A rude President

Journalists are free. This is what Traian Basescu used to claim during the electoral campaign that made him a President. Another lie of this caricature character who represents, the way he does, the Romanian state. Ever since reaching Cotroceni Palace, he has been ceaselessly offending the fundamental liberties and rights of the press and its representatives. And the last incident by the Black Sea shore, when, two days ago, Basescu called journalists rude simply because they dared film him while on public space, is the climax. It is Traian Basescu who is rude, actually.
Let's remember some things about the troubled divorce between Traian Basescu and the press. The first thing the President did after just claiming "Journalists are free" was a public, noisy and brutal refusal to allow journalists, just like under different administrations, their right to accompany him in his visits abroad. The refusal grew even more explicit when the reporters filmed the wind bringing up the presidential lock of hair, never seen before. It was in 10 Downing Street, when Basescu was saying goodbye to Tony Blair, the official he had met with on the famous Bucharest-London-Washington axis. After all, why did I say then and why am I saying now that, by banning journalists' access to the presidential aircraft, Basescu tried to restrain press freedom? After all, why wasn't he right to say that journalists, if they wanted to watch his activity abroad, should take civil planes? The reason is simple. Any visit by a head of state calls for severe measures of protection and protocol. High level meetings are usually part of a whole net of foreign contacts, asking for fast trips from one office to the other. Journalists who are not in the official delegation stand poor chances to report on such meetings. Had Basescu truly wanted journalists to participate, without discrimination, in foreign events, by means different than traveling by the presidential plane, Presidency would have provided a charter at the expense of the press and to the benefit of the press as well. But it did not happen.
Basescu's incredible rudeness is visible in all the incidents ever since. All the gross insults for some journalists, newspapers, TV stations and press owners. It culminated two days ago by the seaside. Basescu called some journalists rude because they were filming him while he wasn't at work. It is time for public opinion to realize that Presidency employees, with Basescu's knowledge and even at his wish, inform journalists when he leaves for places on mortal purposes. They do it so that the media will show him doing what common mortals do. This is what happened in the referendum day and two days ago too.
The second thing public opinion should know is that a head of state has never got days off. This is one reason why his bodyguards never leave him and the wages they get comes from the public budget. As seen, he is neither criminally responsible when, while not in the office, he steals a journalist's cell phone.
Thirdly, any person, a head of state included, may be photographed and filmed by anyone when moving in public space. We have got a rude President !
P.S.: But the presidential flatterer in the person of Catalin Avramescu, whom Basescu has just bribed with membership to the Administration Council of the Romanian Public Television network, is not one of the rude journalists.

Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua Marti 19 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

President can't understand the part press plays in democracy

Last Saturday while by the seaside the Romanian President insulted journalists once again. He called them "incredibly rude" and civil society representatives have responded. They express concern about the President's attitude, which they are critical of.
Stelian Tanase, political analyst: "He is impossible to understand"
"The President has got no reason for such attitude and his response to the press shows how democratic he is. Such a thing couldn't have happened in a civilized state and I think civil society must react strongly. He is actually sending an undemocratic message to his own electorate, probably also because after the scandal with the reporter from Antena 1 channel his popularity has been growing. After the referendum he has shown a certain nervousness because of failing to capitalize his popularity and overthrow the government. Although not aggressed, he is aggressive, which is impossible to understand. Basescu reiterates offenses against the press, although he enjoyed press support. Things were calm around him that moment and he had no reason to get irritated".
Renate Weber, president of Foundation for an Open Society:
"A President can't invoke the right to private life"
"Traian Basescu should understand a President of state can't invoke the right to private life to defend himself, especially when he is in a public space. He can't make use of this. When he is in public it is normal for journalists to wish to get information, for a President doesn't work 8 hours a day. His attitude is part of his view that the press must serve him and he can't understand the part the press plays in democratic society".
Ana-Maria Mosneagu, executive manager of Pro Democracy Association:
"Have control over his speech"
"Such conflicts are so unfortunate. It is important to emphasize that the communication between the President and citizens is achieved via the media. It is desirable that the President should try to have control over his speech when citizens are present and especially when the media, fond of slips, is there".
Zoe Petre, historian:
"Disrespect for the press"
"This is not the first the President has had such attitude, but it is illustrative of his approach to the press. The President makes use of the press, but he takes it for an instrument, and not for a power in state. It is an instrument he disrespects, which is regrettable. Even if they have a love-hate relationship with the press, politicians generally respect it. In this case, it is disrespect for the press, which seems very unpleasant to me. Journalists must reply, especially after their support for the President".

Ovidiu Banches & C.A.
Ziua Marti 19 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Post-communist left - a history of lie

