosianu, Pompiliu Macovei, Ion Iliescu

Ziaristi:

Sorin Toma, Dumitru Popescu, Teodor Marinescu, Alexandru Ionescu, Constantin Mitea, Nicolae Dragos, Silviu Brucan, Nestor Ignat, N. Corbu, Ion Cumpanasu, Dumitru Tinu, Anghel Paraschiv, Gheorghe Badrus, Valter Roman, Dumitru Ghise, Leonte Tismaneanu (Tisminetki), Grigore Preoteasa, Nicolae Bellu (Schor), Octavian Paler, Maria Costache;

Conducatorii aparatului ideologic in perioada Ceausescu: Paul Niculescu-Mizil, Leonte Rautu, Dumitru Popescu, Ion Iliescu, Cornel Burtica, Miu Dobrescu, Tamara Dobrin, Petru Enache, Mihai Dulea, Ion Traian Stefanescu, Eugen Florescu;

Exponenti ai protocronismului: Paul Anghel, Eugen Barbu, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Doru Popovici, Dan Zamfirescu, Ilie Badescu, Ion Lancranjan, Pompiliu Marcea, Ion Dodu Balan, Dinu Sararu, Adrian Paunescu, Mihai Ungheanu, Nicolae Dan Fruntelata, Artur Silvestri, Ilie Purcaru, Ghizela Vass (bunica lui Bogdan Olteanu).

Disidenti in perioada regimului comunist:

Dorin Tudoran, Radu Filipescu, Vlad Georgescu, Doina Cornea, Cs. Gymesi Eva, Gabriel Andreescu, Mihai Botez, Mariana Celac, Petre Mihai Bacanu, Anton Uncu, Mihai Creanga, Stefan Niculescu-Maier, Alexandru Chivoiu, Dumitru Iuga, Ionel Cana, Gheorghe Brasoveanu, Carmen Popescu, Nicolae Litoiu, Ion Draghici, Ion Bugan, Geza Szocs, William Totok, Herta Muller, Richard Wagner, Helmuth Frauendorfer, Ion Puiu, Iulius Filip, Victor Frunza, Aurel Dragos Munteanu, Vasile Gogea, Molnar Gusztav, Barabas Francisc, Barabas-Marton Piroska, Barabas Janos, Borbely Erno, Buzas Laszlo, Pavel Nicolescu, Dimitrie Ianculovici, Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, Liviu Babes, Dumitru Mircescu, Gheorghe Fistioc, Viorel Padina, Aurelian Popescu, Silviu Cioata, Dan Petrescu, Liviu Cangeopol, Liviu Antonesei, Ana Blandiana, Mircea Dinescu, Tokes Laszlo, Andrei Plesu, Ion Negoitescu, Ion Vianu, Dumitru Mazilu, Nicu Stancescu, Luca Pitu, Nica Leon.

The Revolution revisited (part III)

"Daca cineva trece, trageti!"

19 Decembrie 2006
Mihail Bumbes, Mihai Burcea
Evenimentul Zilei

La Timisoara, in decembrie 1989, generalul Victor Atanasie Stanculescu a ordonat soldatilor sa traga in multimea care protesta impotriva regimului comunist.

Incorporat in septembrie 1989 ca soldat la regimentul de aviatie de vanatoare de la Timisoara, Alin Ciupala (astazi conf. univ. dr. Facultatea de Istorie - UB), povesteste despre implicarea plutonului din care facea parte in represiunile din decembrie 1989 de la Timisoara.

Batuti in ultimul hal

"Pe 16 decembrie am simtit o tensiune pe care nu ne-o puteam explica, ofiterii nostri erau mai agitati, toate invoirile noastre erau suspendate, dar fara sa ni se dea vreo explicatie. La un moment dat au inceput sa apara zvonuri referitoare la incidente petrecute in Timisoara, fara sa se dea prea multe precizari. Dimineata au inceput sa vina la unitate cadre militare care erau de serviciu in ziua respectiva si care ne spuneau ca, in oras, sunt incidente intre demonstranti si fortele de ordine, militie in primul rand. In jurul pranzului, tin minte ca am fost adunati toti soldatii si toate cadrele militare pe platou si asteptam sa ni se comunice ceva. In momentul acela au aparut doi ofiteri care veneau din oras, batuti in ultimul hal, cu uniformele rupte si care ne-au spus ca cei care iscasera aceste incidente i-au confundat cu militieni, pentru ca uniformele de aviatie erau albastre si semanau cu cele de militie."

Elemente huliganice

"A urmat informarea comandantului, care ne-a anuntat ca, in Timisoara, au loc tulburari provocate de elemente huliganice care devasteaza magazinele si care au creat o situatie tensionata si ca este posibil ca noi sa fim trimisi in oras sa restabilim ordinea. Nu ni s-au dat prea multe amanunte. Spre seara am fost incolonati in doua plutoane, ni s-au repartizat arme si munitie de razboi (fiecare dintre noi aveam 120 de gloante de lupta), echipament de lupta. In acel moment ni s-a spus ca elementele huliganice aflate in slujba unei puteri straine, aluziile erau transparente la Ungaria, perturba linistea orasului si ca vom fi trimisi in oras sa actionam pentru restabilirea ordinii. Numai ca n-am ajuns in oras dintr-odata. Inainte de a ajunge in oras i-am asteptat la aeroportul militar pe cei care au sosit de la Bucuresti, delegatia formata din generalii Guse, Stanculescu si Coman; toti acesti oficiali veniti de la Bucuresti aveau rolul de a coordona actiunile represive de la Timisoara. I-am escortat pana in oras si am ramas la Judeteana de partid, unde se stabilise comandamentul represiunii. Am stat acolo sa-i pazim. Deja centrul unde se afla Judeteana de partid fusese degajat de demonstranti. Era foarte multa armata, inclusiv tancuri".

Ordin de tragere

"Ne-am aliniat in fata unui ofiter in uniforma de general care nu s-a recomandat. Era insa foarte distins, foarte calm, un personaj inalt, slab, cu parul grizonat, pe care aveam sa-l vedem cateva zile mai tarziu la televizor in momentul cand au fost difuzate primele secvente de la procesul Ceausestilor. Era generalul Stanculescu. Acesta ne-a dat urmatorul ordin: sa ocupam o alee care ducea in parc si, daca unii incearca sa treaca parcul si sa se indrepte spre judeteana de partid, sa-i somam, iar daca nu se opresc, sa tragem. Si am ramas in acea zona toata noaptea. In schimb, celalalt pluton a fost trimis in oras, la intoarcere unii dintre ei ne-au povestit modul in care au tras in manifestanti.
Toata cladirea Judetenei de partid era devastata in totalitate. In cursul zilei de sambata demonstrantii reusisera sa intre in Judeteana de partid devastand tot: usi, mobilier, ferestre. In subsolul Judetenei de partid, eu si cu cativa colegi am descoperit restaurantul cu circuit inchis al activistilor de partid. Daca in toata Romania, in decembrie 1989, era o foamete cumplita, am gasit acolo de la compot de ananas si ciocolata chinezeasca pana la pachete cu carne macra, tigari iugoslave, conserve unguresti, portocale. Militarii au furat tot ce se gasea in acel restaurant. Dimineata se refacuse fatada Judetenei de partid, se plantasera inclusiv brazi."

Unde ne sunt mortii

"Toata propaganda aceasta oficiala a regimului a prins, mai mult sau mai putin. Adica toti colegii mei ar fi dorit sa se faca liniste. Acei "huligani" sa fie arestati, totul sa revina la normalitate.

Eu, personal, m-am gandit ca este o revolta cum se intamplase in Brasov, in 1987. Adica ma gandeam ca va fi o revolta de mica amplitudine, ca totul se va rezolva in cateva zile si ca, intr-adevar, de Craciun vom ajunge acasa. Nu ma gandeam sub nicio forma la evenimentele care au urmat.

Trebuie sa spun ca primele lozinci care s-au strigat in Timisoara acelor zile revolutionare nu s-au referit la caderea comunismului, asta o fost o idee care a aparut ceva mai tarziu. Primele lozinci cereau inlaturarea lui Ceausescu: "JOS CEAUSESCU" si "UNDE NE SUNT MORTII", "DA-TI-NE MORTII INAPOI". Asta s-a strigat la Timisoara. Pe data de 20 decembrie am fost retrasi din oras si, odata cu noi, cea mai mare parte a fortelor armate au fost retrase in cazarma. Noi, cei de la aviatie, dupa 20 decembrie, nu am mai fost adusi in oras. In schimb a inceput nebunia cu teroristii."

Teroristi arabi

"In unitate a inceput aceasta psihoza a teroristilor. Unitatea noastra fiind de aviatie, dispunea de radare proprii. Aceste radare au fost cuprinse in noaptea de 21 spre 22 de ceea ce parea sa fie o invazie de elicoptere. Noi am fost scosi afara si toata noaptea am stat sa ne uitam dupa aceste elicoptere care nu au aparut, ceea ce a creat haosul.

Se vorbea de teroristi arabi care beneficiau de un armament ultrasofisticat, niste lucruri aberante astazi.

Dupa executia lui Ceausescu, lucrurile oarecum s-au mai linistit, in sensul ca n-au mai fost incidente, dar totusi psihoza teroristilor continua sa functioneze. Sa va dau un exemplu: intr-o zi am primit la unitate un tir venit din Ungaria cu paine, ca ajutoare, dar nu li s-a dat voie sa descarce painea in unitate.

Au zis: "Daca e otravita?" Si au trimis-o la analiza in oras, paine care s-a intors la noi dupa vreo doua saptamani si care era tare ca piatra, si cu toate astea am mancat-o cu multa pofta."

