Ion Iliescu: Encyclopedia II - Ion Iliescu - Controversies

Ion Iliescu - Controversies

Ion Iliescu - Mineriads

He was responsible for calling the miners of Jiu Valley to Bucharest on 28 January and June 14, 1990 to end the non-violent protests against the ex-communist leaders of Romania (the Golaniad). This ended in violence, as the miners armed with clubs attack the protesters and trashed the Bucharest University, various museums and the headquarters of opposition parties, claiming to have discovered them as havens of decadence and immorality - drugs, false currency printing machines and firearms they had claimed as evidence later proved to either non-existent, or (according to case) black and white xerox machines, and compressed air rifles used for target practice. The miners' violence left at least 6 dead (some sources have claimed figures varying between 200 and 300), with at least 5000 injured. Miners shouted slogans such as Moarte intelectualilor! ("Death to intellectuals") or Noi muncim, nu gândim ("We are the workers, not the thinkers" - implying legitimacy). There is no fundament to the reasons cited by them: "ending anarchy and securing the ideals of the Revolution" , "destroying Fascist elements" - a reference to coups planned by Iron Guard or Ion Antonescu sympathisers, ones that had been alleged by Iliescu himself on several occasions. The overwhelming majority of Iliescu's adversaries had been commited to democracy, all were organized, peaceful, and on the brink of disbanding their unitary protest (for several reasons, the most obvious of them being the students' exam session), while their main demand had been minimalistic and seen as a logical outcome of the previous Revolution: ousting all neo-communists from power.

Iliescu later thanked the miners:

He expanded on this, declaring a right-wing liberal neo-fascist international conspiracy to have attempted the usurping of legitimate power and the destruction of the progressive left within Romania.

According to his lawyer and the military prosecutor Voinea, Ion Iliescu has been recently placed under criminal law investigation (the official term for prosecution) with regard to the events that occurred in June, 1990 in Bucharest. If convicted on all charges (that include crimes against humanity, accessory to murder and revolt, censorship), he faces life imprisonment.

Ion Iliescu - Constitution violations

Iliescu is accused by his opponents of having held three terms in office (four, counting the one between December 1989 and June 1990), although the Constitution, adopted in 1991, during his first mandate (1990-1992), was not to allow it. Before his unsuccessful campaign of 1996, the Constitutional Court of Romania ruled in favor of his third candidature and henceforth of his third presidency, begun in 2000. The situation is fairly similar to those in Russia (Boris Yeltsin), Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the same time, taking into account that Ion Iliescu had a shorter first term and that he had a break during the second and the third term. In view of this, the accusation can be described as biased, since it ignores the illegitimacy of ex post facto legislation within the framework of Romanian constitutionalism.

In 1995, the procedures of impeaching the president Ion Iliescu were started by the Romanian Democratic Convention, following a an press interview in which Iliescu appeared to deny the owners' rights as a whole to properties nationalized during the communist period. The Constitutional Court agreed on the unlawfulness of the declaration, but the Members of Parliament rejected the proposal of impeachment.

In the 2004 electoral campaign he actively supported the Social Democratic Party of Romania (SDP) and their candidate Adrian Năstase, despite the risk of this being interpreted as a violation of the fundamental laws, which do not allow for the President to engage in party politics. In addition to dissmising these accusations by remarking that he was not the chief of state in Switzerland (and thus inducing the image of that country as excessively neutral), he argued that, since he was also an SDP candidate for the 2004-2008 Romanian Senate (the upper chamber of the Parliament), he had the right to campaign for his supporting party, thus increasing the doubt that his actions as President had been marked by a conflict of interest. Another 1996 decision of the Constitutional Court had ruled that the president in term, even not as a party member, may run on a party list at the end of his mandate. The topic of the president's involvement in party politics is still a sensitive issue in Romania, largely because of the legal precedent created by Iliescu, but also because of several contradictions in the laws themselves (coupled with issues posed by the cautions of Romania's semi-presidential system, many times percieved as ambiguous).

Ion Iliescu - Alleged KGB connections

In 1995, the Ziua newspaper published an interview with an ex-KGB officer who declared that Ion Iliescu was a KGB inductee. Iliescu denied any involvement, and Ziua journalists began to investigate the topic in detail. However, only a few days later, Ziua alleged that its employees were being placed under the surveillance of the Romanian Intelligence Service -- the official explanation was that the secret service was in fact watching a spy that lived nearby.

