The Ambush in Victory Square

By Daniel Dragomirescu, Bucharest

What happened on 10 August in Victory Square in Bucharest will raise a multitude of questions and will give rise to many ongoing debates. But not only on the subject of the brutal repression of the police and the political links which go right to the top of the PSD-ALDE regime, and not only because of the sufferings inflicted on a large number of citizens, who were in the Square (including a significant number of women, old people and children) to protest in a civilised and peaceful manner against the Government, as happens in any other EU country, where democracy functions properly.

The events of 10 August also contain details which should be studied, debated, clarified and realised in the form of conclusions and directives to follow in the future. The first aspect to review is the idea, even the initiative, to organise such a demonstration. A demonstration of Romanians who work abroad has never been organised in the country before, it’s an absolute first. And as well as it being an absolute first, there’s also the question of the  time chosen for this demonstration, during the month of August, when many people are on holiday, Parliament is not in session, and many of those active in different organisations and state institutions like the magistrates, public prosecutors etc. are away. So one has to ask the question then, why were the people of the diaspora called in to this demonstration?

How much more effective is a demonstration if such a large number of people from the diaspora takes part? Up until now, Romanians living abroad who are appalled by the regressive course of the political regime which has been in place in Bucharest since last year, have participated in demonstrations, whether large or small, in the big cities of the countries where they live and work (France, UK, Germany, Italy etc). Was their presence in such a large number at the demonstration of 10 August in Bucharest considered to be more effective than their supportive presence at the demonstrations abroad; and that it could even clear the way towards a political solution for the present crisis? Difficult to say clearly.

Another oddity is the time chosen for this demonstration. Why would such a big demonstration, right in the middle of summer, here in Bucharest, be more effective than the demonstrations in winter, spring or autumn?

The demonstrators have been reproached, many times, for choosing to come out into the streets at the end of the week, marching in front of the buildings of the most important institutions of the country, which were completely empty at the time, and so gaining  minimum impact on the targeted policy of the current government, which is contrary to the rule of law. On the evening of 10 August 2018, the government building was empty, the First Minister (Dancila) and the other ministers were on holiday: who could the demonstrators have addressed and so, what was the point of making their demands? Who could they have discussed things with, to bring an objective to this great gathering?

Another very curious aspect of the affair concerns the planning and organisation of this important demonstration. The Romanian communities working in all the countries of the European Union were summoned to Bucharest for the 10 August 2018 and, as we have seen, many people responded and came there. They were convinced that things would go well, persuaded that they would be able to influence those in government to change their way of practising politics and to make them stop their attacks against the rule of law, which risks pushing Romania outside the boundary of democratic Europe.

In fact, several organisers began making approaches to Bucharest’s city hall, in order to authorize the demonstration. Sometimes the Mayor seemed to approve, sometimes, on various pretexts, not to give permission. This vacillating attitude of the General Mayor underlines several questions. Why did the Mayor’s office initially refuse its approval and why did it finally return to this decision? Difficult to give a precise reply, since we do not know all the ins and outs of the affair.

However, there are even more questions regarding the people or the entities who were placed as official organisers. After their many approaches to the Mayor General of Bucharest, shortly before 10 August, they all withdrew and refused to take on the role of organisers, a role which they had claimed up till then, by way of recommendation to the public. There is no logic to this way of procedure.

They mobilised the diaspora Romanians, preparing them to come in large numbers to Bucharest to participate in the demonstration, and suddenly they abandoned them, but they did not call off the demonstration. Quite the contrary, they gave out the message that the demonstration could still go ahead even in this highly charged context. This way of procedure, whether deliberate or through a foolish mistake, resembles guides who lead a group of people to a certain place, and for a reason known only to themselves, expose these unprotected people.

From a military point of view, this resembles a tactic consistent with drawing people into an ambush. My grandfather, during the Great War, once found himself in a similar situation. He had a guide from a village in Transylvania to show the Romanian soldiers the way; that man led them all the way to a forest where he abandoned them, and where the company immediately found themselves under intense fire, sustained by sub-machine guns. By good fortune he escaped alive but some of his soldiers were wounded or killed. Such traps may become customary practice during a war with a foreign enemy, but not in peacetime. Not when policemen, Romanians like yourself, who should be there to protect you, come out in force, fully armed, like enemy Austro-Hungarians who wanted to massacre the Romanian soldiers in 1916.

If that’s how it really was, on that black Friday of 10 August 2018 on Victory Square, then the moral to be drawn from it is that in the future, no demonstration should take place in such an improvised way. The false guides must be rejected and the groups of hooligans in the police service, identified and disempowered.

This kind of large scale gathering for peaceful protest, in which Romanians have been involved for more than one and a half years, needs a structured organisation and much more effective measures so that the lives and safety of the participants are not in any way exposed to unacceptable dangers. In order that Romania benefits, like all civilised countries, from a functioning democracy, there is absolutely no need either for new victims or new martyrs. The victims of the communist dictatorship, the ‘terrorists’ of December 1989 and the ‘minors’ of June 1990 are already more than enough, already too unbearable.

English version by Morelle Smith