Marturie

Ancheta

"Dupa evenimentele din 1989 s-a facut o ancheta, o ancheta interna. Au vrut sa vada exact ce s-a intamplat in fiecare unitate, ce a facut fiecare soldat. Fiecare dintre noi a fost intrebat: Cine ne-a dat ordin sa tragem? Cu cine am fost in oras? Unde am stat? Ce am facut? O ancheta foarte amanuntita, dar in acelasi timp destul de discreta. Locotenentul Badale, care a participat direct cu plutonul sau la represiune, a fost trecut in rezerva, in schimb maistrul militar care comanda plutonul nostru a fost avansat la exceptional. Rezultatele acestei anchete trebuie sa fie pe undeva si ar merita sa fie publicate pentru a se vedea exact ce s-a intamplat in decembrie 1989."

The Revolution revisited (part II)

Povestea unui "terorist"

17 Decembrie 2006
Florian Bichir, Lica Manolache
Evenimentul Zilei

Constantin Isac a fost la un pas de a sfarsi ucis de gloantele Armatei romane.

In ziua de 23 decembrie, Isac, participant la Revolutie, a devenit un terorist care trebuia eliminat.

"In intuneric, glontul se vede ca o raza de lumina. Proiectilele treceau prin masina blindata ca printr-o tabla obisnuita." Aceasta e una dintre amintirile lui Constantin Isac, 57 de ani, unul dintre cei care au fost luati la tinta ca fiind teroristi.

Isac este unul dintre revolutionarii prezenti in Piata Universitatii pe 21 decembrie si in grupul care a anuntat caderea regimului comunist, a doua zi, la televiziune.

A facut parte din Consiliul Frontului Salvarii Nationale (CFSN), a luat decizii alaturi de generalii din Armata romana si a fost la un pas sa moara ciuruit de un tanc din fata Ministerului Apararii.

Isac, sef peste USLA

In acele zile, Isac a fost unul dintre oamenii de decizie ai FSN. El a tinut legatura cu trupele USLA (Unitatea Speciala de Lupta Antiterorista). In dupa-amiaza zilei de 23 decembrie a mers la sediul USLA.

"Am ajuns la unitate si m-am recomandat ca reprezentant al CFSN. Le-am spus sa astepte pana vor primi ordin de la CFSN. Apoi am dat o tura prin oras sa vad daca se trage", povesteste Isac.

Dupa tura respectiva a ajuns in cartierul Militari si a cerut telefonic o masina de la USLA ca sa fie dus la Ministerul Apararii, unde se afla Gheorghe Ardelean, seful USLA. "Au venit doua blindate usoare, pline, din care a iesit o persoana: "Eu sunt locotenent-colonel Trosca". M-am urcat intre sofer si Trosca. Deja se lasase intunericul."

Cele doua ABI-uri s-au indreptat catre MApN, unde trebuia sa ajunga Isac. Specialistii USLA trebuiau apoi sa mearga spre complexul Orizont, unde se spunea ca se ascund teroristi si sa-i elimine.

Armata nu a fost cu ei

In fata ministerului a inceput macelul. "Cand am ajuns la MApN ni s-a spus sa ne oprim in fata unui tanc cu luminile stinse. Asta inseamna ca exista comunicare intre USLA si MApN si, de asemenea, cu tancul. Dupa aceea mi s-a transmis sa ma dau jos, sa o iau pe langa tancul din fata si sa intru in minister, iar ei sa-si continue misiunea. Nu am apucat sa mai cobor pentru ca ei au tras o rafala dintr-un blindat din stanga noastra. Au fost raniti luptatorii USLA de pe bancheta din spate. Unul a fost lovit in umar, iar altul in maxilar", povesteste Isac.

In ABI-ul in care se afla Isac s-a reluat legatura cu centrala USLA. "Am comunicat ca se trage si ca avem doi raniti. Ni s-a pus ca vine o Salvare, dar am refuzat pentru ca se anuntase in timpul zilei ca teroristii au ambulante si trag din ele. Am zis sa ne conduca tancul din fata in minister.

Ne-au comunicat ca tancul ne va da trei semnale luminoase dupa care ne va conduce. Am primit semnalele si am facut si noi trei semnale. In loc sa plecam am intrat din nou sub rafala tancului din stanga."

Sub o ploaie de gloante

Tancul tragea in rafele, din stanga, iar pasagerii din cele doua autoblindate nu aveau mari sanse sa scape.

Locotenentul Trosca a iesit din ABI. "S-a ascuns dupa roata din dreapta jos, iar eu m-am culcat intre picioarele lui. Gloantele treceau prin masina si imi sareau schije in picioare. Trosca s-a indreptat apoi catre al doilea vehicul cerand sa intre. Eu am fugit spre parcarea din spate. Am sarit peste un cadavru si peste un gard viu si m-am ascuns intre gard si partea de jos a blocului. Apoi am luat-o prin fata blocului. Afara era bezna. In sclipirile gloantelor m-am orientat catre niste masini parcate. M-am bagat sub o Skoda acoperita cu o prelata", povesteste Constantin Isac.

A petrecut noaptea ascuns sub masina, iar la primele ore ale diminetii s-a indreptat catre un prieten care locuia in zona. Frigul si zapada ii oprisera sangerarile. "Blocul era pazit de o garda de locatari. Nu puteam intra. L-am sunat de la un telefon public si l-am rugat sa coboare sa ma ia. A trebuit sa urc opt etaje, ascunzand ca sunt ranit, dandu-ma drept fratele lui."

A primit ingrijiri la o clinica din apropiere, iar apoi s-a indreptat catre locul unde a fost impuscat.

"Acole era o cu totul alta scena. Cand am plecat era o distanta de circa 30 de metri intre cele doua masini. Acum erau una langa alta, indreptate spre minister si pline de cartuse. Pe caldaram, cadavrele celor din masina, iar oamenii treceau si le scuipau. Cineva a aranjat aceasta scena", crede revolutionarul.

Sapte persoane din cele doua ABI-uri au decedat in noaptea de 23 spre 24 decembrie. Alte patru, printre care si Isac, au scapat cu viata.

Biografie

Arbitru international de judo si inginer

Constantin Isac este arbitru de judo si a participat la numeroase competitii nationale si internationale.
A lucrat ca inginer in cadrul uzinei Republica din Bucuresti. Aici a colaborat cu firme din fosta RFG (Republica Federala Germana). Pentru ca nu era membru de partid i s-a interzis sa plece in Germania pentru scolarizare.
In prezent are o firma care se ocupa de comercializarea si asamblarea de computere. Are doi copii si doi nepoti.

The Revolution revisited (part I)

NOTE: FOLLOWING ARTICLES ARE IN ROMANIAN

Operatiunea KGB, decembrie 1989

17 Decembrie 2006
Florian Bichir, Lica Manolache
Evenimentul Zilei

Conform unor date neoficiale, se estimeaza ca numarul turistilor sovietici care au intrat in Romania in decembrie '89 a fost de cateva mii. Teroristii au fost spaima Revolutiei romane.

Nimeni nu stie inca cine erau acestia: cadre ale Securitatii, agenti KGB, tineri din tarile arabe instruiti in secret in Romania?

Constantin Isac, un bucurestean angajat la uzina Republica, a ajuns in noaptea de 23 spre 24 decembrie terorist. Cel putin pentru Armata romana.

El si membri ai trupelor USLA au fost tinta tancurilor din fata Ministerului Apararii. Isac a reusit sa scape cu viata. Astazi isi aminteste cum a trecut de la bucuria de a inalta steagul Romaniei, in dimineata de 22 decembrie, la groaza din noaptea de 23 spre 24 decembrie, petrecuta sub o masina, cu picioarele ciuruite.

Au fost implicati sovieticii in evenimentele din decembrie 1989? Cu siguranta ca da, din moment ce Petre Roman ii dezvaluia istoricului Alex Mihai Stoenescu faptul ca, satul de actiunile diversioniste, in octombrie 1990 a cerut oficial ambasadorului URSS retragerea agentilor.

"La expunerea clara, concisa a lui Caraman, directorul Centralei de Informatii Externe, am cerut sovieticilor sa-si retraga comandourile. Era vorba despre aproximativ 25.000-30.000 de oameni", spune Roman. "S-au retras ca urmare a faptului ca Gorbaciov modificase strategia si spusese ca URSS nu mai este jandarm in aceasta zona".

Planurile sovieticilor de schimbare a lui Nicolae Ceausescu apar pentru prima data in 1968, cand Romania a condamnat public invazia Cehoslovaciei. Brejnev a cerut in mod expres rasturnarea lui Ceausescu si inlocuirea acestuia cu o persoana loiala Kremlinului, iar serviciile secrete sovietice au pus la cale Operatiunea "Dniester" (Nistru), dar si o violenta campanie de recrutare in Romania.

Conform istoricului Cristian Troncota, specialist in servicii secrete, nici Securitatea romana nu a stat cu mainile incrucisate in fata agresiunii sovietice. Astfel, Unitatea Militara 0920/A a fost transformata in UM 0110, incadrata cu ofiteri si subofiteri tineri si capabili, fiind destinata contrainformatiilor pentru spatiul estic si care va deveni repede faimoasa prin denumirea Unitatea Anti-KGB.

Confruntarea cu sovieticii a fost dura pentru ca, asa cum releva "Punctul de vedere preliminar al SRI, privind evenimentele din decembrie 1989", "Romania era "lucrata" la nivelul unui stat inamic, mod de abordare care s-a pastrat, chiar s-a accentuat, dupa venirea la conducere a lui Mihail Gorbaciov".