The scandal on his alleged connections continued in 2003, when Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who had been granted access to Soviet archives, declared that Iliescu and most of the Salvation Front members were KGB agents, that Iliescu had been in close connection with Mikhail Gorbachev ever since they had allegedly met during Iliescu's stay in Moscow, and that the Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a plot organized by the KGB - in order to regain control of the country's policies (gradually lost under Ceauşescu's rule).

Ion Iliescu - Pardons

On 15 December 2004, a few days before the end of his last term, Iliescu pardoned Miron Cozma, the leader of the miners during the early 1990s, who had been sentenced in 1999 to 18 years in prison in conjunction with the 1991 Mineriad. This has attracted harsh criticism from all Romanian media. The United States ambassador has called it a surprising and worrying act.

For the pardon to be legal, it had to be countersigned by Adrian Năstase, the incumbent Prime Minister. However, when asked by the press, Năstase first stated that he was not aware of the planned pardon, then that he did not approve of it and that his signature was ultimately a mere formality. Upon returning from Brussels, he stated that he wasn't aware of what he had signed, and that he placed his trust in the President, to the point of approving papers without reading them. Iliescu's party, the Social Democratic Party, stated that it could not be associated with the President's decision, neither constitutionally, nor politically. Furthermore, they did not support the decision and asked for its revocation, a position later adopted by Adrian Năstase himself. Finance Minister and Party vice-president Mihai Tănăsescu said he would resign his Party position if Iliescu would returns as leader of the Social Democrats early in 2005.

Also pardoned other 46 convicted criminals, most controversial being:

• Vasile Buşe, former vice-president of the International Religion Bank - convicted for abusing his powers in granting a loan of over a million USD
• Ioan Corpodeanu, former help of chief of police in Timiş - convicted for the deaths of several protesters during the Revolution of 1989 (through coincidence, the pardon took effect exactly 15 years after the Revolution's beginning in Timişoara)
• Petre Isac, former presidential adviser - convicted for corruption
• Mihai Gheorghe - convicted for embezzlement
• Horia Grigoriţă - convicted for fraud
• Valentino Acatrinei, former judge in the Bucharest Court of Appeals - convicted for influence peddling and bribery.

On 17 December, Iliescu and Adrian Năstase, while still in Brussels, 'signed' a revocation of the pardon. Due to the fact that in order for it to be legal it had to be the original, handwritten document, press speculated it was signed even before the two left for Brussels. According to legal experts, however, the revocation was not legal, an an individual act can being revoked only as long as it is not already in effect - in this case, only if the convicts would not have been not released. This would equate with a person being convicted twice for the same crime. This legal opinion prevailed in courts as on June 2005, Miron Cozma was freed from prison on the basis of Ion Iliescu's pardon. The legality of the pardon decree is still under scrutiny.

Cozma was taken back into custody minutes after the presidential spokeswoman announced the President's intention, on the dubious basis that he had not been able to identify himself during a police checkup, and then sent to Bucharest because there are documents there regarding his detention. Finally, the official statement stated that he was being detained in connection to crimes he committed while in prison, along with the same person that picked him up when he was first released, previous cell-mate Fane Spoitoru.

The EU Delegation's head in Bucharest, Jonathan Scheele, said I am as surprised as anyone by the President's last decision!. Internally, the pardon may have had further serious consequences, as the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania cited this as the reason behind its move to disengage talks with the Social Democrats for forming the new parliamentary majority.

In 2002, Iliescu signed a pardon for George Tănase, former Financial Guard head commissionary for Ialomiţa, who had been convicted for corruption, only to revoke it days later due to the media outcry.

Another controversial pardon was that of Dan Tartagă - a businessman from Braşov that, while drunk, had ran over and killed two people on a zebra crossing. He was sentenced to three years and a half but was pardoned after only a couple of months. He is currently serving a two-year sentence for fraud.

On account of revoking pardons, it serves to point out that it is not legally possible to issue a new presidential edict that would revoke the previous one, as the Constitution of Romania and specific criminal laws do not allow it.

Ion Iliescu - Others

In the last days of his President mandate, he awarded the National Order Steaua României (rank of ceremonial knighthood) to the ultra-nationalist contoversial politician Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a gesture which drew criticism in the press and prompted Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, fifteen Radio Free Europe journalists, Timişoara mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandu, song writer Alexandru Andrieş, and historian Randolph Braham to return their Romanian honours in protest. The leader of Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, Béla Markó, did not show up to claim the awaed he received on the same occasion.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Controversies", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki