20 years after....

I fully agree with this point of view - but, IMHO, the problem is that the "story of terrorists" from December 1989 cover only one part of the big story ( even if it was somehow overvalued in media due to its tragical & spectacular impact ).

My personal, "general theory" go to something like this :

The Soviet Union clearly wanted to "export perestroika" in all its former salient-states - by almost all means except a direct conventional military intervention. It's also beyond any doubt today that USSR had a good number of personal deployed in Romania - which is known to left the country at official request of former prime-minister Petre Roman ~2 years after the revolution. As long as :
a) the upper ranks of Romanian Communist Party became at the end of Ceausescu's regime some sort of "familial affair" ( a good majority of CPEx was relative of Nicolae or Elena ) they can't influence - like in Bulgaria - an "internal transfer of power".
due to rigid control there was no civic/alternative structures of power & influence like in Poland or Hungary to be secretly sponsored to press an opening of the regime.
c) population hate Ceausescu for his harsh austerity measures ...

the only viable choice was to provoke a popular revolt. Probably the scenario was that Ceausescu will act in fully force, the number of casualties will reach a large number ( the indicated 60.000 victims from the Ceausesc's trial ) so - if still no major defection would happen to this point - an international wave of sanctions ( and, why not ?, UN-sanctioned "humanitarian intervention" ) will help to overthrow the regime. After I saw what happened in Lybia last year I realized finally that this kind of scenario is actually a very possible & workable one.
From different ... hmm, discussions let's say, the name of the new, perestroika-implementer was intended to be Ilie Verdet ... a former prim-minister of communist time who gained some sort of popularity due to his removal from office after miner-strike from 1977. Remember - one big issue of Romania in 1989 was that there was basically no well-known political figure outside Ceausescu himself due to the horrific 'cult of personality" active at that time ... ask somebody from that generation to name 3-5 political figures ( even communist ones ) and they will have really hard time to do this ...

My assumption is that the "initial" plan however was diverted by the fact that after night of 21th of December the Securitate forces was already in non-combat mood and several Army high-commanders - V. Stanculescu being the most important - already prepared a massive defection/change of orders issued by "Supreme Leader".

To be continued ... is somebody is interested ...

How about the weapons distributed to "Garzile Patriotice"?
There were lots of guns, many scared people and very itchy triggers. There was a very significant amount of chaos.
I was in Brasov on 22 December. I was in high school and my class and I were attending our "banchet" in Tusnad that week - we were going home to Galati that day and we needed to change trains in Brasov. We arrived in Brasov in the morning and we had a wait of about 8 hours until our eveing train to Galati, so we decided to take a walk in the city. We were in the old city under Tampa when the famous "dictatorul a fugit" speech came on TV. People came onto the streets, we were invited into someone's house to watch TV and we were given wine and food. By the time we made it to the city centre, the City Hall was surrounded by troops with shields.
As the train was leaving Brasov in the evening, we could see tracers in the sky, coming from all directions. That evening, when we arrived in Galati, there were no buses so we had to walk. We were stopped near the Theatre by a group of armed civilians who questioned us and then let us go. At around 1 in the morning, suddenlly, there were lots or tracers in the sky all coming from the tank unit in Tiglina 2. Some tracers then responded from the city centre direction, again shooting in the sky. There was a lot of stupid shooting and firing in the sky. These bullets had to fall somewhere and usually when bullets fall from above, they kill.
In Libya there were a lot of reports of "snipers shooting from above" and "large number of head shots from above" even in the middle of the desert where there were no tall buildings. Many were quick to blame some kind of "ghost shooters", or "mercenaries" but no one wanted to take into consideration the amount of stupid "shooting in the sky" that we saw on every news report.
That is what happens when you give guns to undisciplined/scared/twitchy civilians. And some stupid civilians have to share some blame for a certain amount of stupid shooting during the "revolution". Some of these gave birth to the idea of "terrorists" and other "ghost shooters" shooting from the sky.
Radu

There was some weapons distributed - but also should be noted that Ceausescu ordered explicitly to Army units to gather the existing weapons from factories and so on when he ( or somebody closed to him ) realized that workers could use them ...

Generally speaking I disagree with such "accidental explanation" - but it's nice to note that there are still some people who believe in the initial theory exposed by Mr. Iliescu.

I have no idea what Iliescu said or what theory you refer to.

It is a fact that "Garzile Patriotice" were given weapons on 22 December to "defend the Revolution". Watch any videos of the Revolution as well as the many photos available on the internet or in print. You will see plenty of civilians with weapons.
Mihaela Radulescu is one such "armed civilian", she was pictured in National Geographic pointing a gun and she confirmed it. I spoke to a number of people who told me that they were given AK47s and ammunition on 22 December. There are many reports of groups of "armed civilians" and as I said, I met such a group.

Radu

This is true ( actually some civilians received weapons and not the "whole people" as required by Ceausescu's regime military defense doctrine ) - but it's ... strange ( to say at least ) to consider this as an explanation to "terrorist activities" after 22 of December. After all ... such "friendly bullets" has a small chance to give head-shots ...

Where did I say that?
I said that SOME stupid civilians are responsible for SOME deaths.
Radu

This affirmation is for sure correct.

But you mention something about inventing terrorists and so on ... so it was not clear at all.

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

Radu

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.

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.

"Some" is clear enough. It means "not all". It creates confusion only if you seek "absolute utterances" in every sentence.
This is a discussion forum and we discuss things, not issue edicts. If you want to turn everything I say into a "point scoring" match, you are on your own.
Radu

C'mon dear fellow forumists!
Let's not create incidents where, in fact, we understand each other!
Basically both of you are right, none of the cases you described does not exclude the other and, I am convinced, both are true and actually happened! IoanTM please continue your story!

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 ...

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 ...

The one who concluded that some shooting incidents gave birth to ALL "terrorist stories" is you and you alone. I have no need or desire to be dragged into that fantasy.
Moderators, please do what is needed about the personal attacks.
Radu

You said: "Some of these gave birth to the idea of "terrorists" and other "ghost shooters" shooting from the sky."

IoanTM's conclusion is correct because the statement above means just that - some shooting incidents gave birth to the terrorist stories.

You didn't say: "Some of these gave birth to some of the ideas of "terrorists" and other "ghost shooters".

In Romanian:

Unele incidente au dat nastere povestilor cu teroristi.

vs.

Unele incidente au dat nastere unora dintre povestile cu teroristi.

The difference is pretty obvious.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on January 10, 2012 11:47 pm

Thanks Imperialist.

Anyway - the correlation/sequence is pretty clear for me ... even it is the reverse one as exposed by Radub : the "terrorists" made several head-shots kills, place in many places "fire-simulators" and so on because they precisely planned such a chaotic reaction from poorly trained conscripts/urban militia ( Garzile Patriotice ) in subsequent resulted actions. These events further amplified the number of victims and present a risk to escalate violence ...

The big ( still ) unanswered question regarding this aspect is the following one ( actually are more then one - but derived from a common base ) :

1. There was (a) a single or ( multiple "group of terrorists" ( acting on different objective/agenda ) ?

My personal opinion/interpretation is there was ( at least ) two groups : one acting mainly before 22 of December and one acting mainly/just after 22 of December. But from different reasons we will find the answer ... after another 15 years ...

There is no such personal attack.