The soldiers did not refuse to fire, they were ordered to withdraw to their bases. Despite the fact that Ceausescu, the supreme commander by law, took direct control of the army at 9 AM on December 22, General Stanculescu ordered the army to stand down at 11 AM. That allowed the revolutionaries to occupy the television and start broadcasting what they pleased throughout the country. Moreover, at 2 PM Stanculescu ordered the Army to protect the revolutionary-controlled TV station, the Radio station, the Telecommunications' Palace and other strategic sites. At 3 PM the country's supreme commander was "arrested" in a military base. That very evening Ion Iliescu appeared on TV and announced the creation of a new political structure - the National Salvation Front.

So what happened IMO was that a popular revolt was more or less naturally "sparked" and was then used by elements of the regime to stage a coup and then to give power over to an already formed political structure.

The stories about those cells being the terrorists were published in the journals owned by Voiculescu (aka "Felix the fat cat") who was among those who gorged on Ceausescu's bank accounts after 1989. I find them kind of shallow because what the journalists did was take some Army's Publishing House books on people's war strategy and tactics and tried to stretch them into the terrorists' blueprints in 1989. But it makes no sense at all. Apart from random sniping and small arms fire, what did these awesomely trained cells do? What site did they take, what major point did they sabotage, what revolutionary leader did they kill, what political manifestos did they spread, what resistance did they form? None, nothing.

In case of war, there were several layers of defense. First it was the regular army, then troops of interior, patriotic guards and the last, there were special troops of resistance, specially trained for urban and guerrilla warfare. Those troops were recruited from all branches of the military and had special training abroad. Every year or so they were called for so called "vacation" but they were forbidden to take their families with them. In case of war, they had to act in cells independently one from another, and were activated by special codes "packed" in messages send through mass-media (radio, television etc). Those were the troops that did the shooting after 22 December, the so called "terrorists". Many of them were caught, but all of them were released in January 1941.

Of course, there were the tragic cases of regular military shooting at each other, the most notable example being at Otopeni, due to confusion and fear. I don't think that it was a deliberate move, you have to consider that most of the army regulars were drafted guys, poorly trained and poorly motivated (during 2 years of service they were shooting 2-4 war cartridges for two times at the poligon, the rest of the time they were working in crop fields, mines and other patriotic duties). Another example of poor coordination happened at Buzau, a city with many military units. My father was at an aviation unit (choppers and transport airplanes) that was next to a map-making unit (geodezi). A car full of civilians had to pass in front of these units, but due to general confusion, the order was not passed to the next unit, and the car was filled with bullets (all civilians were killed).

There was an electronic war going on, they were receiving false targets on radars, and they were hearing on radios guys speaking in Arabic. Someone with knowledge of their equipment (which was of Soviet origin) were jamming them. They received an alert of a column of terrorist approaching the airfield in trucks, and two fighters were scrambled. Only by luck they managed not to bomb one of their own radio stations, because they saw some trucks and they took them for the "terrorists".

except the last point, all the other are not explicitly restricted to the december events.

i happened to have been on the streets in Timisoara back then and saw quite a number of hungarians carrying the romanian flag, myself being neither romanian, nor hungarian carrying one with the emblem cut out as well. haven't met any agent provocateur and from the 20th on no policeman until well after the new year. the bulk of the army of 1989 had a vast experience in harvesting crops and building villas for higher officers but precious little useful military experience, which became quite clear after the great many friendly fire casualties of the revolution. if an army (the soviet?) would have proceeded with an invasion, there was little that could have been done, revolution or not. which begs the question, why would they? especially during the days of glasnost and perestroika, romania being the last of all WP states. they didn't do anything about the GDR, CSSR or Hungary. why Romania then?

at no point were 60.0000 deths mentioned in relation to Timisoara. the highest number ever mentioned was 4.000 deaths in Timisopara by radio free europe on tuesday the 19th.
the 60.000 figure was brought forward at Ceausescu's trial, as an estimate of the total cost of lives of his regime, including the 80ies, 70ies and 60ies.

i've seen several soldiers with my own eyes who struggled while reloading an assault rifle. if the red army didn't invade (and there is no reason why they would, given that they didn't bother to do so in the GDR or the CSSR or Hungary) it was certainly not our exemplary readieness which stopped them, more likely the political consequences.

um what? what exactly did people vote for when they decided "not to sell our country" in 1990 and voted the crew of ex-nomenclaturists of the FSN while comrade Ilici campaigned for "socialism with a humane face". the entire pot-revoutionary regime until 1996 was nothing else than an attempt at "modern communism".

if the whole perestroika thing was a soviet conspiracy to get out of the arm race then it doesn't explain the infightings in the leadership of the CPSU in 1985, nor the Andropow and Chernenko choice and not to speak about the communist attempt of a coup d'etat in 1991.

then how comes, the same trick didn't work in Lithuania, Estonia or Letonia?
or the Ukraine, which was much more important, given the Sevastopol naval base to say the least, than the poor moldova rep.?

if the army was't much of a deterrent, what makes you think a bunch of factory workers out of training, poorly equipped would compensate anything? the "patriotic" guard was even less in position to offer any usefull resistence than the army.
yes i see legions of married men hiding in the woods with an AK-47 at best, while their wives and children are at the red army's mercy.
that's just like the romanian saying, getting drunk with clear water.
Tg. Mures was comrade Ilici's justification why the securitate is still badly needed and the "mineriade" showed 2 things: the abysmal lack of political culture of the overwhelming majority of the population and the methods comrade Ilici was ready to use to secure his regime.
it capitalized on 2 things. the respective animosity of the szekely and romanian population and the hostility of the "worker and peasant" towards the intellectual. now if that's not class struggle! the entire bunch of reds composing the "communist internationale" of the 1920ies would've been proud.

You can be sure that after their terrible experience in Afghanistan the Soviet leaders wouldn't be too eager to enter another protracted guerilla war, especially when their whole world was collapsing around them. The events in Chechnya in mid-1990s lated showed very well how ill prepared for guerilla war they were.

I said that SOME of these incidents gave rise to "terrorist" stories.
SOME is the key word there.

SOME is a doubtful word in the following phrase :

In the previous one it's used in the idea which you express and I agree to it - but here it creates confusion.

It's clear enough ... to suggest what you deny after initial statement ...

But let's wrote in Romanian to be more clear :

Deci : cand spui ceva de genul "unele din victime au fost datorita focurilor razlete trase de cei cu arme distribuite la populatie iar unele din aceste cazuri au dat nastere legendei teroristilor" e clar ca ai in minte din start ideea ( de fapt certitudinea ... ce zic eu ideea ) ca existenta teroristilor e doar o fabulatie si iti structurezi, prin folosirea termenului de "unii/unele" ( some cum ar veni ), o eventuala explicatie alternativa. Si eventual si discreditezi asa ... "en passant" pe aia care ar indrazni sa creda in ea. Ca dup-aia te dai lovit si o intorci cu "some", cu "absolute utterances" in sus si jos ... e problema ta.

Dar in fine ... deja e contraproductiva discutia.

If somebody could translate ... or feel that this will be necessary ... this is.

Well ... to be a little bit sarcastic : Romanians doesn't have the cultural habit to shoot at weddings and so on while is quite customary in Arab world. Even "shootings in the sky" differ sometimes ...

There is no such personal attack.