Ion Iliescu's letter 17 years after the miners' race on 13-15 June 1990 is only a fragment of the interminable lie, misinformation and manipulation by which the post-communist left has dominated our political life. There are many decades those of FSN (National Salvation Front)-FDSN (Democratic National Salvation Front)-PDSR (Party of Social Democracy in Romania)-PSD (Social-Democratic Party) need to wash out the dishonour and the evil they've done to Romania. We know when the lie, misinformation, manipulation, as well as the murders, have started - on 22nd December 1989. But we don't know when they come to an end, as the party of Iliescu and his political associates haven't got away from staying into power.
In Romania, the left has been into power for more than 60 years. From 1944 till 1989 the radical left has been into power, that is the communist, Stalinist, totalitarian one, which has spiritually, morally and physically destroyed the nation and has reduced the country to beggary. After the communist left collapse, it was normal that parties of the liberal democracy came to power and we had a capitalist economy, able to generate, together, economic prosperity, individual liberty, equal rights for all citizens, a rule of law based on the separation of powers in the State. Nevertheless, we have enjoyed something completely different, we have had a monstrous left, whose objectives were the consolidation of the gang and individual power, the staying into power on an undetermined period and the compromised use of the State's resources to enrich its own clientele. Given their manipulative ability of a former-secret-police-nomenclature-type, at first they had managed to get the large support of the "popular masses" (in May 1990, Iliescu won the presidency by 85% of the votes, and FSN won the general election by 66% of the votes). Meanwhile, the December diversion with the dead people, the FSN turning from an executive and legislative power into a political party, the miners' races, the manipulation of the free election, the plundering of this country, and an endless list of sins won't ever be omitted by the history books. And we won't have to wait long until some of those responsible are prosecuted, and the guilty ones are condemned and go to prison. (This is until Basescu - another FSN chap, and his successor grant them a pardon).
What is happening now in PSD is the beginning of the end of a party that has swallowed too many years of our lives. The situation inside this party doesn't even deserve to be analyzed. Instead, we have to wait for the results of the five consecutive elections that are to follow in the next less than two years and a half. Although PSD is a party in a terminal stage, it still massively and negatively influences the Romanian politics. The fact that the last important historical party, PNL (National Liberal Party), is still governing against their ex-partners in the DA (Justice and Truth) Alliance, against Basescu, whom Tariceanu owes the nomination as a PM, but with PSD's massive support, shows us how much evil the party of Iliescu, Nastase, Geoana, Vanghelie&comp. still does.
After more than 60 years of left domination, 60 years of right domination should follow in Romania. I'll do no more reckoning, but after lie had dinner with presidents and PMs, with governments, ministers, parliaments, justice, time has come not to live in truth (as it would be impossible), but simply to get rid of lie. As my favourite author showed, democracy depends on the moral and spiritual state of a nation. For our nation to experience a moral, spiritual and christian rebirth, we must remove from power and from politics the source of evil - the undemocratic left.

Dan Pavel
Ziua Luni 18 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Prosecutors charge ex President Ion Iliescu

The ex Romanian President Ion Iliescu has been charged with the death of 4 Romanians during the coal miners' attacks in June 13-15, 1990. Ongoing criminal investigations are on participation to murder.

D.I.
Ziua Marti 19 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Revolution and miners' races files, at crossroads

The 21 Decembrie Association, the Civic Alliance and the Students' League ask - by means of a letter sent to president Basescu and to the representatives of the European forums - for support in the files concerning the revolution and of the 1990 miners' race remaining in the custody of the military prosecutors. The signatories of the letter consider that the handing of those files to the civil parquets would delay for an illicitly long period the trial of the cases.
Chairman of the 21 Decembrie Association, Theodor Maries claimed, yesterday, in a press conference, that the transfer to various civil parquets and police sections of these files for a solution would seriously affect their finalizing in a short while. "In reality, all these maneuvers to repeatedly modify the criminal proceedings, by a direct legislative way or by the agency of the Constitutional Court, aim at ensuring the protection of some important political and military officials, who for 17 years have been avoiding investigations and being sued for the criminal deeds and the murders they had committed", said Maries.
In the opinion of the chairman of the 21 Decembrie Association, the Constitutional Court has "illicitly" postponed to pronounce over the complaints of "so-called" unconstitutionality of the standards by which it decided that the files left at the military parquets at the time the legislation was being modified should remain in the custody of the same institutions until investigations were over.
Maries appreciated that accepting those complaints would be an unforgivable and contemptuous act towards the victims, and also a provocation of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, as the supreme judiciary instance showed the mentioned provisions were constitutional.
Court, to pronounce today
The Court's prosecutors will make a decision today on the military prosecutor's objectivity, after the European Court for the Human Rights had decreed that military magistrates cannot be objective, whereas they are twice subordinated, once to the Ministry of Justice and the second time to the Ministry of Defence.


Ovidiu Banches
Ziua Luni 18 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Macovei's secret

-- Upon the former Justice minister's order, a team of military experts searched through the DGPA (General Directorate for Protection and Anti-corruption, the secret service of the Ministry of Justice) - SIPA (Service of Intelligence and Anti-Terrorist Protection, the secret service of the Ministry of Interior) archive in 2005, but the outcome of the investigation hasn't been made public
ZIUA daily in possession of address no113595, issued from he Ministry of Justice on 14 December 2005, by counselor Mihai Pruna. He informed the "SoJust" Association on the partial results of the control the experts from the Ministry of Defence carried out through the archives of the secret service of Justice. The audit the military carried out revealed the fact that SIPA (Service of Intelligence and Anti-Terrorist Protection, the secret service of the Ministry of Interior) officers, many of which came from the ex-Securitate (the communist secret police), abusively investigated acts of corruption of some magistrates and State officials. The former management ordered the destruction of some documents that should have been preserved for 5 to 30 years, according to the law. Also, the lack of an organizational structure and of internal control procedures for the fund allocation was identified in the financial field. The admission procedure in the system wasn't always observed, in that that some candidates weren't psychologically tested and they weren't requested to submit their police record. A report on the Defense's secret control at SIPA's archive was submitted, in 2005, to the European Commission. Macovei didn't inform the Romanian public opinion on these irregularities and didn't take the necessary legal measures against those who had violated the law. Moreover, informed sources told us that SIPA also made use of a mobile phones tapping technique similar to the one of the secret service of the Ministry of Interior, led by Virgil Ardelean at that time.

Ovidiu Banches
Ziua Luni 18 Iunie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english