Nicolae M. Constantinescu

 

 

Deadly Lies

 

 

Abstract: This paper presents the Romanian Revolution in 1989 in connection to issues like censorship, violence and insecurity.

Keywords: Romania; anticommunist revolution; censorship; violence

 

 

There is more than one way to tackle the subject of our conference. I will choose to discuss how a distorted presentation of reality can lead to a manifestation of incredible aggressiveness in the part of Europe where Romania is situated.

The right to be informed is a fundamental human right. Basically, every managerial act has three pillars: information, decision and control, regardless of whether it concerns the manner in which I take care of my family or the manner in which, for instance, the President of the US manages his country. In other words the quality of decisions is largely dependent on the quality of information, so it would be incorrect to blame a wrong decision made on the basis of inaccurate information.

Every democratic society responsibly accepts the establishment of the mechanisms that allow every citizen to have free access to information.

The major priority of all communist societies – and, generally speaking, of all totalitarian regimes – is to obstruct their citizens’ access to information, thus making them unable to make the right decisions. As a matter of fact, it is dictators who make all the decisions, while citizens have to enforce those decisions obediently. Otherwise they have to bear the consequences. One could say that while a democratic society is starved for information, in a totalitarian society only a small group of people can lay their hands on information and use it in their exclusive interest.

Getting rid of the communist totalitarian regimes has not led to an eradication of the old reflexes of secrecy. Moreover, in these countries false information has been used to force the making of wrong decisions, which has led to an aggressive behavior, even to crime. One can say that the struggle of the recent period has been between information on the one hand, misinformation and noninformation on the other hand.

I am neither a historian nor a sociologist, I am neither an expert in media nor an expert in politology. I am just a citizen of this country who wants to tell you about the events I have experienced since 1989. I believe these events can be serious subjects for anyone to think about.

As a surgeon, I operated the first wounded people in Piaţa Universităţii starting December 21st, 1989, in the afternoon. It was a real carnage launched against innocent people who were shot, molested, run over by tanks in the center of Bucharest.

Beginning at 3 a.m., on December 22nd, 1989, the entire Piaţa Universităţii was cleaned using water from hoses and detergents so as to eliminate any drop of blood, any evidence of the slaughter committed there. This is an example of how totalitarian societies can wipe off all the evidence of their crimes.

On 22nd of December, 1989, in the evening, Corneliu Coposu – leader of PNŢ – was not allowed to enter the TV building and address the population, although he had been one of the most persecuted Romanian citizens after ‘45. As a consequence, the population of this country was not allowed to listen to one of the most authorized people.

The idea that 60,000 people had been killed in Romania was launched by the National TV Channel and Radio, as well as by some newspapers, in order to justify the sham trials that led to the execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu. Images of dead people in a few hospital morgues in Timişoara were also used as evidence, although those people hadn’t been killed in the revolution. As Professor Lazar Lalici from The Cinema Institute in Belgrade declared in 1996, this justificatory method of using images of dead people from hospital morgues had also been used to start the Serbo-Croatian war in Vukovar in 1991.

Since 1990 television has been the decisive instrument for influencing the Romanian public opinion. I have witnessed numerous cases of censorship, and I should first like to discuss a situation I was involved in during a session of the Surgical Society in Bucharest.

As Secretary of the Society at that time, on February 15th, 1990 I organized a special session where we presented the case studies of the people who had been shot and then treated in various Surgical Clinics across Bucharest in December 1989. To this session I invited the TV, the newspapers, the foreign correspondents and the radio. The session took place at the Colţea Hospital. The Free Romanian Television was represented by Mrs. Ştefania Bratu and by several cameramen. Mrs. Bratu assured me that the material would be broadcast a week later. On the following Tuesday, at 5 pm, there was an interview with Mr. Silviu Brucan. A little bit upset, I phoned Mrs. Bratu, who told me that Mr. Brucan’s program had priority and that the material about the people shot during the revolution would be broadcast the following Tuesday. Indeed, on the morning of the following Tuesday – it was already March – she informed me that the program would be shown in the afternoon. I waited until 5 p.m. I pressed the button and was stupefied to see that they were broadcasting a program about Artificial Limbs. I got very angry; I went to the Hospital to visit my patients. I consulted my patients going from one ward to another and suddenly, in a double-bed ward, which also had a TV set, a patient embraced me, congratulated me on the program and on my courage to show what had happened. I was again stupefied, hearing from my patient that the program had actually started with a material about artificial limbs, showing this kind of operations performed at the Military Hospital. After the presentation, the reporter said: “Such artificial limbs were also needed for the wounded people of December 1989, and listen to what happened during the revolution in Bucharest”. I was truly indignant. I called Mrs. Bratu and, ill at ease, she said: “Doctor, this was the only way Mr. Răzvan Theodorescu, manager of the TV channel, could approve of the program being broadcast”. Moreover, a great part of the material used at the Colţea session had been cut out.