Zeci de ofiteri superiori, dar si generali si membri de partid racolati de sovietici au fost marginalizati, inlaturati, Ceausescu ferindu-se totusi sa nu irite prea mult colosul de la Rasarit prin masuri radicale.

Ceausescu a stiut sa contracareze masurile sovietice, bazandu-se si pe rusofobia romanilor, dar misiunea i-a fost usurata si de faptul, destul de usor trecut cu vederea, ca armata sovietica nu se mai afla cantonata in Romania inca din 1958.

Cu tot "nationalismul" si antisovietismul sau, Ceausescu a devenit la sfarsitul anilor ‘80, ca urmare a gravelor sale greseli (cultul personalitatii, infometarea populatiei), un personaj urat chiar de propriul popor. Gorbaciov incepuse sa apara ca o solutie pentru romani, iar perestroika reprezenta salvarea.

"Lovitura e data la Bucuresti prin sabotarea mitingului ceausist"

Conform unor statistici, se estimeaza la cateva mii numarul turistilor sovietici patrunsi in Romania in decembrie ‘89. Imediat dupa incetarea fenomenului terorist-diversionist, acestia au disparut.

Departe de a fi o legenda, mai multi ofiteri de informatii i-au confirmat istoricului Alex Mihai Stoenescu faptul ca, in seara de 3 decembrie 1989, o "sursa directa si sigura", cetatean strain cu acces la informatia primara, a transmis legaturii sale din Securitate ca, la Malta, Bush si Gorbaciov au hotarat inlaturarea lui Ceausescu simultan cu Noriega din Panama.

Ceausescu ar fi primit de la Departamentul Securitatii Statului (DSS) doua note cu caracter ultrasecret, care spuneau, in esenta, acelasi lucru. "In cursul discutiilor de la Malta, secretarul general al PCUS, Mihail Gorbaciov, si presedintele american, George Bush, au hotarat inlaturarea regimului socialist din Romania". Apatic, Ceausescu ar fi spus: "M-au condamnat".

Dincolo de aceasta poveste care este confirmata partial de "Memoriile" lui Gorbaciov si va putea deveni certa doar cand accesul la dosare va fi permis istoricilor, Nicolae Ceausescu era informat despre ceea ce i se pregatea, iar atitudinea sa de la procesul de la Targoviste, cand vorbea despre "tradare si agenturi straine", trebuie privita cu alti ochi.

Explozie necontrolata

Dupa cum sustine Alex Stoenescu, actiunea sovietica din Romania este astazi cunoscuta: infiltrarea de unitati de comando, reactivarea unor retele de spionaj si initierea altora noi, influentarea unor factori politici ezitanti sau derutati, organizarea si sprijinirea unui complot politico-militar si a unei disidente, toate cu scopul de a genera o revolta populara controlata, in fruntea careia sa fie plasata o echipa reformist-gorbaciovista.

Sovieticii au tinut cont, asa cum au dezvaluit istoricii Mihai Retegan si Dumitru Preda, de Comisia Bogomolov infiintata la Moscova care a estimat ca regimul Ceausescu impingea situatia din Romania spre o explozie sociala necontrolata, dar care, prin efectul psihologiei romanilor, ar fi orientat rapid statul abia eliberat spre Occident, inclusiv printr-o retragere brusca din Tratatul de la Varsovia.

Pentru a preveni iesirea Romaniei din sfera de influenta sovietica, Moscova a initiat o operatiune militara neconventionala menita sa asigure o rasturnare controlata a regimului Ceausescu.

"Prima actiune a fost declansata la Iasi, incepand cu ziua de 9 decembrie 1989, dar pe 14 decembrie ea a fost dezamorsata de Securitate. Alte orase unde erau pregatite instigari profesioniste la revolta au fost Brasov - unde, de asemenea, Securitatea a reactionat printr-o operatiune de prevenire -, Cluj-Napoca, unde grupul din jurul Doinei Cornea s-a dovedit nepregatit si slab organizat, si Timisoara, unde actiunea era planificata a se dezvolta in jurul unui pastor reformat, aflat de mai mult timp in legatura cu spionajul maghiar.

Lovitura principala este data la Bucuresti, prin sabotarea profesionista a mitingului organizat de Nicolae Ceausescu in ziua de 21 decembrie 1989, urmata de rezistenta unui grup mic, dar foarte hotarat de tineri in zona de centru a Capitalei.

Nicolae Ceausescu, secundat de ministrul apararii, generalul Vasile Milea, reactioneaza din nou prin represiune militara. Grupuri de agitatori reusesc sa mobilizeze angajatii platformelor industriale si, incepand cu ora 3.00 din dimineata de 22 decembrie 1989, in Bucuresti se declanseaza revolta populara", spune istoricul Alex Stoenescu.

Apar turistii, dar si teroristii

Realizatoarea TV Ruxandra Cesereanu identifica in cartea "Decembrie ‘89. Deconstructia unei revolutii" noua categorii de oameni care puteau sa joace rolul de teroristi:

securisti fideli lui Ceausescu;
orfani romani crescuti de Ceausescu - "ieniceri" cu mentalitate de kamikaze;
teroristi arabi (libieni, arabi, iranieni, palestinieni);
agenti straini (sovietici, maghiari);
militari sovietici racolati din randul basarabenilor;
lunetisti actionand independent;
detinuti de drept comun din penitenciarele romanesti;
ofiteri din Armata, Ministerul de Interne sau USLA.

Dincolo de aceste teorii, cert este ca mai multi cetateni sovietici au fost implicati in ceea ce se numeste astazi fenomenul terorist-diversionist.

Dupa data de 10 decembrie 1989, in Romania patrunde un numar fara precedent de turisti sovietici. Coloane intregi de automobile Lada, cu cate patru barbati atletici, sunt semnalate la granita cu URSS, Bulgaria si Ungaria. Conform unor statistici, se estimeaza la cateva mii numarul acestora si care au patruns in Romania in decembrie ‘89.

Pe 13 decembrie, rapoartele Inspectoratelor de Securitate Olt si Dolj semnalau deplasarea masiva a coloanelor de automobile Lada in directia Timisoara.

La o singura statie PECO, de exemplu, a fost semnalata o coloana de 12 autoturisme. Turistii sovietici, atletici si sobri, au evitat orice contact cu "bastinasii" romani.

S-a remarcat faptul ca, de regula, sovieticii evitau hotelurile, preferand sa ramana peste noapte in masini, prin parcari si campinguri. Si serviciile secrete occidentale au remarcat invazia din Romania in prima jumatate a lui decembrie ‘89.

Turistii sovietici formau forta de soc a trupelor speciale SPETZNAZ, formata din membri operativi ai GRU (serviciul secret al armatei sovietice), care actionau in civil.

S-a tras din autoturisme Lada

Revolutionarul Daniel Pacuraru afirma ca a intalnit pe strazi mai multi revolutionari basarabeni, care cu greu puteau vorbi romaneste. Ofiterii de securitate trimisi pe strazi pe 22 decembrie pentru a observa grupuri ori echipe de diversionisti au indentificat indivizi atletici, vorbind stricat romaneste, cu accent basarabean, care indemnau cetatenii sa se adune si sa protesteze.

Locurile unde au actionat in seara de 22 decembrie a fost intersectia Stirbei-Voda cu Luterana din Bucuresti. Pe 23 decembrie, acelasi grup anunta oamenii "sa nu se sperie daca aud avioane pentru ca sunt fratii nostri de la Chisinau care ne vin in ajutor". Aceiasi "frati" le cereau la Izvor cetatenilor sa le spuna unde sunt unitati militare ca sa mearga sa ceara arme.

Asupra Academiei Militare a fost deschis focul din doua autoturisme Lada de culoare rosie, cu numere de inmatriculare din URSS. Colonelul Ionel Bejan a confirmat inclusiv la Parchetul General ca ocupantii din aceste autoturisme Lada care au bantuit Bucurestiul in cele mai fierbinti locuri erau imbracati standard: caciuli rusesti si cu scurta si pantaloni sport.

Procurorul Dan Voinea a confirmat ca astfel de turisti sovietici au actionat in mai multe localitati din tara. Unii dintre ei au fost ucisi in Bradesti, la intrarea in Craiova, iar doua victime au fost indentificate ca facand parte din Ministerul de Interne sovietic.

Istoria reala

Numarul de participanti la evenimente

300-400 de persoane incearca un protest in Piata Unirii din Iasi in dupa-amiaza zilei de 14 decembrie 1989;

800-3.000 de persoane se strang si participa la evenimentele din 16-17 decembrie 1989 de la Timisoara;

2.500-3.000 de persoane au participat la protestele din Piata Romana si din zona Hotelului Intercontinental in seara de 21 decembrie 1989;

30-50 de persoane la baricada din zona Universitate-Hotel Intercontinental, in noaptea de 21 spre 22 decembrie;

Peste 150.000 de persoane stationate in Piata Palatului, intre orele 12.00 si 18.00 pe 22 decembrie 1989.

In total, pentru intregul fenomen de prezenta activa in strada, inregistrat in perioada 16-26 decembrie 1989 pe intreg teritoriul tarii, se estimeaza o participare intre 1,5% si 1,8% din populatia activa.

17 years since the fall of Communism (series of articles from Romanian media)

Romanian President defies scandal in condemning communist regime "explicitly and categorically"

HotNews.ro, Dec 18, 2006

A joint session of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament in which President Traian Basescu presented a report condemning communism for the first time in CE European history was marred by unprecedented protests among some parliamentarians that prompted security officers to intervine to calm down demonstrators.

