Word: ceausescu
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...change did not require Ceausescu's permission to enter Rumania. The country's 23 million citizens had a long list of grievances, from shortages of - food and fuel to crushing boredom, but the proximate cause of the civil explosion was the Securitate. When its officers tried to arrest an ethnic Hungarian clergyman in the western city of Timisoara (pop. 309,000) for his outspoken opposition to the government and to the policies of his own Hungarian Reformed Church, a vigil outside his house erupted into an antiregime riot. Angry mobs smashed shopwindows, burned Ceausescu's books and portraits, and besieged...
...witnesses compared it with Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where the Chinese army crushed pro-democracy demonstrators last June. At least 2,000 men, women and children were killed, they said. In fact the carnage may have been worse. Garbage trucks were seen hauling corpses out of the city; after Ceausescu's fall, searchers in a nearby forest uncovered three mass graves that they said may contain as many as 4,500 bodies...
...Bucharest, Ceausescu appeared before a contrived propaganda rally outside the presidential palace. Thousands of workers had been assembled to applaud and wave flags on cue as he called for unity and tried to blame the riots on Hungarian "revanchists" bent on recapturing Transylvania. His rasping voice was rising to a shout when the crowd suddenly drowned him out with boos, jeers and demands for the truth about Timisoara. Visibly astonished by this face-to- face encounter with rebellion, Ceausescu froze. He quickly ended the rally and darted into the palace...
...crowd of protesters in the square poured into nearby Magheru Boulevard and swelled to thousands. Shouts of "Freedom!" and "Down with Ceausescu!" rang out. Tanks, troops and helicopters herded the marchers into University Square, ringed by the University of Bucharest, the National Theater and the 22-story Intercontinental Hotel. A tank rolled over two demonstrators, and as others ran to help them, they were shot down by automatic-weapons fire. At least 13 were killed, the American embassy reported. The streets did not clear, however, and more people were shot during the night...
...same time, East European agencies reported, Ceausescu's fall was sealed at a meeting with his security chiefs. Defense Minister Vasile Milea apparently said that his troops would refuse to fire on their countrymen. There seemed to be a split among the Securitate commanders, with only some favoring a continued crackdown. Party spokesmen claimed that Milea then committed suicide, but it was more likely that he was shot by Securitate men. Next morning an unidentified general appeared on television to say, "I am very sorry that my friend the Minister died. It is a lie that he committed suicide." With...