In April–May 1990, during the 52-day meeting in Piata Universităţii, the same Mr. Răzvan Theodorescu introduced a tough brand of censorship on this unique Romanian phenomenon of civilian awakening, not allowing the presentation of the speeches on TV, most of which were patriotic and common sensical.

On the other hand, in the afternoon of May 13th 1990, the same Mr. Răzvan Theodorescu decided to break off the TV programs in order to generate a feeling of insecurity in the country, referring to an attack against the fundamental institutions of the state. I was on night duty at the Colţea Hospital between June 13th-14th. At 2 in the morning, I heard prolonged automatic gunshots, after which 4 people were brought to me: one was already dead, another one had been shot in the head and was in a coma, and two other people, who had been shot in the thighs, had to undergo surgery.

At about 5 in the morning, I saw the miners’ invasion of Piaţa Universităţii: barbaric acts against the civilians were committed. I can still see the image of an old man, his left eye streaming down from his socket after having been pierced by a miner’s bludgeon. In the afternoon, a miner brought a man with a wide gash in the scalp, telling me that he had been hit by mistake. After I finished the treatment, I asked the miner why they had come to Bucharest. “We have come here to finish off with the fascists and the legionnaires who arrested Mr. Petre Roman and are persecuting Mr. Iliescu”.

I asked him where he had heard of all these things. He answered: “Haven’t you watched TV, doctor? The fascists have stopped any TV broadcasting.” No comment.

During June 14th-15th, 1990, the “Adevărul” newspaper published a series of stigmatizing articles stating that at the PNŢCD headquarters, drugs, dollars and money- and gun-making machines had been found. Later on I asked Mr. Dumitru Tinu if his newspaper would ever disavow this lie. I asked him this because the facts published by the newspaper were entirely untrue and disproved the name ADEVARUL= THE TRUTH.

Instead of an answer, Mr. Dumitru Tinu chose to poisonously attack me in the pages of “Adevărul”. He did all this because I had told him that the name of his newspaper was like Damocles’s sword hanging over his head.

In December 1990, Mr. Dumitru Iuga, the leader of the TV Trade union, went on a hunger strike asking for democratic elections of the Romanian TV managerial team. After several days during which his health had deteriorated, I asked for an appointment with Mr. Răzvan Theodorescu and was accompanied there by Mr. Mihai Şora, Mr. Stere Gulea and Mr. Nicolae Manolescu. The partiality of the Romanian TV was brought up, as was the problem of censorship and freewill. Mr. Răzvan Theodorescu demanded that I give him concrete examples. I told him what had happened with the program recorded at the session of the Surgical Society. With utter effrontery, he said that it had been my mistake because I had not requested him to reschedule the program. Again no comment!

I insist on Mr. Iuga’s case from a medical point of view. Three weeks after he ended his hunger strike, I operated him for a giant duodenal peptic ulcer, the result of the stress he had been under.

Is it possible for a lie to kill? Unfortunately, yes, it is!

A few points of view.

The interference of politics in media must always be fought against.

Free access to information must be established de jure and put in practice de facto.

After four decades of dictatorship, the 1990-2001 period represented a change for Romania, but a slower one compared with the other Central and East European countries which had also belonged to the socialist camp.

The decisive demolishing factor against censorship on reality is the INTERNET.

I am sure that with the INTERNET we have stepped into a period without censorship.