Traian Basescu appeared before the Parliament to present a report put up by a presidential commission of historians and experts that studied the effects of the 45-year communist regime on Romania and its people. The report found communism as an “illegitimate and criminal regime”.

The report names and blames communist-era officials who supported a regime that affected the interests, rights and security of its people. Among those names one can find many of today’s politicians, including ex-President Ion Iliescu and far-right leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor.

That prompted charges that the report was based on biased historical investigations.

Basescu accompanied the presentation with a statement that said “as head of the Romanian state, I explicitly and categorically condemn the communist system of Romania” in the second half of the 1900s.

The statement showed the communist regime in Romania was based on a “foreign diktat” in the years of 1944-1947 and could only last until its collapse in December 1989.

In a position unprecedented in former communist states of the ex-Soviet bloc, Basescu said he fully supported the findings of the commission condemning communism as the regime was based on a “fanatical ideology, an systematic hate-fueling ideology for which class fight and the dictatorship of workers symbolized the essence of historical progress”.

And he asked the joint chambers of the Parliament to support the statement condemning the crimes of the communist regime, of regret and compassion towards its victims. And he called for the building of a monument dedicated to victims of communism and the establishment of a Communist Dictatorship Museum in Romania.

He also hailed anti-communist dissidents who rose their voice against late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, including intellectuals like Paul Goma, Mircea Dinescu or Radu Filipescu, but also Liviu Babes, a man who in early 1989 put himself on fire in protest of the communist regime.

But his statements were marred by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the leader of the far-right Greater Romania Party-PRM, and his party colleagues who booed the President throughout his speech.

CV Tudor, who was a “court poet” for the Ceausescu family under the communist regime and ran a daily newspaper seen as the mouth of the Securitate, Ceausescu’s dreaded political police, also carried a banner depicting Basescu behind bars and reading “the Prison of the Mafia”.

While not as violent in their behavior as the PRM parliamentarians, representatives of the Social Democratic Party-PSD, the main opposition group in Romania, also dismissed the report as futile and lacking credibility.

According to PSD president Mircea Geoana the document - known as the Tismaneanu Report after the name of Vladimir Tismaneanu, the head of the presidential commission - was presented at a time when Romania did not need such fuss as a country about to join the European Union.

"The wounds of the past have been re-opened," Geoana added.

N.Y. Times article

Eastern Europe Struggles to Purge Security Services

By Craig S. Smith

December 12, 2006

BUCHAREST, Romania — Communism is gone and democracy is well implanted in the countries of the old Warsaw Pact, but the Soviet era’s security services are still sending shudders through the region nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The case of Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former K.G.B. agent who was poisoned in London in November, would not seem out of place here, where a death threat in Romania, a suicide in Bulgaria and unbroken silence on several unsolved murders provide clues to the continued presence of the secret services today.

Some members of the secret police remain in place. Others took advantage of the state-asset fire sale that came with the dismantling of centrally planned economies and are now quietly powerful players.

“In ’89, only Communism was killed, but the former state security and Communist Party chiefs took the economic power,” said Marius Oprea, president of the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, a Romanian government group.

As a result, the files that documented many of the era’s darkest deeds, from blackmail to torture to assassination, have remained closed — and few of the agents and informers whose reports fattened the folders of the services have ever been identified.

But that is changing with the advent of new governments that have displaced those more closely associated with the old Communists, and with pressure from the European Union. A renewed effort is under way across the former Soviet bloc to expose the continued role of the security services and to root out former police agents and collaborators.

The effort is not without risks. In November, Bozhidar Doychev, the man who oversaw Bulgaria’s most sensitive secret service archives, was found dead at his desk, with a bullet in his head from his own handgun.

His death was ruled a suicide, but many people have linked it to efforts by some in the government to identify public figures who worked with the country’s former Committee for State Security.

Mr. Oprea, a friend of Mr. Litvinenko’s, has experienced the threat up close.

On a Romanian street in his hometown, Brazov, a man approached him last year and warned that his toddler son could come to harm if he continued to “push things.”

“They are not happy when you start to dig into what happened after 1989,” said Mr. Oprea, who sent his family to live in Germany after the man’s warning.

Most of Central and Eastern Europe’s former Communist countries tried to purge their societies of Soviet-era secret police and informers in the aftermath of Communism’s collapse. But the closer they were to Russia, the less effective their purges were.

While many of the region’s new political leaders look decisively to the West for their future, some former Communists and the secret services that served them are drawn to the revitalized power of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his F.S.B., the successor to the K.G.B.

East Germany and the Czech Republic were the most successful with their purges after 1989, opening secret police files and screening public figures for past collaboration with the intelligence services. Poland screened tens of thousands of people in the early 1990s, but the process lost steam — until the nationalist Law and Justice Party came to power last year and revived it.

Bulgaria is only now beginning to confront the past of its secret police, who have been implicated in plots ranging from the murder of a Bulgarian dissident, Georgi I. Markov, with a poison-tipped umbrella on Waterloo Bridge in London in 1978 to an attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

But nowhere has the struggle between the former secret services and the forces for change been as intense as in Romania, now poised to join the European Union.

Before 1989, Romania’s Securitate was one of the Eastern bloc’s largest secret police forces in proportion to its population. Under the oppressive regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, it was also among the most brutal. An estimated 11,000 agents and a half-million informers watched millions of Romanian citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom were imprisoned for political reasons. Some were killed.

While the heads of the secret services have been changed and the services have been reorganized, much of the rank and file remains, now with ties to a powerful business elite.

Earlier this year, for example, the Justice Ministry disbanded its secret service, the General Directorate for Protection and Anti-Corruption. The organization had been wiretapping judges and gathering other information, “which we do not really know ended up where or with whom,” the justice minister, Monica Macovei, told local newspapers.

The service was set up in 2001 by Marian Ureche, a former Securitate colonel who resigned in 2003 after the local news media disclosed his secret police past. He was one of 1,600 former Securitate officers “who continued to hold key posts in the intelligence services established after 1989,” according to an anonymous 2002 report published by Romania’s Ziua newspaper and never challenged by the security services.

Many of the most powerful businessmen in Romania have links to the Securitate, even if they deny having benefited from such relationships — something that is, by its nature, difficult to prove.

Silvian Ionescu, the country’s top environmental official, was a former high-ranking Securitate officer who became wealthy after Communism’s fall through various business deals.

Dan Voiculescu, a media mogul and president of the Conservative Party, denied for years that he had Securitate ties and successfully sued several journalists for suggesting otherwise. But earlier this year, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, a government group that is checking the pasts of elected officials, civil servants and members of civil society, announced that Mr. Voiculescu had indeed acted as a secret police informer under the code name Felix.

Mr. Voiculescu has since admitted that he collaborated, though only “two or three times for economic espionage.” He said others involved with the Securitate stole assets or used their connections in other ways to accumulate wealth.

The first government not closely linked to the former Communists came to power in 1996 and passed a law requiring that the secret police archives be opened. But the government changed hands and lustration, as the process of exposing past Communist agents is called, stalled.

After years of delays, the security services are starting to turn over files to the National Council.

Those records under the council’s control fill about 10 miles of shelf space — roughly 1.8 million individual files. Romanians can request a copy of their file, if it exists, allowing them a sometimes cathartic look into the work of their tormentors.

In the city of Ploeste, Vasile Paraschiv, a 78-year-old former factory worker, holds up a six-inch stack of photocopies. The papers document the Securitate’s efforts to have him permanently committed to a psychiatric hospital because of his political views.

“I didn’t want to be a Communist Party member anymore,” he explained.

Mr. Paraschiv managed to win a court case in 1977 that allowed him to receive treatment at home, though he was sent to psychiatric hospitals on other occasions and forced to take antipsychotic drugs for years.

But the security services have not yet turned over all of the files, and there is widespread suspicion that the most important ones are being withheld.

“We don’t have any idea how many there are,” said Claudiu-Octavian Secasiu, president of the National Council. He thinks there are hundreds of thousands of files still in the hands of the secret services, based on an intelligence report from 1994.

The security services have until the end of the year to finish transferring the files, but confidence in the process is very low.

Vladimir Tismaneanu, a professor of politics at the University of Maryland who was appointed by President Traian Basescu to head a commission looking into Romania’s Communist past, complains that “there are still institutions, primarily the secret services, that hold back despite presidential intervention and will not deliver files in their possession.”

Mr. Tismaneanu said that despite presidential support, he has failed to get information on several Communist-era deaths blamed on the Securitate, including two possible poisonings of Radio Free Europe directors with radioactive thalium in the 1980s and the shooting of a Ceausescu critic in Chicago in 1991.

“We were told the files didn’t exist,” Mr. Tismaneanu said. “I don’t believe it.”

The council has succeeded in turning up a handful of informers among public figures, but most were minor players who, some say, lacked the clout to keep their files hidden or were victims of political sabotage.

The case that has drawn the most attention is that of former culture minister and Parliament member Mona Musca, who was thrown out of the Liberal Party after it was revealed that she had worked for the Securitate monitoring foreign students at the University of Timisoara, beginning in 1977. She says she was targeted because she was a popular politician and a potential rival of the country’s prime minister.

The file of Mr. Voiculescu of the Conservative Party was found just after he was nominated to become deputy prime minister. The news blocked his move and his party recently withdrew from the governing coalition.

“Instead of opening the files in the 1990s, the people in power kept them because they could be used for blackmail,” Mr. Voiculescu said, adding that as long as there are files in the secret services hands, “that can go on forever.”

It may be impossible to clarify the past until all interested parties have disappeared from the field.

Corneliu Turianu, a Communist-era judge who is one of the council’s 11 members, flips through a thick stack of paper at his Bucharest home, running his finger down the lists of vetted names, looking for his own.

