crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
The father of one of the victims did not take part in this sinister ritual of collective burying – he was not
in the country at the moment of the tragic event. But on another day, a member of the executing platoon
walked to the daughter of that particular father, the victim’s sister. I reproduce a fragment of her statement:
“In /.../ March 1950, I was at school and at noon, when sent home together with the other children, that
Securitate officer was waiting at the entrance. I recall with exactitude what happened then as well as the
phrase he addressed to me: ‘You, go and tell your father to get John’s belt and cap’ – meaning the objects
that belonged to my brother … And he said that with an ironic tone of voice. I told my father what I
was asked to tell him, but I can’t remember who went to get those things nor from which person. What
I know for sure is that those objects were brought home and I saw that cap of my brother, a cap made
out of lamb leather which he wore at that time, as it was the beginning of spring. I recall that cap having
bullet holes in the part were it meets the forehead, and it was stained with blood. We all presumed that
he was shot – I remember for it marked my childhood and all members of my family. Furthermore,
I recall that after some time my father went to bury my brother, leaving the body at the spot were he
had been buried initially by those men who shot him. My brother was a tall and stout guy, with long
chestnut-blond coloured hair …”
Now I come back to the central idea of my exposé. Beyond the obvious fact of establishing a
particular criminal act, I sincerely believe in the importance of the above-described method for revealing
historical truths – its power to positively influence the course of events. Evidence of this nature, often
carrying a strong symbolic burden, will be instrumental in demonstrating that the crimes committed by
totalitarian communist regimes should be considered crimes against humanity, similar to what happened
in relation to the Holocaust phenomenon. Arguments in favour are (1) the cruelty of the criminal acts
themselves and (2) the fact that they were ordered by higher state authorities and, subsequently, executed
also by state institutions. For some time already, I have striven for official acceptance in Romania of
the qualification “crimes against humanity”, for all those illegalities and abuses committed in Romania
under communist rule. Obviously, in this way the juridical ground for charging perpetrators would be
significantly consolidated. 4
Irrespective of our focus, the Holocaust or crimes of communism, in the end our purpose is one
and the same: reconciliation with the past. Romanian society still has a long way to go. I mention just
one obvious argument to support my statement. In a country which at least officially has condemned
its communist past, the average monthly social pension which a former Securitate officer is awarded
nowadays amounts to approximately seven times the state financial compensation that a former political
prisoner receives for each year of imprisonment (!). Under such conditions, it is simply difficult to speak
about any expectations in terms of reconciliation. When, for example, we have data which prove that
some hundreds of former Securitate officers acted as political police and continue to receive substantial
military pension allowances from the Romanian state – the state which simultaneously recognises the
guilt of these individuals in relation to abuses during communism’s reign.
The IICCR attempts to bring some light to such situations which, in my opinion, constitute a
serious obstacle for Romanian society in coming to terms with its recent history. I would even speak
of a certain complicity of the Romanian state in maintaining social tensions related to the legacy of
the communist past. It is high time to separate chaff from wheat, to effectively establish who is to be
charged, and to summon these individuals, in order to somehow make them pay for their wrongdoing.
Investigation by means of contemporary archaeology could turn out to be an important instrument
in this respect. Subsequently, it is our duty to make an appeal to public conscience; to present to our
descendants the images, data, documents – proofs – related to all those crimes and abuses. Otherwise,
we may risk being confronted by shame when our children will ask us that question: “And you, what
have you done to change matters?”
4
Although Romania ratified on 15 September 1969 the UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes
and Crimes Against Humanity (and in 2000, the related European Convention), the stipulations of this international convention have not
been transposed accordingly into the national Penal Code until now. The completion of Title XI of the code (Offences against peace and
mankind) with a new article – Crimes against Humanity – is imposed – the definition of these types of crimes should be identical to the
one used in the Statute of the Military Tribunal of Nuremberg (art. 6, lit. c).
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