The surprise party of the legislative elections has on its list a general whose name appears on the list of officers who repressed protesters 31 years ago during the Revolution of 1989.
General Nicolae Roman, nominee on the list of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) and likely future member of the Chamber of Deputies, was, according to the National Center for Documentation, Research and Information on the Revolution of 1989, from the Army Unit 01185 Mechanized Regiment. Thus unit acted between December 16 and 18, 1989, in several locations of Timișoara with approximately 200 soldiers and several trucks, against the people of Timișoara.
Among the 10 captains (their rank back then) mentioned on the list is the name of Nicolae Roman, who was leading the unit across the city in a demonstration, with a flag and marching band in front.
Roman has always claimed that the army did not shoot into the crowd. “When the revolution happened, the soldiers had just come back from gathering corn. We were dealing with uninstructed troops. […] Being in the middle of the formation, I cannot say that I saw someone shooting into the population. Only a dumb person could have given orders to shoot into the population. I am not excluding the there were some uninstructed soldiers who fired and also some who crossed the line. I am not denying that there may have been some victims because […] they were shooting into the air,” Roman said.
“We do not know what Nicolae Roman was doing between the 17th and the 20th of December, but in Timișoara, 126 people died. This captain appears in the evidence as if he had acted in several locations in Timișoara where people were shot. Very few members of the army were accused after 1989 because the Army was protected by the new regime, said Lucian Vasile Szabo, the vice president of the Memorial of the Revolution. He went on to add that it is certain that Roman was in charge of the troops who were behind most of the repression but “there was never any intention to investigate things properly and make any connection between the victims and the people who shot them.”
Nicolae Roman joined AUR immediately after it was established by George Simion in 2019.
“I was following this young party as a civil movement when they started with the marches for Basarabia. Since the moment they became a party, I’ve liked their project: Romania must be restarted with all generations in it. The Romanian Army and the Orthodox Church have been constantly under attack over the last 30 years. These two vital institutions of the State are the ones who guarantee the continuity of this nation. My first intervention in Parliament will be to ask for the reintroduction of the Senator of the Orthodox Church and that of the Army. These two institutions had Senators in the inter-war years. There will be a lot of fun in the next four years,” Roman added.
Featured image: Epoch Times