“There are always new files appearing,” he said, pausing to pour a visitor a glass of Scotch with shaking hands. He said the process will continue until those who were adults before 1989 are dead. “Then,” he said, “nature will take its course."

Romanian hacker (L.A. Times)

Computer expert accused of hacking government sites

Romanian Victor Faur, 26, and his 'WhiteHat Team' allegedly accessed high-level military data.

By Greg Krikorian
Times Staff Writer

December 1, 2006

A Romanian computer expert was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles for allegedly hacking into more than 150 computers used by NASA, the Department of Energy and the U.S. Navy.

The 10-count indictment accuses Victor Faur, 26, of Arad, Romania, of conspiracy, unauthorized access to government computers and intentional damage to computers during a two-year period that ended last month.

The apparent goal of Faur and his hacking group, known as the "WhiteHat Team," was to flaunt their ability to access some of the government's most sensitive computer systems. Time after time, the indictment alleges, Faur used a computer program to cycle through millions of possible user names and password combinations until he gained access to the computers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Goddard Space Flight Center, Sandia National Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Faur then would intentionally impair the integrity and availability of information on the computers, gaining "high-level access" that would give him the names and passwords of authorized users of the system.

Faur also would download computer programs onto the compromised computers so they could be used as hosts for online "chat rooms" with others in the group, according to the indictment.

It adds that Faur and the others chose the computer targets because NASA "has the reputation as being the most secure information system on the Internet, along with other military and [U.S.] government sites."

During their yearlong investigation, authorities concluded that the computer intrusions and resulting loss of scientific data cost NASA nearly $1.4 million in losses, while the Navy and Energy Department combined suffered $100,000 in losses.

"He infected so many computers," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Hoffstadt. "And while the dollar loss may be somewhat low, it doesn't capture the fact that the computers that had to be taken out of service and repaired were collecting and analyzing scientific data that cannot be replaced."

Faur already had been arrested by Romanian authorities in a similar computer hacking case, Hoffstadt said.

If convicted in the U.S., Faur faces a maximum prison sentence of 54 years.

"The fact he is facing that much time in prison is an indication of how seriously we take this case," said Hoffstadt.

L.A. Times article

The Danube's green waltz

The majestic, meandering river ends in a lush Romanian delta, where birds and fish thrive and a fledgling eco-resort showcases nature's bounty.

By Susan Spano, Times Staff Writer
August 6, 2006

AT the end of its 1,771-mile journey across Europe, the mighty Danube River seems to give up trying to reach the Black Sea. It turns north, away from the coast, crosses the lonely steppe country, then frays into myriad channels, marshes, swamps and lakes edged by waterlogged willow trees.

Colonies of birds fly in from Asia, Africa and Siberia. In the stalled, murky water, giant carp and catfish lurk, sought by fishermen who live in villages that can be reached only by boat.

This is the Danube River delta, a 1.6-million-acre World Biosphere Reserve, out of time, unknown and remote, a lost puzzle piece at the wild, eastern edge of Europe. To see it is proof that the meandering river has never lost heart.

All along, it knew that the shortest route is not always the best way to get where you want to go.

In Romania, summer vacationers make a beeline for Black Sea beaches south of Constanta, about 80 miles east of Bucharest, Romania's capital. But only a few follow the river to its delta, which lines the northern part of Romania's Black Sea coast between Constanta and the Ukrainian border.

In 1999, Diwaker Singh, an Indian investment broker who works in Bucharest, brought his family here. He found thousands of nesting pelicans and cormorants flying in tight V formations, flotillas of water lilies and endless beds of reeds, Black Sea dunes, Greek and Roman archeological sites, painted monasteries and lost fishing villages.

But there were no reliable ways to see them and no interesting places to stay, except for a handful of dour, communist-era resorts and ugly, high-rise hotels in the delta gateway town of Tulcea.

Singh became acquainted with Virgil Munteanu, then-governor of the region, who helped him get approval to build a luxury hotel on a hill near the village of Somova, overlooking the delta. Singh's goal was to create a model eco-resort, showcasing the folk architecture, arts and crafts of Romania and employing local people.

Munteanu, who had just finished his term in office, became the general manager, and the Delta Nature Resort opened in May 2005.

I came here for a long weekend last month after a four-hour trip from Bucharest, mostly on bumpy back roads. I traveled in one of the resort's big Mercedes-Benz vans with Nassim, Singh's eldest son, a tall 16-year-old with the face of a cherub and the experience of a tycoon-in-the-making. He divides his time among an English boarding school, India and Bucharest.

When we passed a horse-drawn hay cart on the highway, Nassim smiled and said sagely, "The old and new really clash here."

Less than 20 years after the overthrow of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Bucharest looks like a city on growth hormones. Big-name foreign companies have opened shop, drawn partly by rock-bottom prices for goods and services as well as a highly literate, high-tech-savvy workforce. Real estate values are skyrocketing, and there is construction seemingly everywhere, spurred by Romania's expected acceptance early next year into the European Union.

*

The old ways

ONCE we left Bucharest, I saw shepherds moving their flocks of sheep and goats in the age-old rhythms of transhumance, the seasonal shifting of livestock from one pasture to another. In a countryside largely untouched by development, in a nation still manifestly part of the developing world, geese and pigs forage outside tumble-down farmhouses. Families sell colossal watermelons by the roadside, fetch water from wells and ride to town in wagons like the Pennsylvania Dutch. Fields of wheat, corn and ravishing yellow sunflowers stretch in seemingly every direction, with nary a gas station or convenience store to interrupt.

The Danube delta is the region's one major attraction. Eleven thousand years ago, sand banks built up at the mouth of the river, giving it no other recourse than to pool into placid lakes and back up into narrow, stagnant channels. Near Tulcea, the Danube separates into three main branches: the Chilia, bordering Ukraine; the Sfintu Gheorghe, flowing east below a chain of ancient, rounded-off mountains; and the Sulina, straightened by engineers in the 19th century to accommodate freighters.

The road to the Delta Nature Resort turns west at Tulcea, passing a Ceausescu-era factory, with fuming smokestacks and broken windows, that processes the raw materials for aluminum. It keeps the town employed and distributes hot water to several dozen villages nearby, but it also sends pollutants through an above-ground pipe to an earth-embanked reservoir yards away from one of the delta's arms.

You cannot visit this place without being struck by how precious but imperiled it is. This aviary, fish tank, oxygen-producing lung has narrowly escaped damaging development on numerous occasions, most recently in 2004, when dredging began in a channel on the Ukrainian side, now halted partly because of pressure from environmental groups. Before that, Ceausescu drained sections of the wetlands for agriculture, and the straightening of the Sulina allowed mammoth freighters into the delta as far east as Tulcea. Its sturgeon population is now critically endangered because of the unappeasable demand for the fishes' tiny black eggs, known as Beluga caviar.

"The biggest problem," Singh told me when I met him in his Bucharest office after my stay at the resort, "is that no one seems to know who is responsible for the delta. It's now under the Romanian ministry of agriculture, and that's a contradiction. There is no master plan for it, and the people of the delta see no reason why they should be involved in its conservation."

As we turned off the highway west of Tulcea, I marveled that it took an Indian deal maker to take on the task of protecting the Danube delta. This is a man whose knowledge of Romania, when he first arrived here eight years ago, began and ended with Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci.

Outside the ramshackle village of Somova, we ascended a hill covered in shaggy grapevines. Suddenly, I saw the delta, a petit-point tapestry in shades of green that stretched from horizon to horizon. A wattle fence banked by a riot of wildflowers marks the beginning of the resort, centered on a courtyard building with a bar, restaurant and observation tower.

Below it, 30 villas in three military rows and a swimming pool watch over Lake Somova, connected to the main river channel at high tide. A dock at the waterfront with a handful of motorboats tethered to it serves as the resort's parking lot.

I met Munteanu at the reception desk. He described the sightseeing itinerary included in my three-night package and warned me to stay indoors between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when hordes of mosquitoes come out. The resort was preparing for a corporate executive retreat, but for the moment I had it virtually to myself.

A few months after the resort opened, avian flu was discovered in delta ducks and swans, the first instance of the potentially lethal virus in continental Europe. Since its appearance in the Danube delta it has spread as far west as France. Transmission of the H5N1 virus from birds to humans is rare, yet thousands of contaminated birds have been killed in Romania, and the fear of a pandemic has kept the resort's villas largely empty.

That's a pity, because they are charming, green shingled structures with stone fireplaces and wide front porches where greenery hangs from the roof to the balustrade, framing the view. Each one has a spacious living room, bedroom and bath, decorated with such folk craft touches as woven rugs, wooden lamps and ceramics chosen on forays through the Romanian hinterland by Singh and his wife. The villas have modern amenities such as air conditioning, but I immediately opened the tightly screened picture windows to let in the breeze and the hum of the delta.

The first evening, I sat in the high-ceilinged dining room, surrounded by an Audubon guidebook of delta birds hand-painted on the walls. I was about to order from the menu, which is heavy on freshwater fish and produce. But Nassim stopped by to tell me that he had asked chef Sandeep Chadha, one of the only resort employees not from the delta region, to make food from the subcontinent.

So I started with a plate of delicious, mixed Indian appetizers, followed by creamy catfish curry. The wine list features Romanian vintages that I thought would be better used in the making of ethanol. The restaurant sells wine by the bottle, so I couldn't try Romanian vintages by the glass.

And I had other concerns, stemming chiefly from service that had all the ambitions of a luxury hotel but consistently fell short. My villa had fresh flowers that were left to wither. No one tended the pool area, and when I asked for coffee in my room, a waiter brought only a single cup, because, he said, the resort didn't have any thermoses.

After that, I breakfasted on the restaurant's terrace, watching barn swallows flit neurotically around nests tucked under the roof. White pelicans and black cormorants flew by, playing a game of chess in the sky. They work together, Munteanu told me, with the pelicans forming a circle on the water and the cormorants plunging in the middle to bring up the fish.

*

For bird lovers

MY two days at the resort were devoted to delta sightseeing, first in a speedboat that took me into a network of river veins north of Tulcea, marked by signs, like city streets. I saw egrets, herons and immature cormorants in treetop nests, isolated wildlife viewing towers, dilapidated excursion boats and weekend anglers in dinghies underneath an awning of willows, hoping for a strike from one of the delta's mean trophy pikes. Along the river, kids in mismatched swimming suits dived off the banks while their parents played cards and drank beer at waterfront campsites.

I got all the way to Sulina, the biggest town in the delta with a population of about 5,000. A century ago, it was the headquarters of the European Commission for the Danube River, which engineered the removal of seven wide "S" curves in the Sulina channel, shortening the trip for freighters from Tulcea to the sea by about 17 miles. At the time, the town had about 35,000 people, foreign consulates and a busy port.

But no engineer can change the fact that the Danube is a great sieve, carrying silt and debris that it leaves behind on entering the Black Sea, incessantly reconfiguring the coastline. Sulina is now about five miles west of the sea, a town in dry dock. Submerged concrete barriers have been installed in the channel to keep the waterway on course.

The next day, resort guide Catalin Stonescu took me to the moldering natural history museum in Tulcea to inspect a full array of stuffed delta birds, plus fish swimming in tanks in the basement. We also crossed Lake Somova in a motorboat, where I saw something better: a pale yellow squacco heron poised on a lily pad, as motionless as the ones at the museum.

Then it was on to the Christian Orthodox Saon Monastery, whose silver domes loom above reed beds. The compound has two churches, one from the early 19th century, built in the Russian style with a baby-blue interior, the other more typically Romanian, lined with recently renovated frescoes. We lunched in the refectory, served by a nun in a black habit who filled the table with delicious stuffed peppers, chicken stew, home-made cheese, bread, wine and pastry.

Too soon, the idyll was over and I was back at the Bucharest airport, watching Romania rush into the future, half wondering whether the weekend had been a dream. So I got out my map and traced the inefficient, indirect course of the Danube, which I now know reaches the Black Sea in its own good time.

*

Romanian river tour

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, connecting service to Bucharest is offered on Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, British Airways, Air Tahiti Nui and United. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,132 until Sept. 1, dropping to $1,016 until Oct. 31.

WHERE TO STAY:

Delta Nature Resort, Somova-Parches, Kilometer 3, Tulcea, Romania; http://www.deltaresort.com , has 30 villas, a restaurant, pool and boat dock overlooking Lake Somova and the Danube River; doubles about $125 per person, including breakfast, or $200 per person, full board. Special sightseeing and fishing packages are available. A van transfer from the Bucharest airport to the resort costs $650 for four people round-trip.

TO LEARN MORE:

Romanian National Tourist Office, (212) 545-8484, http://www.romaniatourism.com .

— Susan Spano

FOR THE RECORD:
Romania: A map accompanying an Aug. 6 article about the Danube delta labeled Budapest as the capital of Romania. The country's capital is Bucharest.

Washington Post article

U-Md. teacher heads inquiry in Romania

Probe of Communist past stirs backlash

By Jim Compton
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, July 28, 2006; Page A16

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Working out of a human rights office in a former
mansion in this Balkan capital, a University of Maryland professor is
leading anofficial inquiry into Romania's ugly communist past. His work
has stirred a vicious backlash from people who want that past left alone.

Vladimir Tismaneanu, born in Romania and now a U.S. citizen, heads a national commission appointed by President Traian Basescu earlier this year. "A democratic political community cannot be built on amnesia," said Tismaneanu, 55, an energetic man who favors jeans and casual shirts.

The commission's 20 staff experts, drawn from the Romanian academic world, are poring over scholarly research and papers in state archives. "Our goal is not to break new ground," Tismaneanu said in an interview, "but to bring together the mountain of existing material, with every statistic, every fact, about our communist past."

His commission, which includes historians, political scientists and a philosopher, has no power to issue subpoenas or bring formal charges. Another commission, appointed by Parliament, probes allegations of crimes by individuals.

But Basescu has said that the Tismaneanu panel's report will become "an official document of the Romanian state" and that he will seek a parliamentary endorsement for it. Plans call for the report to form the basis of a textbook on communism for Romanian high schools.

In the years since communism's fall here in 1989, Romania has become a close U.S. ally, sending troops to Iraq and agreeing to a long-term U.S. military presence on its soil. President Bush hosted Basescu at the White House on Thursday.

The man Basescu appointed to catalogue the four-decade communist era is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland's College Park campus and the author of standard works on Romanian communism and on Eastern Europe after the revolutions of 1989.

He grew up in Romania under communism, earning a BA degree at the University of Bucharest in 1974. He left the country in 1981 and later campaigned against the dictatorship of President Nicolae Ceausescu, speaking on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

Romania's sometimes halting steps toward democracy since Ceausescu's overthrow in 1989, along with the persistence of corruption, have hindered the country's advance toward membership in the European Union, set for 2007. Hundreds of former high-ranking communists and secret police agents continue to hold top positions in government and business.

The Conservative Party leader, Sen. Dan Voiculescu, was recently accused by Romanian newspapers of operating decades ago under the code name "Felix" and furnishing economic reporting to the much- feared Securitate -- the KGB of communist Romania. After initially denying the allegations, he called a news conference at which he confirmed them but made no apology.

"I collaborated, just as millions of Romanians collaborated," Voiculescu said, adding that "no one was injured by my reports." He has abandoned a bid to become deputy prime minister.

Former prime minister Adrian Nastase, meanwhile, is the target of three criminal investigations by Romania's anti-corruption agency and has resigned as Social Democrat Party chief and speaker of the lower house of Parliament. He is accused of taking bribes to make political appointments and of receiving improper campaign contributions during an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004.

Despite many obstacles, some victims of communism have managed to win important victories. Doina Cornea, a gutsy professor of French who is widely considered the leading anti-communist dissident to have remained in the country, demanded and got her security files. She received two wooden boxes containing about five feet of records, including surveillance photographs.

Sitting recently in the book-lined studio of her 19th-century cottage in Cluj-Napoca, capital of the Romanian region of Transylvania, she displayed handfuls of pictures. One showed a neighbor looking over the fence, another the uniformed policeman who stood menacingly in front of her house for more than a year. She was followed everywhere, jailed and roughed up for leading protests.

Cornea noticed that one very knowledgeable informer was designated "X." She demanded to know who the snoop was and, two years later, was informed that "X" was Eugen Uricaru, president of the writers' union. Cornea said she wrote to Uricaru and told him she'd learned what he did. When he failed to reply, she waited a month, then held a news conference to unmask him. Uricaru did not seek the union presidency again.

The Romanian novelist Augustin Buzura also obtained his security files and found that 56 informers, including close friends and associates, had reported on him.

The 67-year-old writer, winner of the country's highest literary prizes, expresses skepticism that any commission can manage the hydra-headed issue of communism. "Practically, the communist era has not ended," he said. "The mentality is the same. No matter how extraordinary a commission may be, it cannot fathom in a period of six months the catastrophe that was communism."

Tismaneanu, who commutes between College Park and Bucharest, works out of a mansion in the capital that houses the Group for Social Dialogue, a political and human rights organization formed during the 1989 revolution. The house was once the scene of parties held by Nicu Ceausescu, the dictator's son.

Tismaneanu shrugs off criticism that his parents were committed communists and that his credibility is hurt by his friendship with Ion Iliescu, who held various posts under Ceausescu and served twice as president after 1989.

Nationalist politicians have harassed Tismaneanu relentlessly. The extremist Greater Romania Party published articles asserting that he was a Zionist operative and stooge of the Americans.

"A Greater Romania Party senator made a speech in Parliament," he recalled, "about 'five reasons why Tismaneanu should not head the commission,' and reason number three was that I was a Jew."

The mainstream newspaper Ziua printed an allegation that Tismaneanu had been a Securitate agent as a student in the United States, a story for which it later apologized. (A government agency certified that his political past is clean.)

He has also drawn criticism for supporting the war in Iraq. "Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction," he has said of the deposed Iraqi president.

Meanwhile, he continues his research. Is closure possible? He is careful to say that his campaign is about moral recovery, not vengeance.

"I believe we are able to somehow approach the past in a way that combines both analysis and compassion," he said.

S.F. Chronicle film review

A sad, affecting journey through Romanian hospital hell

Ruthe Stein, Chronicle Senior Writer
Friday, June 30, 2006

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu: Black comedy. Starring Ion Fiscuteanu and Luminita Gheorghiu. Directed by Cristi Puiu. (In Romanian with English subtitles. R. 153 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Films from Romania rarely make it to our shores, so you know right away that "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" must be something special. It also carries an imprimatur from Cannes, where it won a top prize last year. On the other hand, there's that off-putting title. Who wants to spend 2 1/2 hours watching an inexorable march to the grave?

But the movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters. While its ending has been foretold, what precedes it is wildly unpredictable and darkly comic.

Over the course of a single night, the title character, Dante Lazarescu, is put through a medical hell right out of his namesake's Inferno. To the string of exhausted doctors who halfheartedly treat him, he's nothing more than a troublesome old drunk. But as the film unfolds at a purposely deliberate pace, Lazarescu is revealed in all his complexity. Learning of his habits, likes and dislikes humanizes him, while his hospital experience has a chillingly opposite effect.

In the opening scene, Lazarescu, a widowed, retired engineer, is alone in his filthy apartment in a bleak housing project in Bucharest that looks to be an unfortunate remnant of Soviet rule. With the screen to himself for the next 15 minutes, Ion Fiscuteanu -- a Romanian Alan Arkin in his ability to modulate black comedy so it doesn't dissolve into shtick -- puts on a one-man show that might be called "The Life of Mr. Lazarescu," creating an indelible portrait of a lonely man who looks older than his 62 years but isn't ready to give up the ghost.

Fiscuteanu immediately conveys his character's eagerness to connect in the hopeful way he talks to his cats, as if expecting a reply. He phones his sister, to whom he sends money he can ill afford on his small pension, and pumps her for information about his daughter, unable to conceal his hurt over their estrangement.

When Lazarescu calls an ambulance service to complain about a headache and stomach pain, the actor's measured responses to a litany of questions convince you that there's a skeptical dispatcher on the other end.

His slow gait and pallor indicate that he is not well even before he spits up blood. Everyone from the dispatcher to his sibling and the neighbors he goes to for help attribute his condition to a fondness for the home-brewed booze he keeps in a bottle within reach. But Lazarescu knows his own body, and his stubborn resistance to their diagnosis shows he's got spunk. It will start to be drained out of him the moment a paramedic, Mioara (Luminita Gheorghiu), belatedly arrives and attempts to hoist him onto a stretcher.

The dark humor in director Cristi Puiu's script (co-written with Razvan Radulescu) comes out in moments like Mioara casually pointing out that Lazarescu is sitting in his own vomit and his first physician berating him for using up valuable time that could be better spent on people with serious injuries. He has the bad luck of falling ill the same night as a devastating bus crash that killed and maimed dozens of passengers. The survivors are young while he is old, so his erratic care may result from doctors doing triage. Though Lazarescu is repeatedly poked and prodded and asked to pick up his knees, nobody at the three hospitals where he's taken (there's no room at the first two) hooks him up to machines that would monitor his vital signs.

Initially apathetic about her patient, Mioara becomes his lone supporter. Gheorghiu effectively communicates the paramedic's change of heart by the warmth she shows toward Lazarescu when he asks her about her family. She tries to get doctors to listen to his symptoms, but can't battle a system that's so obviously dysfunctional.

If Puiu only intended to condemn socialized medicine, "Mr. Lazarescu" wouldn't have made it much further than theaters in Bulgaria. The director, whose work has been recognized at several film festivals, explores a universal theme of how illness can rob people of their individuality. It's the same issue poignantly raised in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Wit."

You watch in horror as Lazarescu is transformed from feisty participant in his own treatment to a lethargic blob on a hospital bed. It seems to happen so quickly. With the help of Fiscuteanu's quietly affecting performance and the director's attention to detail, Mr. Lazarescu has become a real person whose survival matters, and you wish this movie had a different title.

-- Advisory: Disturbing images of accident victims.

E-mail Ruthe Stein at rstein@sfchronicle.com.

Page E - 7

Sibiu International Theater Festival '06 featured speech

Cultural capital: migration, identity & heritage

A presentation by Dr. Mike Phillips during the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (SITF) 2006
Sunday, 4 June 2006, Thalia Hall

Mike Phillips:
The ideas I’m going to talk about and some of the ideas which emerged in this festival are also things to be talked about not only in Britain but across Europe.

I teach and give lectures in Italy, Poland, Germany and Denmark, and I am based in Britain. So I have some idea of the critical ideas we are dealing with at this moment in Europe. And, in fact, Europe and the collision of cultures in Europe is probably one of the most interesting things going on in the world at the moment, intellectually and culturally.

We are at the eve of the accession of Romania in the EU. We are also at the eve of a unique moment for Sibiu, when it becomes the 2007 cultural capital of Europe, together with Luxembourg.

One interesting problem is that we talk generally about this meeting of nations, and meeting of cultures, in terms of economy. Back in Britain people talk often about bureaucracy, about regulations, in conversations about culture, without gaining a very firm idea of what is it for, what it means, what people are talking about when they talk about culture.

Cultural collision
And it’s also the case when I hear people here talking about the accession. You can hear people talking about economy and the whole shape of things. You can’t actually hear people here debating about the details of what this cultural collision – which will take place, begin to take place in a very serious way next year – you can’t hear anyone talking about what that means in detail. What is a culture, who owns it, how do you preserve it, what you do with it? Not only that, but also what the use of a culture also means in other terms.

So, around this spectacle of techniques that you have observed in this festival – as I said, you could hear people talking all the time about trading, about exchange, about wanting to get back to the country. All these processes are part of what’s meant by culture and its operations. But, as I said, it’s hard to understand what people think when they talk about this. It is equally hard to find out what people mean when they talk about preserving culture, when they talk about identity and so on.

There’s one interesting statistic we’ve been hearing a lot about across Europe, which is that when accession happens, there’s going to be 300,000 Romanians working abroad and moving abroad every year. Now, that is an interesting and peculiar phenomenon, which again we need to talk about the meaning of that phenomenon in terms of culture. So, let’s talk about it a little.

Let me tell you a little bit about my current life, because I’m accustomed to talking about cultural capital as a way of exploring an idea, theorizing a network of behaviours and to my surprise, when I said ’cultural capital’ here, everyone assumed I was talking about Sibiu. So, let me distinguish what I mean.

My mistake has been to forget that in English the word capital means a number of different things, that is capital meaning a bank of resources, what you would translate as ‘capital’, and capital meaning a major city in a country, like London or Paris, and I think you would translate this as ‘capitala’ – ‘capitala culturala’.

Cultural capital
Let me make it clear: at this moment, I am talking about cultural capital as this bank of cultural resources. Cultural resources not as a place, instead I mean cultural capital as a collection of cultural resources that an individual or a nation, or a group has. Now, you can think about capital in three different important ways.

You can think about it as economic capital, you can think about it as social capital, or you can think about the one that I’m interested in at the moment: cultural capital. I don’t want you to think about these, as separate and distinct, but before we make the connections, let’s discuss cultural capital. And we can talk about it in several different ways.

For instance, your cultural capital might be having certain customs, or the ability to theorize about cultural events, or the ability to make connections between things, or the qualifications you require when you take your examinations. At the simplest level, it might be the way that you live.

I was very much struck last night at the play, ‘Electra’ directed by Mihai Maniutiu, by realising afterwards that I do not possess the cultural capital to completely understand it. When I got into a discussion about it afterwards, I understood a number of elements that I hadn’t grasped while I was watching it. Here was an instance of the use of cultural capital and what it meant, in order to create a particular kind of social value, but also in order to open up the aesthetic to you.

Of course, Constantin Chiriac and Bogdan Pastaca (I’m talking about the rapper from ‘Parazitii’) might have different ideas of what cultural capital you possess as a nation. But, at the same time, you have to have that bank of resources which means something to you.

Another way of thinking about cultural capital might be to do with objects, pictures, pottery, weapons, stories. I remember the very first time I came to Romania, a long time ago, being walked through the museum of military history by a nice gentleman from the Ministry of Interior, and he showed me the flint arrow-heads, and Mihai Viteazul, and Vlad Tepes, and all the archaeological evidence of Dacian culture.

It might also mean patterns of fabric. For instance, when I look at the television and I see folkloric singing, I see women standing like that (Ed. - taking a proud and firm posture) and little girls looking like this. And it strikes me very strongly that this is a sense of cultural capital.

I have to tell you one thing that strikes me about that. It’s to do with dancing, the different ways that is natural for people to dance. I’ll show you. Well, I don’t go to discos, but when I’m at a party and the sound comes on I feel like moving my hands and I go like that (Ed. - does a dance move). When they do Romanian folklore they do like that (Ed. - sketches a different movement).

I was struck by this sense in which we’re talking here about a basic cultural capital, something that you use in order to outline your own identity. But, cultural capital can also refer to the institution in which these things are housed. So, if you want to talk about, I suppose, the cultural capital contained in Sibiu, which is very complex, you go the Bruckental Museum and see certain things which I suppose might be described as the cultural capital of the city. But I will deal with that in a different way.

The point is that all this constitutes the cultural capital that any person, or any group, or any community, or any nations has at its disposal. So what’s the point of these things these days? Why is it important?

Well, if you think about the business of art and culture, one of the things that strikes me again and again, repeatedly, working in my business – as you know, as you heard, I am an academic, a novelist, I work as a curator in a gallery of contemporary art. In fact, the significance of the gallery that I work for is that it is the national collection of modern British art, and I work within the framework of an international art market, which has particular kinds of values, and I’m going to talk about them a bit later, but I want to make a comparison between the different ways in which we need cultural capital and the different ways in which we use it.

I want to illustrate this by giving you one example of both cultural capital and the way it might be used. In the last year or so, I think the last year, I was involved in the purchase of a painting which the director and curators of our national gallery said was a fundamental part of our cultural capital. What was interesting was that this painting was not by an English master, it was a painting by Raphael. The only reason they claimed it as part of our cultural capital was that it has been in Britain for a long time.

We have any number of things we stole, or kidnapped from different parts of the world, such as the Elgin Marbles which we kidnapped from Greece. We even have people’s dead bones lined up in basements all over London. One of the arguments that we’re going through at this moment is how suitable it is to return things. But that’s an argument which need not concern you. The point is that this particular painting was on sale, for £33 million. And the process we’ve been through is a constant transference of cultural objects, cultural artefacts, from private hands to state control. The reason for that, I will go into later.

Here’s one level of argument about cultural capital, cultural capital of the nation, which comes from a very specific background and means certain things.

The other extreme that I want you to consider is the roof-tops along the road here in Sibiu, the tiles. I was looking at a gang of seven men working yesterday, and a friend of mine told me it’s the first time he sees an operation going on in Romania where all the seven men were working at the same time – I didn’t believe that. They were repairing the roof tiles, and I remember walking down with Constantin and Nicolae Ratiu about two years ago, and they were telling me about the apprenticeship creating a particular style of tiles, restoring and so on. That is another example of a kind of cultural capital which comes out of a very different background and has a very different meaning. I want to look at the question of who needs these things, why, and what they have in common, and what the differences between them mean.

So, let’s step back a little back and talk about the relationship between various elements in this idea of cultural capital, and its relationship with other forms of capital. In order, if you like, to put flesh on these differences we talked about, between different forms of cultural capital, I want to refer to the words of the French sociologist Bourdieu, who worked in the middle of the last century.

Cultural capital (le capital culturel) is a sociological term used by Pierre Bourdieu. In ‘The Forms of Capital’ (1986), Bourdieu distinguishes between three types of capital:
Economic capital: command over economic resources;
Social capital: resources based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support.
Cultural capital: forms of knowledge; skill; education; any advantages a person has which give them a higher status in society, including high expectations.

Bourdieu did a great project by which we are still haunted in the cultural field. Bourdieu looked at the institutions in France and he looked at their audiences, and he looked at the relationship between institutions and the audiences, and he came to the conclusion – I’m putting this very crudely because we don’t have time to deal with Bourdieu’s words – Bourdieu came to the conclusion that there was this thing that he called cultural capital, and this cultural capital led to the development what he called social capital.

What he said was that there was an elite which ran the institutions, an elite that had kidnapped, more or less, the cultural capital of the nation, and then sold it more or less – not sold it back to them, because the nation can’t afford it anymore – have given them a minor access to the things that they (the audience) owned in the first place. The consequence of that was that the cultural capital which was locked-up and contained within the museums, the galleries, the theatres, and so on and so forth was a sort of resource which allowed a particular elite to increase the gap between themselves and the people. And the relationship between that cultural capital and economic capital is that cultural capital becomes a marker of economic superiority, it becomes a marker of your ability to protect a particular kind of resources.

I want to draw your attention to something of which you are very conscious in this part of the world, to the sense in which people who might have been, let us say, selling carpets in the street 15 years ago now have become multimillionaires. Also, during those 15 years, they have set out to buy cultural capital. In Britain 3 or 4 of our major football clubs which are important cultural artefacts, are now owned by Russian millionaires. To make matters worse, my club, Arsenal (as we say: come on you Gunners!), is moving into a new stadium which will be called the Emirates Stadium. You can’t imagine what a sort of cultural trauma that thing involves.

Who owns the cultural capital?
It leads us to the question of not only why do we need cultural capital, to which really there’s no answer: the answer really is another question – that is to say: who owns the cultural capital, what claim do we have on it, how can we say what it is, and what should happen to it?

We live in different areas of interest, and I am very much aware (and I’ll come to this in a moment) about the differences in the quality, the meaning, and the content of cultural capital between the areas in which we live. But here’s a peculiarity: one of the interesting phenomena about Europe altogether has been a concept which is called ‘democratic deficit’. ‘Democratic deficit’ simply refers to the ability or inability of Europeans within the EU to affect decisions. That is to say, you vote in a democratic process etc, but having voted, there’s nothing you can do about what happens – a democratic deficit.

One thing that struck me recently is that this deficit has been grown, and it has erected itself, in cultural terms. One of the elements which demonstrates interesting gaps in the ability to collect, to assemble and display cultural capital that truly reflects the position and the nature of the population.

This deficit tends to be, and I am turning back to a discussion we had last year, to be demonstrated and illustrated by the position of migrants. This isn’t an abstract, theoretical discussion. All those formulations that I talked about, in which the culture had been kidnapped and locked-up in institutions, also translated last year into burning buildings in the Paris banlieus. Because when you take away people’s ability to own and use cultural capital, what you get is a very strong sentiment of deprivation.

In that sense, migration has been sort of a Litmus test (Litmus paper - a paper containing dyes which change colour when exposed to acids or bases. Acids turn litmus paper pink or red. Bases turn litmus paper blue.) – a sort of test about the ability of a nation to offer the whole population a network of resources which make them feel a part of the national project. There are implications here for the future, but I don’t want to get hooked on those - on migration, or indeed on those about the ‘capitala culturala’.

It’s really only symptomatic, but here’s a question that for me illustrates the relationships of those things, that is movement across borders and the ability of people to use cultural capital to reflect their identity.

Migration & cultural capital
The question I would like to put to you is to do with the meaning of cultural capital in situations of movement and change. I want to draw your attention to something I noticed as a teacher in universities in Britain, teaching Romanians and meeting Romanians in particular, but this applies to several different peoples. And I am thinking of a particular student I have – I had – two years, three years ago, by the name of Marius.

Marius came from Iasi. He did his degree in London and he’s now a very successful young executive, always wearing a suit, very smart, just about to buy an expensive car. Marius’s attitude to Romania at the moment is total rejection, and as far as he’s concerned that was the place he left some years ago. He comes back to see his family, his mother, but that’s about it.

I want to talk about a different kind of Romanian, who comes from a sort of fairly sophisticated, elegant country and fits right in, to the same sort of level in Britain. For example, when Constantin Chiriac came to London and did a one-man shower Riverside Studios, we were turning away people who knew about him and belonged to the same cultural influences. He’s a figure here in this cultural arena. That was another sort of identity.

Those people who possess it use a particular kind of cultural capital in particular ways. I’ll demonstrate one way which is totally emblematic for me: when, at Easter, I was on holiday. What we usually do then, from Easter Friday to Easter Monday, is watch crap films on television and we buy chocolate rabbits, the Easter Bunny. What is the Easter Bunny? And we buy chocolate eggs because they are chocolate.
One of the things that really hit me last Easter, because I was invited to a Romanian home in London, was the fact that people were celebrating Easter in a way that had a sort of direct cultural link with the notion of Easter, which was clearly traditional. They didn’t buy Easter Bunnies, but they painted their Easter eggs in traditional patterns. And they didn’t go to the supermarket to buy their ready made food, but they cooked their Easter Sunday lamb. I was struck by the sense in which that was a kind of cultural capital for them which said something about their identity.

The question in my mind, which I was discussing with a Romanian student, is that if you live let’s say 22 years in a place like Sibiu or wherever, and then you move to Paris or Berlin, or London, and you live there for the next 25 years. What are you? A Berliner, a Londoner, a Parisian? If you ask a Romanian ‘what is it that makes you a Romanian?’ – this brings us back to the notion of cultural capital and what does it mean.

This is one of the things I wanted to discuss by means of this question of who owns it, what does it mean, and what do we use it for?

I raise these questions because, as I said in the beginning, we are at the eve of an important and significant cultural collision in which you and I become actors, operators within what is supposed to be either a common culture or a culture which has various different elements which can articulate with each other, but which in fact not only do not but are aggressively competing for meaning, for significance, and for ownership of the framework of identity.

I want to go back, very briefly, to what I said about the art market that I work in. As I came to from London to Sibiu, through Bucharest, a friend took me to the Peasant Museum, which I have long wanted to see, but never managed to. What struck me about it was that the artefacts in the Peasant Museum were by and large things that you could see if you go to any village in Romania. And to me that was quite remarkable, because if you live in a village in Sussex or near Doncaster and you want to know about the history and the culture which that village had 20 years ago you have to go to a museum. Here it seems, as with the example of the tiles and the roof, that people still have managed to preserve their artefacts and skills, the institutions have not managed to be strong or ruthless enough to kidnap the cultural artefacts and habitats. It appears to me that it is still the case here that cultural capital defines a particular kind of individuality and certain kinds of group identity, in a way that actually the alienated, post-modern forms with which certainly I live don’t allow people to enter into this business of ownership.

I suppose that the interesting question is what happens when those two forms meet.

About the author:

DR MIKE PHILLIPS, FRSL, FRSA
Writer Mike Phillips was born in Georgetown, Guyana. He came to Britain as a child and grew up in London. He was educated at the University of London (English), the University of Essex (politics), and at Goldsmiths College London (education).

He worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster between 1972 and 1983 on radio and television programmes including The Late Show and Omnibus, before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. He has written full-time since 1992. He is best known for his crime fiction, including four novels featuring black journalist Sam Dean: Blood Rights (1989), which was adapted for BBC television, The Late Candidate (1990), winner of the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award, Point of Darkness (1994) and An Image to Die For (1995). The Dancing Face (1998) is a thriller centred on a priceless Benin mask. His most recent novel, A Shadow of Myself (2000), is a thriller about a black documentary filmmaker working in Prague and a man who claims to be his brother.

Mike Phillips co-wrote Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998) to accompany a BBC television series telling the story of the Caribbean migrant workers who settled in post-war Britain. His latest book, London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001), is a series of interlinked essays and stories, a portrait of the city seen from locations as diverse as New York and Nairobi, London and Lodz, Washington and Warsaw.

Mike’s play ‘You Think You Know Me But You Don’t’ was published in Romanian in the cultural magazine ‘Timpul’ from Iasi (nr.7-8, July-August 2005) after being presented at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival 2005.

Mike writes for the Guardian, is a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is a Curator of Cross Cultural Programmes at Tate, the gallery and museum which houses the United Kingdom's national collections of modern and contemporary art. Mike’s most recent exhibition at Tate Britain is ‘Seeing Africa’, 22 July – 29 October 2006.